"Here you are My Lord!" Eliana plopped down a deer with glowing antlers unto the dirt and looked at Agrios in eagerness her mouth and fangs were stained red with blood and her tongue hung out panting.
Eliana had suggested hunting food for them and Agrios had agreed realizing how hungry he was. The wolves gazed at him now their tails wagging like dogs staring at the deer waiting for a sign to consume.
"Help yourself you caught it." He spoke.
"M-My Lord are you sure?" Eliana responded glancing at the deer. She was much bigger than the other cubs and it seemed they valued her command second to his. The other wolves were not as easy to understand as Eliana he could only pick up certain emotions or impressions from them.
"Yes..." Agrios replied he paused for a bit then spoke again. "Is there a nearby river around here." He asked.
Eliana motioned to the west to a dark path ahead.
"Go straight and you will hear the sound of it..." She hesitated "Should I follow you?"
Agrios raised his hand and shook his head.
"No...No I'm fine!" He stated turning away from her and heading towards the path. The forest was dangerous but ever since the Roar Of The Beast Lord skill, he had used its seemed the more dangerous animals had backed away at least the was what Eliana had told him. His ears picked up the sound of running water and he pushed forward past a few bushes into the river. The river was large with clear water that rushed past at rapid speed Agrios knelt down next to the river and got a good look at his face.
His face and hair were covered in dirt and bruises his golden robes were tattered with scratches and thorns and he was covered with poorly made bandages made of animal fur. He took of his clothes and stepped into the river it was cool and refreshing and for the first time he came to the forest he felt his mind calm down. He sighed and cupped the water on his hands and ran it across his face. He felt his wound sting with a dull pain, but numbness of the water allowed him to ignore it.
Agrios thought about what had happened and someone came to his mind.
Edward.
It was Edward and his peers who had bullied him it was him who had told the Elder and ended up exiling him outside of the Golden Throne sect. He thought of Lyra and wondered what had happened to her the felt a certain feeling of uneasy as he thought of her.
He laid at the river tears running down his face, and looked up to the sky the massive trees canopies were so thick and dense he couldn't see much but he was sure the sun was coming up.
Revenge...
That was a thought that came to his mind, but Agrios was weak he had only gotten Qi forming stage just a few years ago. Edward was already at the Qi strengthening stage and the Elders were far beyond that. He had never felt such a heavy feeling of helplessness in his life till that moment. It was dark but he was still able to see the system widow pop out at the corner of his vision.
Quest Active
Time Remaining: 20:58:52
Quest: Authority of the Beast Lord
Objective: Hunt and kill one High Rank Spirit Beast.
Reward: System Growth
Punishment: Death
"So, it wasn't a hallucination." Agrios said.
The Beast's Roar move he had used had appeared to go on cooldown he couldn't use it even if he wanted too.
There came another problem Agrios thought the system that had appeared out of nowhere that had saved his live and had allowed him to talk to beasts like people, but it would seem there was a catch if he didn't kill a High Rank Spirit Beast, he would be met with instant death. He had traded in his life against the wolves for another higher being to decide his fate at least the wolves would have only killed and eaten him Agrios didn't know what the system had planned for him if he failed.
Splash!
Agrios jumped from his spot then half-crawled half ran out of the river and grabbed at his clothes he looked at the river and was relived to find it was a large fish. He gazed at his clothes which once elegant were now reduced to strips of clothes covered in blood, mud, and thorns. The fish had black scales that shore like steel and was the size of his leg it was a Steel scale carp.
Agrios stomach grumbled and he looked down at his stomach then back up at the fish. He jumped at the fish his fingers hit the fish's side, moving with a whip-like snap of its powerful torso, its tail caught Agrios square in the chest. The force knocked him back sprawling into the mud, the air driven from his lungs in a wheezing gasp.
"You've got to be kidding me," Agrios hissed, wiping silt from his eyes. He was a cultivator even a failed one and he was being bullied by a meal.
He waited, heart hammering against his tattered ribs. As the carp drifted near a shallow cluster of stones, Agrios didn't just lunged; he channeled the tiny, flickering spark of Qi left in his core into his palms.
He dove. This time, he didn't aim for the body. He threw his entire weight onto the fish, pinning it against the riverbed rocks. The carp thrashed with terrifying strength, its metallic scales slicing shallow cuts into Agrios's forearms
Desperate, Agrios grabbed a heavy, jagged stone with his free hand and brought it down once, twice, three times until the rhythmic thumping of the tail finally stilled.
He stood up in the shallows, gasping, drenched in freezing water and smelling of river mud. His knuckles were raw, and his chest felt like a giant had stepped on it, but he clutched the heavy, dead weight of the fish to his chest like a trophy.
...
Agrios walked back into the wolf den an hour later, fish in hand. His face was red and slightly more bruised, but an air of confidence was about him. He dropped the fish and sat on the dirt. Most of the wolves were asleep, save for Eliana.
Agrios gathered a bundle of sticks. The area near the Ironfang den was rich with flint and ore; he struck two flint stones together until sparks caught the dry wood. He skewered the fish on a long branch and set it over the flames.
"What High Rank Spirit Beasts live near here?" Agrios asked, his voice low.
Eliana's golden eyes flickered in the firelight. "There is a Steel Hide Bear deeper in the woods," she warned. "He is much, much stronger than us.
"And the river?"
"Further downstream lives a snake as thick as these trees," she continued.
Agrios paled a snake that size was out of the question he considered the fact it might have attacked him while he was out in the river.
"A strange creature stalks the sky, too," Eliana added, glancing upward. "But I do not think it would be easy to kill."
Agrios remembered the Giant Crow that had snatched the mother wolf. It had inadvertently saved him, but he was nowhere near ready to fight a flying nightmare. He glanced at the system.
Time Remaining: 19:44:25
He steeled his resolve. As the fish sizzled, he looked at the remains of the deer Eliana had caught. Its glowing antlers stood out in the dark. He walked over, wrenched them from its skull, and began using a jagged stone to grind the tips into lethal, shimmering points.
The bone was incredibly durable, and as he sanded it down, the air filled with the smell of scorched marrow. It took hours of painstaking work, but by the time the fish was eaten, and the fire had burned low, he held a lethal, shimmering point. With a full stomach and a weapon born of a spirit beast, Agrios stood. The helplessness was still there, but the fire in his eyes had returned let the hunt begin.
Time Remaining: 17:31:11