Zefir Cestre followed the path he saw in his dream with caution and finally reached the end of the tunnel.
He entered the cave "room" at the end of the tunnel silently and hid behind a dark uneven rock pillar formation. Peeking from behind the formation, he examined the cave room. It's a bit different..
In his dream, there were no rock formations like the one he was hiding behind, and there were no holes on the top of the cave which let a little sunlight inside the cave. Finally, he glanced at the elevated area where the beast had made its nest. He saw the rough nest made with many twigs and branches, and the beast perched up on it.
Zefir could hear small ticking sounds coming from the white beast, which was the sound it made while sleeping. It's asleep.. Zefir thought in relief. I need to take this opportunity and kill it right now. He sneaked out from where he was hiding and started walking towards the bird slowly.
Throughout the years, Zefir had built up a certain confidence in himself. This was because he regularly entered the forest to gather herbs for his mother, coming across different types of animals and situations. He was confident in his own physique, judgement and reactions.
Some time before, he had even survived an encounter with wild foxes, the same ones that Mr. Antonio had killed.
But since he had never encountered the strange and magical, he was quite shaken up from his experience the day before. Despite his nervousness, he had decided to try killing the bird. He had made such a decision due to three reasons. The first was his curiosity of the strange, the second was because the beast was blind in his dream which made him think there was a chance, and the third and most important one was because of a faint feeling he had since the ring equipped itself onto him.
He felt like he had to come to this cave and get that glowing object from inside the beast. That was why he made a hasty decision to kill the beast this very day.
Good.. It hasn't woken up by noticing me. I need to be carefu-
Snap
Just as he was thinking about being careful, he stepped on a small twig, breaking it and making a loud noise which echoed throughout the cave room. Crap!
He followed his intuition and rolled to the left right away. Then, he heard a loud slam right where he was just a second ago.
Not daring to rest, he quickly rolled forward two times before standing up and regaining his balance. Rolling again was the correct move as he heard two slams again, right where he had been.
Looking up, he finally saw the white bird already wide awake, staring at him with its foggy white eyes. It looked rightfully angry, as Zefir had just disturbed its sleep, and invaded its home.
With horror in his eyes, Zefir realized that the bird was still staring at him. It's not blind!? He felt intense fear, and he couldn't even move from the spot. His back was drenched with sweat, and he had sweat slowly dripping down from his forehead.
After a moment, he realized that the bird really was blind. This was because the bird had moved its head away from him and was trying hard to hear where he was. Phew.. He let out a silent sigh of relief. Just as he was about to sneak closer to the beast, he heard the beast's screech.
Screech
With a loud and grating screech which left Zefir's ears ringing, he saw the bird raise its leg up to attack. He jumped closer to the wall right away, but didn't move his eyes away from the bird.
The bird had given up on finding Zefir, and had switched to a more active approach. It had decided to attack the room randomly in hopes of landing an attack on Zefir.
In the next moment, Zefir widened in eyes in horror as he saw the legs of the bird turn soft, and extend. The bird then moved the extended leg like a whip to attack at random areas in the room. The leg of the bird was soft, but the talons at the end of the leg was hard as a metal, and was doing much damage all over the cave.
Its random attacks had hit Zefir nearly three times, had he not rolled away at the perfect time. The attacks had also destroyed the rock formations across the cave, making Zefir have to dodge the rock debris too.
But it was due to the rocks that the bird hadn't been able to lock on to Zefir. It had made too much noise, making the situation disadvantageous for itself.
Taking this chance, Zefir slowly moved closer to the bird and took out his rifle. He took a deep breath and aimed the rifle right at the bird's head. He had already loaded the rifle with two bullets, so he immediately pulled the trigger with his index finger with the snake ring.
Bang
A loud noise echoed throughout the cave as the bullet left the rifle. Hearing this, the bird stopped attacking randomly and braced itself.
Clink
The bullet hit the bird, but to Zefir's amazement, it didn't pierce through the bird's head. Instead, the bullet hit the beak and made a sound like striking layers upon layers of metal. Unable to pierce the bird's beak, it dropped down on the ground.
With another screech, the bird whipped the spot Zefir was at and struck Zefir with it's sharp talon.
"Aughhhhh!" Zefir let out a blood-curdling scream as the talon tore his left arm. A huge tear appeared on his arm, through which blood began flowing incessantly. Pushing through the pain, Zefir quickly escaped another attack from the bird and backed away towards the entrance.
Due to the flying debris, the bird couldn't find Zefir again.
Through gritted teeth, Zefir screamed at the bird, "Dumb bird! I'm right here! C'mon if you want this!" Then, aiming the rifle, he shot at the bird once again. This time, the rifle struck the bird right on the chest, but the result was the same as before. The bullet couldn't pierce through the bird.
Although the bullet couldn't pierce it, the bird felt the impact both times. It turned it's head towards Zefir in anger and finally swooped down from it's nest. Seeing this, Zefir quickly turned around and escaped through the tunnel like path while screaming obscenities at the bird.
The bird quickly followed Zefir using his voice, and would whip towards him occasionally. Feeling the attacks come at him, Zefir would dodge it by jumping or ducking right on time.
After quite a while, Zefir finally reached the point in the tunnel where he had dug the hole. With a jump, Zefir quickly landed on the other side of the tunnel and rolled forward.
Turning back, he saw that the bird was getting close to the hole. The bird whipped towards Zefir with it's leg once again, but before the leg could even reach near him, it fell right inside the hole.
Zefir knew he couldn't win a fight with the bird in open space, so, accounting for the bird's blindness, he had thought of making this hole to trap it. Now, he was quite happy that his preparation was not for nothing.
The bird started flailing in the hole, trying to get out. But each time it would try, it slipped on the red mud below and fell down. And since the tunnel was narrow, it couldn't even extend it's wings to fly out of the hole.
Not letting the opportunity go to waste, Zefir quickly appeared in front of the bird with the crowbar on his hand. He raised his hand and swung down with great force towards the bird's face.
Clank
But the crowbar recoiled right as he struck the bird. It had turned it's face hard like metal.
A jolt went through Zefir's arm, but he didn't give up. He struck the bird again and again through gritted teeth, although his attack would bounce right off.
"Haha!" He laughed madly. "I can feel it, you won't be able to hold out for long!"
Just as he said, the bird couldn't maintain it's hardened state for long. After two or three more attacks, the bird was finally exhausted. It's head softened and became just like any human sized bird's head.
Sploch!
The crowbar finally penetrated the bird's skull as it let out a defeated screech, and thick warm blood splattered all over Zefir. But he still didn't stop swinging the crowbar.
Only after the bird's head became mush did Zefir stop attacking it.
"Haah… Haah…." Exhausted, Zefir let go of the crowbar and plopped right down on the ground. He looked at the dead beast in front of him and let out a laugh. "Hahaha! I did it! I really did it! I killed a beast! Hahahaha!"
The teenager, Zefir Cestre had killed a beast by himself! It was an achievement unheard of in reality!