Depthless Hunger

When Kai left the capital to head into the eastern wilderness, he was glad for multiple reasons. "Civilization" no longer felt so safe now that he'd met the demons on the prowl, he was impatient to move forward, and he was getting restless anyway. He wasn't built to sit around inns, not when he could be hunting through open fields.

His only concern was that he had to leave Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena behind. Of course they could take care of themselves, and his cooperation with Gorutiel was actually helping shield them from other demons, but it still rankled. Until they achieved the breakthroughs they'd been struggling toward, they were all vulnerable.

Given the scale of power on Rosemount, they'd still be vulnerable afterward. But at least the odds wouldn't be so stacked against them.

So far, after several days in the wilderness, he hadn't run across a single follower of the Savage Creed. He wasn't really surprised, since if they were so easy to find then Gorutiel would already have eaten one. What bothered him more was that he'd seen so few monsters. Somehow he'd reverted to his default assumptions and forgotten that the Commonwealth wasn't overrun.

Even though he thought about this space as wilderness, it was just wild, not barren. In fact, back in Goralia soil like this would have been considered good farmland, and the chakra itself would have made it valuable territory. The result was that there was plenty of foliage and he rarely got a perfect line of sight. It would have been convenient to have the diamond star, but he thought the others had more need for it. So he had to wander, searching with his raw senses.

When he finally stumbled across a monster it was almost random. Kai rounded a corner and saw a squat beast that looked like a mouth on two legs. It might have had stealth abilities, because he hadn't noticed it, but the enormous jaws certainly suggested attacking power. Since it had sensed him and started to turn, he attacked quickly to injure it before it could draw on any abilities.

His Tyrant's Claw split it into slices of meat. Kai stared in surprise as they slumped to the ground.

Since he was particularly hungry for monsters, he bent down and swallowed the remnants in one bite, but it only told him what he already knew.

Monster: Mouthbeast

>

It was a Beta-ranked monster, which was basically nothing to him now. Even if he ate a hundred of them, their essence wouldn't be worth anything. Kai was so disappointed that it wrecked his mood for the rest of the day.

Because there was so much ground to cover, he shifted in an aerial ability and the Thunderbird essence just to move faster. As another day passed without anything worthwhile to hunt, he began to think about ways to finalize the Thunderbird essence even though he thought it was premature. He realized that the real threat of boredom wasn't the lack of progress, it was the potential that it might push him to advance too quickly.

But the next day he finally spotted it: a bull half the size of a house, with shining golden horns that flowed with chakra. Golden hooves sparked as they struck the ground, then it bowled over a much smaller monster until it was trampled to death. At first Kai was just impressed by the sublime beast until he thought to examine its spirit:

Beast: Golden Bull

Total Power: 192

Gold Essence: 88

Physique: E-5 (95)

Soul Level: 3 (9)

>

It had an impressive 192 Power, and unlike the pegasi, it actually had a Physique ranking. Kai didn't have any injections from Omilaena, because he had thought there would be more monsters than sacred beasts, but he was damn hungry. He might as well eat the bull and see if he could absorb its essence.

When he walked closer the golden bull noticed him and turned, snorting and stamping its hoof again. Kai grinned and set his feet, ready to grasp those horns when it charged. The golden bull hesitated... and then it suddenly turned and ran in the opposite direction.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

"Hey!" Kai growled and rushed after it, aiming to run it down. The bull was fast for such a large beast, but not compared to him. All that slowed him down was how it ducked and weaved around the rocks and trees filling the countryside.

So when a rock next got in his way, Kai ran off the side to hurl himself into the air. For a moment he sailed overhead, catching up to the golden boar - and then he saw the arrow.

Kai instinctively grabbed it out of the air, but the arrow was filled with chakra. The raw force of it jerked him backwards and he slammed into the ground. He sprang back up with the arrow in hand, turning toward the source and ready for another attack.

"That's my prey." A man emerged carrying a bow almost as large as he was. He was lean and had a massive mane of hair that brought to mind a lion. All his clothing was rough, as if it had been stitched from animal hides. After all the golden linen in the Commonwealth, Kai found it pleasantly nostalgic, almost like a touch of home.

"I didn't see you there," Kai said simply. "Is there an etiquette for hunting here?"

"We hunt what we want, when we want. But the strong hunt and the weak do not."

Checking his overconfidence, Kai glanced at the man's soul and saw that he had around 350 Power. More importantly, he had the Savage Heart ability - his true power might be higher, but Kai mainly cared because he'd finally reached his target.

"You follow the Savage Creed, don't you?" Kai asked. "I've been looking for you."

"Run back to the city or I'll shoot you again."

"Wait." Kai pulled the fang he'd received from the last Savage Creed follower from his spatial ring and thrust it into the air. "The last time I met one of you, he gave me this and sent me here. I need to learn from you."

For the first time the hunter looked a little uncertain, but then he sneered. "Then one of us must have grown weak, or maybe he got drunk and you took it off him. I'll let you go, but don't come back. This is my hunt."

With that, the man turned away and began running after the golden bull. After their conversation, it had run further away... but not far enough.

Kai drew on his full speed and nearly flew across the wilderness, outpacing first the hunter and then the golden bull. His body strained with the effort to push himself to the limit, but his hunger was growling to finally be chasing down quarry. When he got close he took a final leap and let his aerial abilities take over, guiding him to the golden bull's head.

When he grasped the horns he braced himself for some sort of counterattack, but the bull seemed shocked. Its horns contained dense chakra but nothing particularly lethal. Kai kept moving over its head and as soon as his feet hit the ground, he used his leverage to lift the bull overhead and slam it into the ground.

Not dead, though it would have been easy to kill, just stunned. Kai waited by the body until the hunter caught up. This time the man's expression was much less contemptuous and he didn't carry his bow with an arrow nocked. When Kai took a step toward him, the man actually lowered it.

"Doesn't the Savage Creed involve taking what you want?" Kai gestured toward the golden bull's heaving sides. "I'll take everything you hunt unless you send me somewhere else."

"I'm no teacher, especially for barbarians."

Apparently Kai was still a barbarian even to a man wearing animal hides. He didn't back down, though, and he saw the hunter relent.

"Some of us meet further northeast when there's a full moon. Take this." The hunter removed a fang from somewhere in his tunic and tossed it over. "They're the ones who might train you, but there's no guarantee they'll accept. Strength alone isn't enough for the Savage Heart. You need to have the spirit for it, and most don't."

"Thanks," Kai said. He was sorely tempted to follow the Savage Creed by eating the golden bull anyway, but there was no reason to antagonize potential allies. Besides, it wasn't that strong.

He left the hunter behind, though when he glanced over his shoulder he saw that the man was kicking the golden bull back up instead of killing it. Either he wanted the chase itself, there was some sort of honor for sacred beasts, or he was just stubborn. In any case, it wasn't Kai's problem anymore.

As he moved, Kai pulled both fangs out of his spatial ring and compared them. They were slightly different shapes and ringed with different shades of paint. Part of him wondered if he could just kill some animal with similar fangs to make his own tokens, but that probably wouldn't work. He could feel different chakra in each, and given how personal chakra could be, they were likely unique.

One fang had only earned him a bare minimum of respect, but presumably two would be better. Kai could keep finding and challenging hunters, if it eventually got him the power he needed.

That night Kai was setting up for rest when he suddenly felt a dark presence. Gorutiel loomed nearby, more dangerous than any predator in the wilderness, and for a moment Kai thought he might attack.

"You need more fangs?" he asked. After thrusting a hand into some sort of spatial bag, he thrust it out with a fang necklace covered in blood. "I accidentally killed one of them and took this. Seems like they use them as ranks or something."

"Are you watching me?" Kai asked.

"Nah, can't do that. But I decided to show up and I saw you at the end there."

"Well, I think we'd better not cheat, just in case the chakra can detect it somehow." Kai showed the two fangs he'd earned. "I have two and I'll earn more. I don't think I can reach the Savage Heart in a-"

"Don't worry about it!" Gorutiel took a lunging step closer and slapped him on the shoulder. "You don't get any satisfying prey in a day or two. I could run back and eat that guy, but it'd be pointless. Nothing like that fills me anymore."

For a moment Kai wondered if he actually had more in common with demons than humans. This didn't seem like the time to ask, though. Gorutiel might be grinning, but his eyes gleamed with ominous light. His patience might not last forever, and when it ran out, the cheerfulness might vanish just as suddenly.

"Do you need anything, then?" Kai asked.

"Just checking in." Gorutiel gave him a sharp-toothed grin and then disappeared into a cloud of dark smoke. Did they have a teleporter ally, or could he do that too?

After that Kai was again alone in the wilderness, and technically another major step closer to gaining the Savage Heart. But that solitude was no longer so comforting.