Chapter 13: The Hunt PART ( 1 )
The wind was moving again.
It slipped between the trees like something half-alive, brushing past Ariz's shoulders as he stood outside the cabin. The morning was gray, wet with mist. A fine dew clung to the leaves, and each breath he took came out in a slow, pale cloud.
He fastened the leather strap across his chest and slid his sword into place over his back. The blade made no sound as it settled into its sheath. Every movement was practiced now—quiet, efficient, without thought.
He didn't glance back at the cabin.
Didn't need to.
There was nothing inside it but sweat, silence, and ghosts.
He stepped forward.
With each footfall, the forest changed.
The birds vanished first. Then the hum of insects. Even the leaves above grew still, as though watching him pass. Ariz followed the slope down through familiar territory, past the oak grave and the sunken roots, until he reached the edge of a place few dared enter.
The Blackthorn Grove.
The trees here grew close together, gnarled and too tall for the light to reach the floor. Thorns as long as daggers curled from their bark like claws. Roots twisted across the ground in patterns that seemed deliberate—unnatural. It wasn't just overgrown. It was wrong.
Hunters spoke of it in whispers.
A place the beasts feared.
A place where blood didn't sink into the ground—it stayed.
Ariz stepped through without hesitation.
The air inside the grove was colder.
Branches arched overhead, webbed in moss. The thorns snagged at his cloak and sliced through fabric without effort. He didn't flinch. If anything, he moved slower, more deliberately, as if savoring the way the forest tried to cut him.
He followed the signs.
Scrapes on bark, deep and fresh.
Scattered bones—stripped clean, no rot.
Claw marks in the mud.
Large. Heavy.
Definitely Tier-2.
He crouched and ran his fingers over one of the tracks. Four talons. Two side-drag lines. Weight leaned forward. Whatever it was, it walked on limbs that could sprint or spring. Predator design.
His lips tightened slightly.
Good.
Half an hour in, the trees thickened. The fog began to roll low along the ground, curling up between his boots. He heard nothing—not even his own breath. The world had narrowed to the crunch of leaves, the ache in his legs, and the pressure of something ahead.
Something alive.
Watching.
Waiting.
He drew his sword slowly, blade whispering free of its sheath. The edge shimmered with faint light from the system's enchantments, but not enough to glow. Just enough to promise death.
He stepped between two arching blackroot trees—and froze.
There.
Scales moved in the mist.