Chapter 3: Prey or Predator?

When he finally fell asleep, he was greeted with sound, opening his eyes he saw light. This was no forest; he woke in a huge rocky gorge decorated with large green trees. The calls of birds sounding through the air; the air was fresh, free of any pollution. Karn was amazed, a world yet untouched by any other humans.

'Today or should it be tonight? I'm going to get the first ring for my flute spirit', focusing Karn started to descend into the canyon. He didn't really have anything specific that he was looking for.

'Sound huh, what beasts use sound? Oh well I guess I'll figure it out as I go.'

Karn thanked the guy he had met before after dying, as he did not have to risk his life for a 100-year beast, instead he could simply find a ten-year beast and then retrospectively increase the age of the spirit ring that way.

Deciding to enter the tree spotted gorge, he manifested both of his spirits, to his surprise he was able to manifest both at the same time. 'I thought you could only manifest a single spirit at a time. Oh well not like I'm going to complain'

The flute did not need to be blown to play music, instead the flute hovered behind him as he walked into the gorge.

'Given that my bow spirit is most likely more suited to attacking, I will take a more supplementary role with this spirit. Maybe being able to affect people in the way that the pagoda spirits do.'

As he thought that, he willed some of his spirit power to form an arrow, it took about 5% of his total spirit power to spawn this arrow, pulling back on the bow the gold lights seemed to intensify. He aimed at a nearby tree and loosed the arrow. What he saw impressed Karn, the arrow stayed lodged a good 20 centimetres into the tree, the surrounding woods had developed a coating of ice, and past that there was a white frost growing up the tree. 'That old man really did give me a pinnacle tier spirit.'

Karn entered a large glade, on the opposite side of the glade Karn saw a large frog, marked with mottled red and orange skin. Summoning an arrow to kill the frog, he paused when he saw the frog twist its neck, open its mouth and shoot a huge pillar of flame at a nearby tree. After the flames died down, a tongue shot across the glade snatching what Karn guessed was once a bird from the burning tree. Deciding that this was probably a little out of his depth he skulked away from the giant, fire-breathing monster frog.

Veering toward the edge of the gorge he could've sworn that he saw the rock face glimmering, attracted by the shiny rocks he edged toward them. By the time that he realised what was glimmering it was too late. It was a web, a huge metallic web covering the rockface. Looking up he saw the monstrosity that made this web, 'holy f*** is that Shelob.' This spider was huge, it stood over a metre and a half tall, it was wider than it was tall. The ends of its legs ended with sharp claws that were obviously used for stabbing the prey that got caught in the web. It crawled along the web with a speed not befitting of such a large creature. Karn was panicked, summoning an arrow he immediately drew and shot at the spider. The arrow missed landing slightly below the spider, the ice burst out upon the impact freezing the section of web that the creature was moving onto. It slipped on the frost; all eight legs were flailing. Karn had been moving away from the web as soon as he released his arrow, seeing the falling behemoth, he readied his bow for another shot. As soon as it landed the arrow was fired, this time flying true. It struck the spider on the left side, cutting off two of the legs. The spider was stuck however, it hadn't landed on it legs it had landed on its back. The beast was stuck, after realising the situation, Karn quickly moved forward, he readied one last arrow. He was going to kill this one, this would be his first spirit ring. Getting within three metres of the spider he aimed right for the head. Then a web shot from the mouth of the spider trapping Karn, the spider was unable to get up, but so was Karn, as he was lying on the ground from further up the gorge, he saw an even larger spider making its way down.

Karn summoned an arrow attempting to saw through the web, the spider was getting closer and closer. The webs were starting to snap, he was now frantically cutting the last of the binds on his leg. Just as he managed to escape the web the behemoth spider touched the ground.

He ran as fast as he could, leaping over tree roots and diving under the fallen trees. The spider was still catching up, it trampled through the forest scaring all kinds of beasts as it created a trail of destruction behind it, its huge legs cutting trees a rock apart with each step. Spotting a crack in the gorge wall up ahead, he made a beeline for it, realising his intentions the spider spat a web at the gorge wall to block it off, but it was too late.

The small crevice opened unto a larger cave, there was no light in the cave, nor was there sound.

He had only the light of the golden runes that ran along his bow spirit. He went deeper into the cave until he heard a noise that brought a smile to his face. A quiet rustling noise echoed around from above him.

'Bats! How did I not think of that earlier?'

He walked deeper into the cave until he saw another entrance to the cave, heading toward it he planned to shoot one of the bats as they left the cave, hoping not to enrage the others as the flew into the night to feed. Once he found a suitable place to shoot from with enough cover that he would be safe even if the mob attacked him, he sent his flute spirit into the mouth of the cave.

After a little a loud sound started to emerge from the flute shaking the nearby trees. This was the first time that either the world of Douluo Dalu or Karn's inner world had been graced with trap music. More specifically Kung Fu by Apashe. The bats flew out of the cave like, well, a bat out of hell. A torrent of the black and grey beasts streamed from the cave, internally Karn was breathing a sigh of relief, the number of bats in the cave were far greater than he thought. Soon the whole area was covered in shadow, the beasts blocked out the sun with their numbers alone.

Not wanting the opportunity to go to waste Karn manifested an arrow and pulled back, not aiming for a specific bat rather just to hit one of them before the eventual end of the torrent appeared, and he lost his chance. After aiming he fired, the arrow travelled through the air at a rapid pace before hitting a bat, the bat then fell from the sky, it was not injured, but the arrow had torn a hole in its wing, making it impossible for the beast to fly. Then he waited for the cloud of bats to exit the cave.

After the last stragglers left the cave he emerged from his hiding spot, approaching the bat it turned it head toward him, after letting out a weak cry and then adjusting its head once more, it let out a scream, the scream was piercing, it left Karn dazed and bleeding from his ears. The bat could not move as when it fell from the sky it had broken its right wing. Karn stung his bow and quickly killed the beast.

Once its body finally stopped twitching a white ring dropped in front of him. This was it, his first ring, it may not be from a super strong creature that the heavens themselves fear, but in time this ring would grow and eventually it may become stronger than any other. Sitting on the ground next to the corpse of the deceased bat he absorbed the ring. It was not a long process; the ring was only a ten-year ring.

When Karn next opened his eyes, a huge grin spread across his face, fuck whatever he thought about this beast not being strong, the power it gave him was ridiculous. The melody of shock, he could stun any targets that heard his melody for a third of a second. There was no particular song that was required he could simply play any song and when he infused spirit power it would shock his enemies.

'Right now, this ring is already powerful, being able to stun anyone I chose in my range for that amount of time, but with age the ring will grow in strength.'

If anyone was present in his world right now, they would see a funny sight, a tiny child sat next to an enormous dead bat, drool leaking from his mouth. He did feel slightly guilty about the way that he had killed the beast but, after what the spider did to him, he understood at least in this inner world, there was no such thing as guilt among the beasts, this world was kill or be killed.

After killing the bat he went to try his luck on another beast, after settling on a small stag, he moved as close as he could, his flute was ahead of him raised into the canopy as to not give away his position.

*snap*

He was already within ten metres of the stag when he stepped on a stick. The stag immediately scared attempting to run, only to find it could not move, the flute had been playing birdsong the entire time, Karn only needed to activate the effect for it to stun the deer. Seeing that it wanted to move, he shot, and his arrow flew true.

"I guess this ability takes a large amount out of me in return for its power." He spoke to himself while approaching the deer corpse. A third of his spirit power was immediately siphoned when he activated the melody of shock. After absorbing the deer's ring his flute's ring changed to a dim golden colour.

Waking to a chilling breeze slipping through the window, Karn woke up all smiles. Before he even got to his feet, he had summoned his spirit, seeing the dim yellow of his first ring, his smile grew wider. After getting dressed he walked to the kitchen, during the breakfast his parents informed him that he would be entering the local spirit master academy; the frost wind academy. Karn and his family lived in the north of the Heaven Dou empire, a large number of the spirit masters that came from this area were ice-based spirit masters. In the surrounding areas there were multiple large spirit master clans, the children from these clans were all sent to the frost wind academy. Walking out of the village to the neighbouring village they headed toward the spirit master academy.