14 [Dragon Boar]

The beast noticed me immediately. Jumping forward, it kicked back with both legs. Bucking into the air as its cloven hooves caught through the gossamer of the shadows and into the flesh of my side. My health dropped with blow after blow as it tossed me, weakened and confused. What had happened?

Without Silent Hunt, I didn't have any way to retreat from the fight.

Bleeding from the gashes, I now had two opponents. Failing from the poison, the smaller boar was still a threat. I couldn't keep my focus on both and they were using that to their advantage. When I leaped to gouge into one, the other caught me from behind. I wasn't as fragile as I had been as a cliff hugger, but blood was pooling around my lungs.

My stamina wasn't recovering fast enough. My health dropped.

We ended up at an impasse, each of us wounded. The longer we waited, the more my venom would shift the momentum of the fight in my direction. They knew it too. I stood still, waiting for my chance to strike. Going on the offensive was giving them too many openings. Getting them to come to me was going to make them vulnerable to direct retaliation when they made a mistake. Arms reach meant venom.

It was the little runt that broke first, squealing a charge.

The poison had worked on it for a long time now, its stomach stained deep with its own blood. If only I had taken the time to gut it while the shadows still embraced me. I was stupid. I jumped into a skill I didn't understand, awe lulled me into a false sense of invincibility. Already I'd paid half my health. I'd pay more before I'd be free to devour the hot spill of boar guts off the chasm floor.

I turned my back on the large boar. If it wanted to charge so be it. They could gore at each other. The smaller demon's charge came fast, and I prepared my leap.

It banked. At the same moment the larger boar let out a cry. A feint?

I turned to engage, only to find that the larger beast charged not at me, but past me. Both beasts retreated to the deeper hollow of the chasm, regrouping. Why? And then I heard it. A deep layered bellow. I looked off to the direction of its source.

My eyes were met with a giant demon.

It must have started as a cliff hugger. It had the same central maw, torn open and screaming. Its large body rested on arms as muscled as the boars. Thick with meaty, clubbed hands. Its skin was bright red, and its shoulders and neck were one. Giant traps fusing together. As it bellowed again, it was easy to see what the demons had feared. It had not one maw, but deep in the folds of its flesh two more opened to challenge the open air.

[Cut from your dominion by the stronger aura of an attacking demon]

Attacking? But it was so far away. Much further than the first time a demon cut me off from my domain. The boar demons stayed at the edge of my vision. The smaller of the two was swaying from what I hoped was the venom leaching deep into its vitals. Trapped by the aura same as I was, death of the huge demon was the only thing that would free them. Did that make us allies? Unlikely. The boars would go after the weakened victor.

Roaring again the massive cliff hugger began to bound in my direction with the thunder of its twisted gait.

Stones jumped as it approached. When it landed a solid hit with the tree limbs it had for front arms it would not need to strike a second time. Without mana, health low, I was out of options. With little time to prepare, I moved my title to Eye of Keres. The closest I could bring myself in hell to a prayer for salvation.

[Demon Examination: Other]

[Tier: Lesser Form]

[Caste: Lesser Cursed Beast]

[Morphology: Lesser Giant Shreiking Cliff Hugger]

[Stats: Unknown]

[Skills: Unknown]

That was the Shrieking Cliff Hugger? I had committed myself to the idea that other evolution paths would have similar power. Unprepared, I had no understanding for how the same seed had branched off in such ways. A variant, like myself. I was sure of it, given its title and stature. Even so the difference in raw strength was immense.

My form has gone sleek, trading in for speed and dexterity. This demon has gone for pure raw physicality, tossing away stealth for scale and impact. My domain would not have held its bulk. Without preamble it struck as soon as it could close the gap. Injured, tired, spent. It was the least I could do to dodge out of the way. I had grazed it with my stingers, but this only served to make it louder.

[You have poisoned Lesser Giant Shrieking Cliff Hugger]

It punched again, as I tried to make space between us. It wanted to keep us together, in a melee where one knockout round had me dead before the bells could end the round. One punch came close enough that I was thrown forward onto the rough rock of the Chasm. I watched in horror as my health indicator flashed and fell. It was driving forward with such force even the air before the impact was causing damage.

It screamed again, all three maw in unison. I buckled under the strain as its aura strengthened. I couldn't win in a fair fight. I had little faith I could win in an unfair fight. Aiming the last of my leaps, I managed to leverage its pause to get behind it and onto its back.

The flesh was broad and its arms were thick. My weight forced it forward when it tried to use both hands to tear me off. A single arm couldn't reach the center of its back. I was able to get in a deep sting into its shoulders. It wailed in pain, but I could see its body flushing out the toxins through the blood. It must have some form of poison or venom resistance. Even attacking it seemed to make it stronger.

The demon was smarter than I have it credit for. While I was losing grip from exhaustion eating through my stamina, it recovered. It was making up for its failure in dexterity. Heaving up, short legs provided a large amount of power as it moved upwards. Then it tried to crush me under the weight of its back.

It caught my left leg still underneath it when it landed. The grainy movement through Pain Resistance told me everything I needed to know. I had broken my leg. The tendons, sharp outline in my flesh, had snapped under the giant's weight. The notification hadn't appeared yet, but I was sure this was a debilitating injury. It felt like one. Even waking would become a task and I was far from my dominion.

Not that it will matter as the giant, red demon righted itself and prepared for another assault. A dead demon walks nowhere.

[Fatal Damage done to Lesser Charging Boar Beastman]

[Soul +10]

[Experience Gained]

[You have gained a new level. Received 15 unspent ability points]

The venom had finished what I could not of the smaller pigman. The larger one wheeled away, the spell broken. With the cliff huggers full attention on me, the limitation of the aura may have dropped. The level had restored my health. Keres? The coincidence had the finger of fate's intervention. I couldn't count on it again.

The giant cliff hugger screamed and dropped the full force of its punch into the side of my body. I screamed out, both mouths open to the pain. My health fled, dropping down to the tens. A single blow had dropped me into death's territory again.

But the level had also restored my mana.

Activating Shadows hunt, I fell into the void of the falling fist that was trying to crush me a final time. The roof of the shadow realm shimmered as the blow connected with the world of substance. My breath wheezed out of my maw. I had a few moments to collect myself as the giant demon above smashed at the ground over and over again. As the roof of the void rippled I felt like I could become one of the stones that danced up and down with the tremors.

As restored as I was going to be, I found a deep shadow, the silhouette sharp and clear, and leapt at the giant again.

It caught me.

Its large, rough hands gripped around my throat as it dragged me to its maw. From mere inches away, its scream was deafening.

An answering roar came from behind us. Lifting me to the side, the Giant looked out to the call. A boar that must be second in size only to its king stood across the chasm, standing over the boar that I had tried to kill. It dwarfed it, the one I had considered large.

[You may collect the special blessing: Rite of the Madonna of the Shrieking Cliff. Change title?]

What?

The cliff hugger brought its face to mine again. It must have received the same notification.

This giant variant hugger... was it Big Guy?