Dropping my levitation spell, I let myself fall freely through the leaves. Not a moment too soon as I felt the breeze from the draconid plunging in right after me.

Grabbing onto a branch singlehandedly, I used its flex to spring myself to the side as the creature rushed past, its magically sharpened beak slicing through the branch like air.

Sticking to the trunk of the tree with my palms, I threw all I had into stealth. Suppressing my presence and sound with shadows, turning invisible using light, wrapping a thin barrier of wind around me to block off my scent; I layered concealment spells on myself and slowly started climbing back up towards the nest.

The most dangerous place was the safest, as the saying went, and right now, the nest was the riskiest spot to be. I hoped that my stealth would hold up to a cursory sweep and that the overgrown lizard-bird wouldn’t be as thorough in its search for me so close to its nest.

No such luck. The creature’s jet-black beak glinted in the dappled sunlight as it burst out through the leaves aimed directly at me.

It was only due to my soul sense that I had enough warning to twist sideways and suck in my gut. The beak grazed past, ruffling my clothes with the wind of its passing as it got buried deep into the trunk.

‘That’d put a hole in me for sure,’ I thought as I lightened myself again and kicked off the trunk, propelling myself away.

I caught a glimpse of dark green scales splotched with red and baneful red eyes glaring at me before the leaves hid the creature from my sight again.

I could have taken the opportunity and hurt it while it was stuck, but I didn’t want to. First of all, I was the one in the wrong for intruding into its turf and coming so close to its nest. It was just a concerned parent chasing a possible poacher away from its eggs. And secondly, from what I knew of them from the books, they were creatures from before the Apocalypse. It took two of them to give birth. I didn’t want to escalate the enmity when another one of them could be hunting close by… and had maybe even heard this one’s screech and was swiftly catching up.

No, it was in my best interests to just give it the slip.

Being as light as a feather added an extra dimension to my mobility and using the branches I maneuvered to the opposite side of the trunk.

‘How did it find me?’ I wondered as I moved. ‘Sight, sound, smell, I blocked off all the conventional senses…that only leaves magic.’ My soul sense was telling me that it had a compound element of fire and air, so it had to be something from within those two disciplines. ‘So, it can probably sense the temperature or the flow of the wind. Or both.’

I concealed myself again. This time, sinking directly into my shadow, leaving only an unnaturally dark patch on the trunk behind. I hadn’t done it the first time because it was quite mentally taxing, and holding this state for a prolonged period of time would leave me weakened afterwards. Something very risky in this forest full of unknown dangers.

Well, it would be less tiring than fighting the creature, at least. Judging by the activeness of the mana around it, it was at the peak of Tier 3. And like all Beasts, its flesh would be permeated by its Domain…which was not an ideal situation for me. Both fire and wind spells, my main means of attack, would be less effective against it.

Taking control of the fire mana around me, I spread it around as evenly as I could, masking the body heat escaping from my shadow.

Just a few days earlier and I wouldn't have been able to pull this off. But my training sessions in Hei Lian’s dream had made me more familiar with the way ambient mana behaved in nature.

It was like how lifting a rock was easier when you tied a rope around it and raised it using a pulley rather than just grabbing it and trying to pick it up. The amount of effort required was the same in both cases, but it was easier when you used the pulley because you were pulling the rope down and gravity was working with you rather than against.

Knowing how mana liked to behave in its unfettered form told me where best to place my mental pulleys. It let me guide the mana rather than forcibly bend it to my will.

Having done all I could for the moment, I waited.

It was working! I heard the sound of the beast crashing through the branches as it crawled along the trunk, searching for me. From the haphazard way it moved, I could tell that it was confused by the sudden disappearance of its prey.

It crawled around the trunk and appeared fully in my line of sight, giving me a good look at it for the first time.

It could best be described as a featherless bird, with the wings of a bat, the scales of a snake, the taloned hind legs of a chicken and the tail of an alligator. And, not to forget, a beak from hell.

It was large, but not overly so. Four metres from tip to tail by my estimate.

Its scales were a dark green splotched with red, blending into a uniform black over its underbelly. Its conical beak, a quarter of the length of its entire body, had a bright red ridge running along the top that culminated in a jagged crown of spines on top of its head. It had a large, wickedly sharp talons at the joints of its wings, which combined with the hooked claws on its hind legs allowed it to anchor itself to the tree and manoeuvre around the trunk with ease.

It had bright-red reptilian eyes with two pairs of eyelids, a scaly outer pair, and a translucent inner pair. They glinted with malice as it looked around, searching for traces of me.

It swept its gaze over my location without pausing or showing any signs that it had detected me. It was close enough for me to seeing its nostrils open and close as it scented the air. It stretched its folded wings and flapped them once, sending a gust of air rushing through the leaves. With my soul sense, I could detect strands of its mana imbued within the wind. A detection spell using the wind as I had suspected.

Its forked tongue flickered out from the side of its beak and I could feel that it was absolutely packed with fire mana. ‘Thermal sensing.’

I was glad I’d covered all my bases. As a hunter it was common-sense that it would evolve to have better senses than most other Beasts.

After snuffling around for a time, it finally seemed to lose interest and began climbing back up to its nest. It passed by me on the way, mere inches from my innocuous patch of shadow. Its tail even brushed the edge. Then it was past.

I let out an internal sigh of relief. ‘Finally.’

Just as I was about to relax, I remembered my conversation with Father back in Firang when I had first revealed to him that I was capable of magic despite my shattered mindscape. He had seen my demonstration of external casting using mana drawn runes and had promptly proceeded to copy it.

Noticing my confusion as to how he could manage it with an intact mindscape, he had explained, “Instead of changing the frequency of my mana to match that of the ambient mana, I used my high cultivation in order to force the ambient mana’s frequency to match mine.

“Actually, sensing ambient mana is quite difficult for us Bestia. Only at the peak of Tier 3 do we get a fuzzy impression. During Tier 4, we can clearly sense it and impose our will on it to a certain extent. It is only when we reach Tier 5 that we gain complete dominion over our element. But as you saw, the effect falls far short compared to your method. Let alone, we are restricted to our element.”

The raptor’s jet-black beak stabbed directly into my shadow, the light of magic glittering on its tip.

White-hot pain ripped through me as I was kicked out of stealth, impaled right through my right shoulder and pinned to the tree. I screamed as it twisted its beak within the wound, rending my flesh.

I could feel my blood soaking through my shirt and running down the trunk.

I grabbed onto its beak with my left hand trying to prevent it from moving. My right hand hung limp by my side, useless.

Gritting my teeth, I channelled all of Vita’s divine power to my left hand and the raptor’s beak cracked as my fingers sank into it.

Its eyes widening in shock, it tried to withdraw its beak, but I wouldn't let go and as it pulled away from the trunk, I came along with it. It shook its head like a dog, trying to fling me off, but I clenched my teeth and hung on, Reinforcing the area around my wound with my limited grasp of the Tier 2 earth spell.

Swinging my legs up and wrapping them around its beak, I clamped it shut so it couldn't open it and rip my wound any further.

Raising its head, it slammed me down against the trunk, smashing my back against the bark hard enough to send cracks spidering along it.

My Barrier absorbed the shock, leaving me unharmed, but a part of my divine power was diverted away from my arm, reducing the strength of my grip on the raptor’s beak.

Sensing my weakness, it redoubled its efforts, slamming me against the trunk again and again and again.

My divine power was draining like water down a sink. I was beginning to feel lightheaded from the loss of blood and my vision was darkening around the edges.

‘Is this…the end?’

I lost control of my Reinforcement spell and the wound on my shoulder expanded. I heard the sound of my bones cracking. My arm now dangled from me by just skin and flesh.

‘No.’

I lost my grip on its beak and the next swing of its head flung me off. Then I was crashing through the canopy. Falling.

‘No!’

With a triumphant screech, the fell raptor screeched a victory cry. Tucking its wings, it plummeted down after me.

“NO!”

***

It is a sunny day. The vast rainforest spreads out like an emerald sea beneath the inverted blue dome of the sky.

But all is not as peaceful as it seems.

A chase plays out beneath the cover of the leaves. An injured boy and a bird of prey.

One of the boy’s arms flaps up lifelessly like an empty sleeve as he falls, a raptor with a crack in its beak in hot pursuit.

“NO!” he screams, his voice cracking under the weight of his desire to live.

Green runes glow on the body of the bird and it speeds up, its serpentine eyes gleaming with cruel amusement.

The boy’s lips move silently. They form a word.

“Burn.”

His crimson eyes bloom into twin suns of pink-tinged scarlet flame.

The bird falters, then steadies itself and continues on, down past the young man, then underneath him.

Unfurling its wings, it arrests its fall and catches him on its back.

Then with a mighty flap of its wings, it chooses a random direction and continues on in a straight line, dodging between the trunks of the trees in its way.

If one looks closely, they can see a reddish-pink fire burning in the depths of its pupils.

---

After a while, a dark dot in the horizon expands into a behemoth that darkens the sky, and casts a diamond of shadow on the canopy.

Its scarlet eyes sweep over its nest and unharmed eggs. They take in the broken branches and torn leaves where its mate plunged into the canopy.

It is unnaturally light and silent for its size as it follows the trail to a still wet splatter of blood. It sniffs once, twice, then bends its beak to the side so it can bring its forked tongue out close enough for a taste.

Its head snaps up and it turns towards a certain direction.

Then silently, it unfurls its gigantic wings and kicks off the trunk in a seemingly unhurried glide beneath the canopy.

It does not dodge the trees; it simply phases through them like a phantom. And once in a while, when it passes through a patch of shade, it disappears…and reappears several hundred metres away within another.

The Wraith of the Woods hunts once more.