Looking around I counted five sets of eyes and three other entities that were trying to stay hidden. I slowly stood to my full height and stared down the nearest creature, a short humanoid. When it noticed my gaze it took a step back and turned its cavernous eyes to its neighbor, a human-faced owl, and let out a series of chirping noises. The owl looked at the small creature and screeched causing the humanoid to flinch. After seemingly weighing its options it stepped out and hesitantly made eye contact, a clear challenge. It seems that the owl witch wants to test me out. My smile lessened at the clear disrespect, it seems an example needed to be made. I raised my head up and let out a magic-infused roar.

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As I gazed at the dark mosaic sky above me a sudden low rhythmic drumming interrupted my thoughts, each thump resembling a beating heart. A strange sound to hear in the middle of the woods and even stranger in this god-forsaken realm. With curiosity blooming within me, I stood up and looked for its source, finding none. Despite the inherent danger I wanted to find the origin of this familiar sound. After tilting my head for a minute I determined the direction it was coming from.

Weaving in and out of the seemingly endless trees I eventually came upon the source. In a small clearing in front of me sat a large creature draped in a pitch-black cloak lightly tapping on a drum. I looked on with curiosity, but that soon turned to horror when it abruptly rose and a short humanoid walked out of the trees and made eye contact. Thanks to my line of work I could easily identify the clear challenge, this enraged the monstrous figure causing it to let out a massive earth-shaking roar. Along with the roar a powerful gale force wind erupted out tearing up the earth beneath it and sending the humanoid and a few trees flying. Before the creature even landed the monster was on top of it, with blinding speed it yanked it out of the air. It brought it up to eye level and looked at it for a second before violently spiking it into the ground, causing a mixture of earth and gore to explode into the air.

A mad cackling erupted from within the monster as it inspected the damage it caused. Suddenly crashing erupted from behind it as a gigantic bear busted into the clearing, it was big, probably as large as a mammoth, and was seemingly rotting and misshapen. Once the monster was in the bear's sights it rose up on two legs and roared. The cackling from the creature became even more maddening as it stared down this new contender and before I could even blink it disappeared.

A sudden roar of pain drew my attention back to the bear, the monster was at its legs and had apparently stabbed its arm through the bear's knee. With a violent jerk, the bear flinched and fell back onto all fours but the monster wasn’t done yet, it quickly withdrew its arm and placed both hands inside the new hole. A sickening crunch echoed through the clearing as the monster cruelly ripped apart causing the bones to separate. The bottom portion of its leg was now only partially attached by a few strands of skin.

The bear released another bellow of pain but the monster didn’t seem satisfied yet. With a powerful leap, it attached to the bear's flank and started to brutally tear in, causing the poor animal to wail once more. A puddle of blood and fur quickly gathered beneath the beast as the monster shaved off its flesh. Soon it reached its organs and with a lurch, it crawled into the body cavity. The bear shook and roared slamming into several trees to lessen the pain but it was all for not, it once more rose on its back leg before falling one last time. The clearing shook at the sheer amount of weight as the bear took its final fall.

Everything was still for a dreadful second before the animal's back started bulging grotesquely, it stretched until finally, the sound of breaking bones and tearing flesh erupted into the clearing as the monster exploded out. It raised up its head and roared once more before jumping out and disappearing into the forest. It took me a second to clear my head but once I did I realized retreat was probably the best option. Careful not to make a peep I slowly backed away from the clearing.

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A stiff-legged bear was definitely not within my expectations for this area but a welcomed surprise nonetheless. My smile grew when I noticed that most of the creatures were fleeing but I still needed that owl-witch to pay for her blatant disrespect. Plus human-faced owls have always caused me a great amount of disgust. I jumped out of the corpse and began my pursuit, but before I could even really begin an anomaly caused me pause. My smile dampened a bit before rising once more, it seems that there’s a dimensional visitor in my new territory, but that can wait.

I turned back and resumed my pursuit with increased speed. Soon I came across signs that the owl-witch was trying to jump back into the human realm, this only served to make the hunt more interesting. I quickly came upon the jump site. It was obviously a very rushed jump, the leftover magic and messy void cracks were plenty of evidence for that. Not wanting to give my prey any rest I wound back my arm and gathered an abundance of magic at my claws. With a jab, the already weak space quickly folded underneath my strike. Once my arm was through I began to rip the hole open with my other hand, and soon the void crack was big enough for me to fit through.