“Blood Poison”

Aeron said, this was another effect added into blood substitution, beasts with the word blood on their names would usually be able to use [Blood Poison], it was a good thing that the Bloody Hyena was not a Magic Beast. The lethality of [Blood Poison] would vary between a Demon Beast and a Magic Beast, a Demon Beast’s [Blood Poison] would usually not be as lethal or strong as that of a Magic Beast. The reason was that a Demon Beast specializes in body strengthening rather than enhancing its magic abilities.

Even in Aeron’s past world, this sort of mechanism could naturally be found. Most venomous or poisonous animals would have a smaller frame than that of the none poisonous ones. The biggest example of these were snakes and frogs, most venomous snake and poisonous frog depend on their venom or poison to hunt and protect themselves while those that were non venomous or poisonous would usually have a bigger bulk and would specialize in overpowering their prey to death.

Screeeech!

The Grey Eagle started to screech in pain as the poison took effect, but its eyes were still clear and lit with fury, it was a very experienced beasts, even in its dying state it could still could still put up a fight, it suddenly launched an attack at an area unnoticed by Aeron. Green wind blades bombarded the area where the Bloody Hyena decided to appear.

Boom!

But the Bloody Hyena stayed true to its nature as it was scared off by the Grey Eagle’s attack, before it could fully appear, it exploded into another bloody mess. Although it took a large chunk of its mana using [Blood Substitution] consecutively, it was still too scared to receive the Grey Eagle’s attack. Aeron had also noticed that in comparison to the Grey Eagle, the Bloody Hyena was much weaker, if not for the Grey Eagle’s severe injuries, the Bloody Hyena would’ve probably been dead long before it could attack.

Screeeech!

The poison inflicted more damage to the Grey Eagle as time went on, meanwhile Arthur and the Silver Monkeys were killing off the other Hyenas.

“Kiii!”

Arthur pierced another Mid-Grade Hyena that was in the middle of casting [Sonic Bullet]. The Silver Monkeys also faced other Mid-Grade Hyenas in battle, but this time they used all their strength to finish the fights quicker, other times, Richie and the Black Monkeys would sneak attack the Hyenas that had their attention pulled by the other Monkeys.

Booom!

Aeron quickly unsummoned Gwaine as a [Sonic Bullet] landed in the area Gwaine had been. The Bloody Hyena was angered when it saw Arthur and the Monkeys killing its subordinate, seeing that the Grey Eagle was very weak from its poison, the Bloody Hyena decided to kill one of the Monkeys to scare them off. Luckily, Aeron was carefully watching the Bloody Hyena’s actions. A large hole was blown off the ground where Gwaine had been, which just goes to show how powerful the Bloody Hyena’s attack was.

Sweee! Sweee! Sweee!

Even though it was weakened and dying, the Grey Eagle eyes sharpened as it saw an opportunity to attack. True to its nature as a bird of prey, the small interval that the Bloody Hyena used became a fatal mistake.

Boom!

If the attack landed then the Bloody Hyena would at least be severely injured, but the Bloody Hyena was still able to use [Blood Substitution] as it disappeared in a bloody explosion.

Whimper!

It reappeared not far from the area of where it disappeared, even though it was able to dodge the attack, it wasn’t able to dodge it completely. The Bloody Hyena whimpered in pain as one of its hind leg swayed in the air as it hung from its body, there was only a layer of skin that was holding it from falling. But the weird thing was that the injured part of the Bloody Hyena’s body did not bleed, instead, the injured area had blood gathering on the severed leg.

Hahahhahaah

The Bloody Hyena made noise as the blood on its wounds connected its leg to the severed area as it regenerated in a very fast manner.

“Tsk, it even has a special regeneration skill”

Aeron said in annoyance, even though almost all High-Grade Beast had the skill [Regeneration] and even Low-Grade Beasts had some sort of lesser version of the skill, but the skill displayed by the Bloody Hyena was too fast to be a normal [Regeneration] skill.

Screeeech!

The Grey Eagle wanted to attack again but it suddenly collapsed, it was already fighting with all its got, using all its remaining energy to launch attacks. Unknown to Aeron, the Bloody Hyena was truly a cunning beast, it had first allowed the Grey Eagle to regenerate its wounds when the Grey Eagle first came to its territory, but when the wound was almost closed, and the Grey Eagle exhausted, it suddenly attacked. Its attack was so viscous that it tore open the almost closed wounds of the Grey Eagle, negating all the Grey Eagle’s efforts this past few days, and injuring it further.

Grrrrr!

The Bloody Hyena looked angrily at the collapsed Grey Eagle. It suddenly attacked using an aura infused [Sonic Bullet].

Booom!

The Grey Eagle was blasted off, hitting a tree sideways, it fell to the ground motionless as its wing fell limped, blanketing its body. The Bloody Hyena stood still as it observed the Grey Eagle, it hadn’t seen the Grey Eagle used any of its aura to protect itself, the attack was sufficiently fatal, especially to a dying beast.

Grrrr

It suddenly turned its gaze to its subordinates but the Monkeys were nowhere to be seen. There was only a small number of Hyenas left from its large group as it used most of them to attack the Grey Eagle. There was actually a reason why it became impulsive enough to attack the silver monkey while it was fighting the Grey Eagle. The Hyenas it used to attack the Grey Eagle were the older members of its pack, the younger hyenas were left as its future army, these hyenas were personally chosen by it, and almost half of them had the potential to evolve into a High-Grade Beast, also all of them was its offspring. But the outrageous monkeys killed a lot of them off while it was distracted, making it angry enough to commit a huge mistake.

Hahahhaha

It howled in its unique hyena howl as it felt itself weaken from the energy consumption, the anger from losing its pack, and the happiness from killing a beast much more powerful than it, emanated from its howl.

Three [Blood Substitution], and two were consecutively used took out almost half of its mana, it was a Demon Beast to start with and had lesser mana than that of a Magic Beast. But what truly made it exhausted was the [Blood Regeneration] that it used, the skill was different as it could instantly recover an injury as long as the Bloody Hyena was alive, but it would weaken its own blood, the skill used mana and the life energy from itself which was very hard to recover.

The Bloody Hyena looked at the unmoving Grey Eagle, this was its prize, when it was finished devouring this high-level beast, then it would become stronger, much stronger than it was now. The Bloody Hyena excitedly walked at the fallen beast, this was its prey, a higher level beast became its prey. Its crazed eyes glowed red as it neared the Grey Eagle.

‘Damn!’

Aeron cursed internally as he saw the Hyena making its way towards the Grey Eagle, when he saw the Grey Eagle fall, a sudden sadness enveloped his heart, he was helpless when dealing with the Bloody Hyena. True, it was illogical for him to feel such grief when he had only seen the Grey Eagle twice and the first time was even in a deadly encounter. But the sound that he heard, the scene that he saw, such eyes stirred something within him.

Unlike the Bloody Hyena which as he had seen, was inflicted with greed and cruelty. The Grey Eagle that he saw, was filled with emotions of a mother, its eyes were filled with warmth, love, and sadness, even though its nature was that of pride, it was still able to let go of its pride, just so it could give its child a chance to live, its eyes reminded him of his mother’s eyes, although his memory of his original mother was that of a blur, there were still some memories where he saw her eyes, those eyes were filled with warmth and unconditional love.

A tear suddenly fell from Aeron’s eyes as he saw the Bloody Hyena standing in front of the Grey Eagle, truth be told, even if he heard another beast scream of sadness and grief, he probably wouldn’t come back and try to help it. But when he heard the Grey Eagle screech, there wasn’t just sadness and grief, instead he heard a plea for help. It was unknown to him whether he could truly hear the beast cry for help or whether it was just a figment of his imagination, but the voice he heard struck him enough for him to go back.

‘No no no no’

Aeron screamed internally as he saw the Bloody Hyena lower its head. He felt time slow down as he saw the massive jaws go down towards the Grey Eagles neck, and he snapped.

“NOOOO!”

Aeron screamed at the top of his lungs but it was already too late when he realized his mistake. The Bloody Hyena looked at him from afar, the menace it exuded was directly focused at Aeron, Aeron almost felt his soul leave when the Bloody Hyena stared at him. Aeron’s body was locked in place from fear, this was a beast that had lived and hunted for hundreds of years, it was even more brutal and cruel than beasts much stronger than it was, Aeron who had just started his journey, was nothing compared to it.

Its jaws slowly opened, as it slowly activated its skill instead of blasting it as quickly as it could. It had once killed a number of humans in the past, and it had instantly recognized that Aeron was a human, killing a human was one of its favorites in the past, it was consumed with ecstasy when it felt the fear and despair that humans showed before their death.

But this was the second mistake it committed.

Slash!

The motionless Grey Eagle suddenly opened its wings, one of its talons sprung beneath it, this was the skill it had used on Aeron in the past and threatened Aeron’s life, but this time, it saved Aeron instead.

Siiik!

The Bloody Hyena was able to react, but it lacked the mana to activate its skill so it leapt out of the way instead, two of the wind blades missed, but one was able to cut the Bloody Hyena in half.

Whimper

It was only able to whimper as two parts of its body fell on the ground.

Screeeeeech!

The Grey Eagle screeched to the sky before it gazed at Aeron with gratitude, Aeron was too far to see it but he felt it again.

“Thank you”

Aeron heard it clearly this time, the first one he could dismiss as a figment imagination, but this time was different. Aeron wanted to reply, but he was still frozen in place not knowing what to do. He saw the Grey Eagle slumped down, this time its death wasn’t fake, it had held on to allow itself to attack one last time. It had even planned to attack after the Bloody Hyena bit it, but Aeron’s shout disrupted its plan. However, Aeron’s shout still gave the Grey Eagle one last opportunity to release its attack.

This Bloody Hyena was one of the smartest beast’s inside the whole forest, it was probably one of the smartest in comparison to most beasts on its level, but this time the exhaustion, the anger from losing the majority of its pack, as well as the ecstasy from killing a higher leveled beast muddled its senses. If it were in its normal senses then it would’ve been able to detect that the mana that should’ve gone towards it after killing another beast had not been received by it.

“Arthur go and check the Bloody Hyena, kill it if it’s still alive”

Aeron said as he summoned Arthur and the silver monkeys back, he had immediately unsummoned them when he saw the Grey Eagle get blasted by the Bloody Hyena. He asked Arthur to check as he didn’t know whether the Bloody Hyena had any other tricks that could save its life, and even if it had, it should be too weak to fight again.

“Sigh”

Aeron sighed, this whole time he was utterly useless, this was the reality he was currently trapped in, a whole rollercoaster of events made him tired deep inside.

“Haaa, luckily there’s only two of them”

Aeron said, he wanted to go down and check the corpses himself, but he knew that he wouldn’t be able to react if the Bloody Hyena had some sort of way to attack even though it was cut in half or it might even be alive even in its state. And Aeron was right about suspecting the survival of the Bloody Hyena, although it was cut in half, the Bloody Hyena was still not dead, but Aeron was wrong about something, that there were only two High-Grade Beast in the area.

“InteressSSSssting”

Aeron suddenly heard another voice, he looked around but saw no one.

Meanwhile in the City of Una

“Young Master, the Governor has announced that he will relinquish his position and leave the city”

A shadow suddenly spoke beside a young man.

“Sigh, so the Wolf King really survived, I still had half a doubt to whether it survived the pursuit or not”

Gerard said as he thought about his next move. After his uncle told him that there was someone who tried to kill the young Wolf King, he knew that the governor would be forced to send his people and truly kill the Wolf King. This was an obvious choice because if the wolf king survived and grew into an adult wolf king, with its grudge against humans, then even if the City of Una could survive for a number of years, it would still be destroyed at some point in time. Even if the governor wanted to fight himself to defend his city, he was still bound through some unknown rules, if he fought then the other side might send Transcendants too, and the Governor had no doubt that the Endless Forest had a wolf type Transcendant in its midst.

“I guess this is the only way that the city would have any chance of survival”

Gerard said to his people, if there were no Transcendant in the city, then the beasts side would never send another Transcendant, unless it was a personal grudge, and even if the wolf king had a grudge against the humans, it would still be below its pride to send a Transcendant against the city. In the first place, there was actually only a very small chance for the wolf king to target the City of Una, hence the Governor just restrained others from going into the Endless Forest.