The Sandstorm Hawk was not going to wait. It started flapping its wings and the winds around it increased. Soon there was a cloud of sand and other matter swirling about. It wasn’t simply just a vortex, but instead if seemed to be like stream following its desires.

Then the winds turned towards Kaden who had been observing. These birds usually lived in the desert of Frika. It must have been pushed out from there by stronger beasts and eventually settled in this area within Sacronan. The sand was what is used as its main attack.

Kaden quickly jumped aside, but he came into contact with the winds for a moment. In that short moment his mana armor had suffered quite a bit of damage even if it did regenerate soon after. The wind, with the sand and rest of the matter in it, did its damage through abrasion. If he was without armor trapped inside the winds, he would be shredded apart in it.

“That sand must be mana enhanced”, Kaden surmised as he charged towards the hawk that was still standing upon its nest. “I would guess its not quickly replaced.”

Kaden released a Flame Burst to test as he got close enough and the hawk arranged the wind into a wall between them. The burst of flames pushed aside the winds a bit, but not entirely. That didn’t matter, it was a test to see what would happen to the sand. Indeed, some amount of it had melted into small droplets, in other words kind of glass, that were far more difficult to control.

There was no reason to try push through the hawk’s defenses yet. Kaden was happy with the result.

“I can force it to direct combat”, Kaden thought. He would only need to destroy enough of the sand that the Sandstorm Hawk would not be able to use the attack from which it got its name from.

The hawk was not a fool anymore at its level. It realized immediately what Kaden had done and it was enraged. It had spent a long time gathering that sand and infusing its mana in it. Now it was being destroyed by its opponent! It started launching wind blades toward Kaden!

These were something he could directly block.

“I will just let it waste its sand and get tired”, Kaden decided his battle plan for the time being as he struck down each wind blade that would othewise hit him. “Time for another test.”

Kaden was not intending to fight passively all the time. The Sandstorm Hawk would surely notice something wrong sooner or later. Kaden prefered later.

He charged up Fire Beam and shot it at the hawk. It quickly diverted the winds to block it, but some of it got through anyway. The beam also left behind quite a bit of molten glass. Some of the hawk’s feather had burned black, but it had avoided any cripling wounds. It screeched and attacked Kaden directly!

Problem was that it dragged along its winds. This made it very difficult to actually land any strikes. Kaden needed to get close by releasing lots of fire around him, strike and then back out. Even doing so caused some of the molten glass droplets to fall on him. They did burn slightly, but were mostly on his armor. Some of the sand even got through so he could not stay close range for long.

Eventually Kaden noticed that the hawk did not like to follow him further out as he retreated again.

Kaden sneered.

“That dumb bird shouldn’t even live here”, he realized. “It has somehow gathered all that sand, but its all in the pile and it can’t move away from it easily. This place is not a desert with unlimited amount of sand to use.”

This was the reason why a bird type beast was not flying. Its power would diminish, if it didn’t have access to its weapon.

Kaden then started to bombard the pile from distance with fire balls. Whatever attacks the hawk sent his way were easily avoided and even blocked. Their power diminished quickly, if the hawk was not nearby.

The Sandstorm Hawk could not stand by and let Kaden just keep attacking while it did nothing. It finally decided to rush out and not rely on its sand too much. Finally Kaden and the hawk collided in actual melee combat.

Its not like hawk was defenseless without its sand. It was perfectly capable of using wind mana to fight. All the same, Kaden used fire to fight back. Wind and fire generally mix very well, so the area started to turn into a charred fire storm.

The bird might be dumb, but it was still not a weakling. As he was trading blows with it, Kaden felt, if he had fought it somewhere like a desert, he would have had much harsher fight in his hands. Still, as it was, the Sandstorm Hawk was already being slowly whitled down. Kaden himself was tanking hits mostly by blocking or letting his armor soak the damage.

As it happens, the hawk finally decided it was not going to win. It then started flapping its wings, causing blasts of air to push Kaden away while it tried to get up and fly away.

“No you don’t!” Kaden shouted. He had been expecting this for a while, but even so, he didn’t have a really efficient way to stop it either. Perhaps, if he had the time, he could have constructed a formation, but in mid combat, he basically could concentrate enough to create formations that would work against Channel Opening or Dire Beasts. Those would not do much to the Sandstorm Hawk. Still, Kaden had his plans.

The Sandstorm Hawk was somewhat injured so it would not be able to do too quick movements in the air. Additionally Kaden was bombarding it with fire balls and it had to block those too. He hoped the constant attacks would stop it.

The hawk was really angry about the situation and started to shoot back wind blades. While Kaden was dealing with them, it finally got in the air with help if its winds. It started to fly away. The flight was pretty shaky, though.

Kaden cursed and followed behind. His mind told him that he should fly after it, but those instincts didn’t account for the fact that he did not have wings of his own!

Still, if he could help it, he wouldn’t let the hawk escape.

As he charged after the Sandstorm Hawk, Kaden still kept shooting fireballs towards it. There were very few spells he could reliably suppress it with. Even so it was slowly getting further away at every passing moment.

It was good at dodging the fire balls coming at it, but one of its wings was injured during the fight earlier and each time it dodged to that direction, its flight sagged a bit. Kaden noted this and shot a series of fire balls to its other side to force it use that wing.

It moved just to the side the way Kaden had predicted. This was his chance! Probably the last one! Just as the hawk was diffuculties adjusting its movements, Kaden used Fire Beam!

*CHOOM*

The beam was a hit!

It directly pierced through the wounded wing and the hawk screeched in pain as it started to fall down uncontrollably. It finally crashed through some trees and Kaden quickly followed it.

Kaden found it lying down and trying to get up. It was in pain and was not able to fly away again. Without giving it a chance to do anything, Kaden leaped at it and basically started tearing it apart. If there had been even a slightest chance that it could have got up again, now it was gone.

“You made the mistake of killing some people you shouldn’t have”, Kaden said to it as he as tearing away its other wing. He wasn’t sure, if it understood, but he said it anyway. “If beast gods are different from human gods, perhaps there is another life for you. Don’t make the mistake again.”

The hawk gave some quiet, yet pained screeches as Kaden stopped for a moment after he had crippled the bird.

Kaden stared it in the eyes and it stared him back. Then he raised his hand and charged yet another Fire Beam towards its head.

*CHOOoooooom*

Instead of a quick blast, he kept it going as long as he could. Kaden literally bored a hole through the hawk’s head with it.

It was done.

Kaden released a victorious screech with his intent as winner across the forest. All beasts there would know who was the ruler now. Not that he inteded to stay there for long.

The main thing was done. The Sandstorm Hawk had offended him those years ago. For a time he might have let it go, but there was no reason to do so after all once his desires became clearer. The weaker beasts it had ordered around would need to be dealt with too, if any were alive. He had no idea which, but he was now ruler of the area and once he decided what to do, he would get them too somehow.

Kaden then tore open the body with his talons and dug in. Then he pulled out the core, a high beast core!

For a moment Kaden pondered, if he should absorb it immediately. The hawk was probably mainly wind type and he could use that type of mana too, even if he had not yet really concentrated on it much.

Eventually he decided to put the core away. He wanted to give a good look at a high beast core. He had not seen one with his own eyes before. Not to mention it was of different type than his and he wanted to examine any potential differences before using it.

There was still one more thing to do. Kaden burned the hawk’s remains and then started eating.

“Truly, high beast meat it much better”, Kaden thought to himself as he munched on it. “I should try eating some Formation stage humans too. Not with Devour. I wonder, if they taste as good.”

He wasn’t exactly sure why he had decided not to eat people directly. It had been probably some remaining humanity that had told him not to do so, but Kaden didn’t exactly feel like he was human. Why should he feel concerned about such matters? Human meat was still meat, yes? Kaden didn’t feel it was cannibalism.

That humanity he still had was starting to feel like a handicap. It made him act in ways that could be considered weakness. Still, he didn’t think humanity was something he would discard entirely. Humans sure did quite a few things better than beasts. The opposite was also true. He would ponder on the matter more.

As for eating, Devour was still very useful since it did other things than just eating meat normally, but perhaps he could give a taste of actual meat occassionally.

Once Kaden had his fill, he stored rest of the hawk away for later consumption.

“I did go quite a bit further”, Kaden surmised as he looked around. He then pulled out the phone again and tried to see, if there was a connection.

This is time there was a connection. Sort of. Only static, though.

“I’m nearly close enough!” Kaden thought and left the area. He was looking for some higher and open spot. Then he remembered the hawk’s nest. It had pulled out all the trees and cleared everything from the area and then piled it up. “It might just be enough.”

Kaden returned to the hawk’s nest and leaped on top of it and tried again.

“Who is *kzzzh*, identify”, voice came from the phone as he attempted to connect to military channels.

The connection wasn’t perfect, but at least it worked. It was time to arrange a way back!