Chapter 8: First Hunt (Part Four)

The dream fever brought me into a strange place. A world of white-washed nothingness. There, I stood in the middle of that endless expanse of whiteness with nothing but time and myself for company.

How long I stood there watching that blankness, I did not know. It felt like an eternity.

It was soon shattered in an instant.

Cracks. Long jagged black lines appeared out of nowhere. Not one single noise accompanied this breaking.

All was silent.

As these cracks multiplied one after another, the whole world of white-washed nothingness became a pattern of black and white lines. I, myself, stood upon a particularly large, jagged black line.

I didn’t fall down into this jagged abyss of a line. I only stood there, unmoving. A floating stillness that could not be disturbed. I could not move my arms. I could not even close my eyes. I could only watch as my white-washed world of nothingness continued to break itself down.

Then I found myself engulfed in a sea of redness. There was no particular scent, nor feeling in this sea of redness, yet I could only think of it as blood.

All was gone in a flash as I woke up inside the cave we had prepared beforehand.

I was the first one to wake up among all my infected Brothers. At the entrance of the cave, I found Brother Ronat who stood as still as stone, leaning against the wall of the cave. He gave a short nod at me.

He’s a silent one, Brother Ronat was. Even more silent than Big Bear or Big Bird. He was also the smallest and the youngest out of all of us. He had dark grey eyes that looked haunted one second, and meek the next second. His body itself projected a weakness, though he was far from weak. A strange combination, Brother Ronat was.

It was why we were so protective of him.

“How long was I out,” I asked, curious at being the first one awake.

Brother Ronat raised four fingers toward me.

“Four hours?”

He shook his head. “Four minutes.”

The surprise must have shown on my face, because Brother Ronat shrugged his shoulders. “Was hoping you could tell me yourself.” It was a long sentence, the most I had heard Brother Ronat speak all day.

I shrugged at that. “Perhaps I didn’t get as much Arachne blood in me as I previously thought.”

“Possibly,” he said after a somewhat uncomfortable silence.

I couldn’t tell what he was thinking. Perhaps it was my tone, or perhaps he was being mindful of my injuries, but he didn’t speak anymore after that.

“I will go get a breath of fresh air,” I said. He nodded. I took up my blade-spear and left the cave.

It was still late afternoon, almost night. But the faint traces of the moon’s crescent figure was already visible. I inspected my blade-spear once, twice-over. It was useful to do that after a difficult fight. A weapon, even as strongly forged as the blade-spear in my hands, could fall to the nemesis of all weapons and life—wear and tear.

I almost gasped in surprise upon my inspection. Not at my weapon, but at my body. My hands, which had been full of bruises and small cuts after the fight, were no longer injured. They looked clean. Like hands that had never seen battle before. They still sported their usual callouses, but they looked clean.

I looked down at my chest. It was also uninjured.

Now I knew why Brother Ronat did not question me after seeing me wake up so quickly, nor why he was not the littlest bit surprised at that quick dream fever of mine. He had probably seen me heal in my fever.

I bit my lips. Strange. Did my wounds healing have something to do with that dream? The Arachne’s blood? Or did it have to do with how I felt as if I was Surging last night.

I walked toward a relatively quiet spot in the forest. In the northern forests, there were no true quiet spots. There was only a relative silence.

The sound of my stomach growling only added to this relative silence. I realized that I was hungry. Ravenous, actually. I could have eaten a whole Scylla by myself at the moment.

Us Demona Hunters healed quickly. But not this quickly. Not at the rate my wounds had closed over, not even leaving any scabs. It usually took a few hours for wounds the size of a hand’s length to form scabs. It varies with each individual Hunter and the age of the Hunter, but for us, it was a few hours. For the older Hunters, it would only take them at the most two hours, perhaps even less. And that was for bigger and somewhat deeper wounds.

I put the matter out of my mind for the moment, obeying the call of my hunger.

Under the darkening reddish colored sky, under the cover of the canopies, I felt more confident than I had ever felt before. I felt stronger. Quicker. Sharper. And keener. I felt as if I could take on a Scylla by myself easily.

Still, I didn’t let my confidence overtake me.

Overconfidence was the predator of all men and beasts, Demona and others included. A Hunter should never let overconfidence take advantage of him, Hunter would always say. It led to an early trip to the grave.

It took ten minutes at most before I tracked down a den of Brown Burrowers. By then, the late afternoon had become night.

Brown Burrowers were small furry creatures that looked like mice, only they were five times as large and more than five times as dangerous. The claws of Brown Burrowers were sharp enough to cut through the woods of the northern forests. It took at least that much to dig dens in the forests here.

The northern forests was not a kind place. Only the meanest, cleverest, and strongest creatures would survive.

Of course, like everything else, it came with a mix-bag. The Bristles we had fought this morning were prime examples. They were slightly strong creatures. Strong, but stupid. And stupidity was liable to get you killed no matter how strong you were.

Unless of course you had a strength strong enough to pierce the skies and the heavens. Then you could be stupid however you want.

Some dragons, I had heard stories from the travelers that came from the western highlands which was located past the Mira Swamp, were just plain stupid. But they had the strength to back up their stupidity. The advice in that story was, in short: don’t mess with a dragon.

The den of Brown Burrowers was hidden cleverly between yellow-green grasses that had grown over the hole. I saw through it easily.

It was a family of five Brown Burrowers.

I killed them all. Then I drank their blood and ate their flesh raw.

They couldn’t even put up a fight. Each swing of my blade-spear found its target, easily killing the creature.

Did I felt sad? Or perhaps even pity? I didn’t know the answers to that. I left the philosophizing behind in the dirt that night as my blood boiled with a living fire, which was begging to be let out.

Even after eating them all, and drinking their blood, my stomach was not satisfied. I had an ache for bigger prey. I wiped the blood from my face and started to look for more tracks.

Drinking blood is a messy business, let me tell you; especially when it is drunk straight from a still-warm body.

That night, I went around hunting to my utmost limits, only going back to the cave when I had my fill. It was an impossible night. I had probably drank more blood and ate more flesh that I could in a week’s worth of time.

By the time I returned, all six of my Brothers were wide awake and sitting around a small fire, digging into their own hunted preys. Their wounds had already become scabs, some of them even looking as if they had completely healed.

It was a long hunt.

My Brothers nodded at my return, saying only a few comments of how I was the first one to wake up. They envied my natural healing ability. It was just that. There was no surprise on their faces. Neither could I make out any suppressed emotions.

I glanced at Brother Ronat.

He didn’t meet my eyes. He only dug into his food silently. Brother Ronat hadn’t told any of my Brothers. He had kept his silence for some reason.

I was thankful.

=========

The next day, from morning to afternoon, we tracked down a pack of creatures called the Grey Lamenters, which looked similar to wolves. Twice as large as normal wolves and twice the heads.

There were ten members in the pack, excluding the three-headed mutant Grey Lamenter. The mutant leader was rare, almost as rare as the purple male Arachne. In the northern forests, there were probably only a few of these packs that had the red-furred mutant leaders.

The point value of the pack of Grey Lamenters was instantly raised from twenty-five points to fifty points with the addition of the mutant leader.

Brother Big Bear was the star of the hunt. He challenged the mutant leader into a one on one duel while the rest of us dealt with the Grey Lamenters.

We finished our fights first, somewhat easily taking down all ten of the Grey Lamenters. The creatures had good teamwork, coming at us from between trees, attacking from high ground, and even grouping into random pair attacks.

But we had better teamwork. It became easier after we thinned down their numbers into seven members and after we trapped them, preventing them from utilizing their ambush and run tactics. They were agile creatures, making us work hard to catch them.

When all was said and done, we settled down to watch Brother Big Bear deal with the mutant leader. They were still in the middle of their heated fight.

None of us wanted to get between the two of them. You wouldn’t too if you had seen him.

Brother Big Bear had truly gone berserk. There were claw marks all over his chest, which he ignored as one would do to measly bugs. With his own howling, he competed with the mutant leader’s howling.

I wasn’t sure who the louder one was. And I almost thought they would have attracted the attention of every creature from miles around.

“Teats of a mother Ronat!” Leaping Fox cursed. “Sometimes, Brother Big Bear, I think you would have been better off raised by these Lamenters.”

“No wonder I couldn’t see you during some nights,” Little Bird added. “You were probably off howling to the moon with your pants down and your arse mooning the moon.” He grinned at his own words.

Grey Lamenters were widely known for howling under the moons. It was the reason why they were called Lamenters. Their howls were like lamentations under the moon.

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere near Brother Big Bear if a girlie dumps him. I fear my eardrums will shatter from his laments,” said Leaping Fox as he went to cut off the ears of a Grey Lamenter.

The howls of anger became louder, and the battle between Brother Big Bear and the mutant leader turned frantic. The mutant leader had the advantages. It was far stronger, far heavier, and far more agile than Brother Big Bear.

In the end, they weren’t enough.

The fight ended with a hack into the mutant leader’s neck which already bore many other wounds. The blade-spear dug deeply, going through half of the creature’s neck and pushing the creature, which weighed multiple times more than the Grey Lamenter, back. Of course, Brother Big Bear didn’t stop. In his battle-lust, he knew not of his limits. He only broke them.

The hack proceeded into a quick pull that turned into a small shuffling pivot on his feet, leading into an underhanded swing. A piece of the mutant leader’s jaw flew outward, landing close to where we stayed.

It took a few more pieces of flesh and fur flying before Brother Big Bear realized that the mutant leader was dead.

“Well, I for one, would not like to make him angry,” Leaping Fox said with a small laugh.

Red from his own blood and from the creature’s blood, he walked over to where we were watching, handing us the ears and tail of the mutant leader. There were numerous small claw marks and cuts all over his massive upper chest. “That was fun.” His eyes looked as if they wanted more battles.

“You do know that you took on a creature of that is almost near the Scylla’s level by yourself, right?” Little Bird said.

He shrugged his hammer-like shoulders. “Could have used a little more challenge.” His voice wasn’t arrogant. Rather, he was just stating his desire, which stemmed from his battle-loving nature. In fact, Brother Big Bear was probably the most modest out of all of us. He was also the most helpful, and the one who played with the younger children the most.

You wouldn’t think of it from looking at his massive appearance, but that was just the way Brother Big Bear was. Kind, helpful, and crazy about battles.

===========

By the fifth night since our First Hunt started, we finished gathering the three hundred required points. Now, we only needed to survive two more days and nights.

In our tracking for prey during the sixth afternoon, we discovered the tracks of a Multis Gargantuan. None of us, however, decided to track the creature down. We weren’t that confident of our abilities.

The Multis Gargantuan was the undisputed king of the northern forests. It was the largest and the most fearsome creature. We didn’t dare take on such an opponent.

Not even its bounty of 150 points could have tempted us into hunting down such an opponent. In fact, even if we had met the second king of the northern forest, who was worth about 100 points, we would have avoided the creature.

There was just that much of a disparity between the three kings.

On the seventh day of the First Hunt, we used the whole sixth night, seventh morning, and seventh afternoon to retrace our path to the location where we entered the northern forests.

The northern forests was just that big, and we had only scratched the surface in exploring such a large place even after five days of hunting.

When we came out of the forests, Hunter nodded at us, giving a rare smile that reached the usual dull amusement in his eyes.

“Good hunting, Hunters.”

There was an emphasis on that last word. A sweet musical emphasis that resounded in our ears.

We were true Hunters now.

But we had only begun to climb the mountain.

After all, a full grown Demona Hunter with his full markings could have taken on a Multis Gargantuan alone. With ease.

We banged the hilt of our blade-spears against the ground. Our training with Hunter would be over when we reached the age of ten.

There was still the various ranged arts and advanced blade-spear arts to learn. Hunter would instill these arts into us until we would most likely dream about them in our sleep.

Then, after that, we would learn about our inborn abilities, each ability different for every Demona with their various body types, though ours were the strongest. A Demona with a suitable body type to become a Hunter would be the earliest to unlock the inborn abilities and traits.

This was the reason for the womb-blood ceremony when we were just infants. It was done so that we could unlock these traits and inborn abilities.

I didn’t realize it then when I was only six years old, having completed the First Hunt, but by the age of ten, when we would have our Ritual of Age, my journey had already started straying entirely from that of my Brothers.

It would take me far away from my Piercing Moon tribe and village, and into the depths of greater civilization.