It's been two days since Rei received the Snow Wyrm's soul. He had little prey, but it was and consisted of two couringas and a small boar. In fact, he could catch many more animals, but he decided that while he was satisfying his hunger with the energy from the souls, it would be better to continue moving to the area of ​​the forest where there were more animals.

Rey did not leave the soul of any of the killed animals for himself, he immediately destroyed all of them for energy. And so, the two-day journey gave its first fruits.

In front of Ray stood a gray-haired beast that he was vaguely familiar with. Digging through his memories, he realized that a similar creature had once forced him to sit up all night on a tree. Memories seemed too distant, but the insult still lurked.

Now the guy was in the form of a snake and a carcass of gray predator seemed to him just huge. However, this did not frighten Ray, rather amused him. He had already decided to kill him and get his soul, which was perfect for an open confrontation.

“But if the fangs of the snake cannot penetrate his skin, then he most likely will not let me leave, besides this wool ...”

Ray understood that the idea of killing the beast was dangerous, but he had already made up his mind and was not going to change it. Now he was about a distance 15 meters from him, but the animal has not noticed him yet. Nevertheless, the guy always tried to move as carefully as possible, not making the mistake of the snake from which he received this soul.

"The instincts and hearing of such predators must be on top, I'm sure that just like that he will not let me bite him."

Slowly, a simple but effective plan began to form in Ray's head. He did not know how hard and thick the fur of the beast was, the same was true of the skin, so it was necessary to strike at the place that was the least protected. Choosing one of the trees, the guy slowly began to crawl towards it. It was thick, almost three meters in diameter, but covered along its entire length with a dense scattering of branches.

"It will do."

Transforming into a human, Rey strode confidently out from behind the tree. This beast was smart, but still a beast, there was no need to come up with something too complicated to kill him.

As the guy had hoped, even one step on the snow-covered ground gave the predator the opportunity to detect him. When he realized that the beast was ready to make a dash towards him, he immediately hid behind a tree, shaking because of fear. It must have looked like this to a predator who had no idea who the real hunter was.

Ray listened to the heavy but quick steps of the animal. After waiting for a moment, he, grabbing one of the branches, hung on it with his whole body. A moment later, a completely white snake was already wrapped around her. Even through the trunk of a tree, Rey could dimly see the heat that radiated from the body of his prey, and he had no doubt that the huge predator was just prey.

Having reached the tree, the beast, without even looking behind it, struck with its huge paw on the other side of the trunk, hoping that the person he had noticed was still hiding there. Realizing that he was mistaken, the beast raised his head up, pulling out claws that had entered a full ten centimeters from the tree. Not having time to understand what happened, instead of its victim, the animal saw the head of a snake, which was almost half a meter from its own. He no longer had time to react, when with one throw of the kite reduced this distance.

"The poison must be released before the bite." - this truth came to Ray after the first experiment. The impact time should be as short as possible, only a small fraction of a second he should maintain such closeness with his victim, but for her this moment should be fatal. The guy did not know how ordinary snakes act when bitten, perhaps animal reflexes allow them to inject poison even in that short moment when their fangs are in the body of the victim, but Ray found just such a simple way out for himself.

He didn't have to worry about whether he had injected the poison or not, as he covered his fangs with it even before he bit. Biting through the front of the beast's muzzle, Rei pushed the body back a little, but it was still very strong and the poison could take effect with a delay.

A second later, Ray realized that he was worried in vain, the huge carcass of the animal went limp almost instantly and he fell to the ground.

“So, the closer the wound is to the head, the faster death comes.”

This observation was quite logical, because the faster the brain ceases to function, the faster the rest of the organs will fail. After waiting a few more seconds, Rei did not notice a single movement on the body of the animal, and the main confirmation of his death was the grayish soul that was slowly leaving him.

***

weighty the blow of a huge paw broke a small tree in half. Rey had almost no problems in possession of the body of a predator, which was called a gsarh. The powerful front paws of the beast seemed to be created for the strongest blows, and if you take into account the huge claws that were on them, then the gsarh was literally a killing machine.

Ray's expectations were once again not justified. He believed that previous experience with a four-legged body would be useful to him, but it did not help much. I had to learn to control the body from scratch, which took almost a day, but he could not run normally. The reason for this was a certain disproportion in the structure of the beast. His hind limbs, although strong, were much inferior to the front in terms of muscle mass, creating some kind of imbalance.

“Why can't I? I did not notice that when this creature ran towards me, it had problems with speed.

“So I’m doing something wrong, but I can figure it out later, one way or another, it will be more profitable to move in the body of a snake.”

Looking again at the broken tree and at his front paw, Rei was quite pleased with the new body, which was very well suited when brute strength was needed. Now he felt that he could deal with virtually all the animals he had already met in this forest.

Ray was right, the very next morning he reached the part of the forest where other animals began to appear, which only confirmed his long-standing guess:

“So the area where I spawned is shaped like a circle, plus the spawn point is right in the middle. In the west, the diversity of animals began to grow at about the same distance, which means that my appearance there is definitely not a coincidence.

He had thought about it before, but if he had doubts until now, now he was completely sure. But the answer to the question why he appeared exactly there and whether this area was like that before remained a mystery. Luckily, he didn't have to change his target to find out. The power he sought was to help him.