Chapter 21: Something Hungry

Sigurd remained still for several seconds after the Armored Bloodfang collapsed. His breathing came hard through his nose, each breath carrying the metallic smell of blood mixed with damp earth and shattered wood.

The clearing looked nothing like it had when Osric dropped him into the forest. One tree lay broken across the ground, another had deep gouges carved through its bark, roots had been torn apart, and flattened ferns were buried beneath dirt thrown up during the fight.

Blood covered several patches of moss. Some belonged to the beast. Enough belonged to him. His left arm throbbed beneath the ruined sleeve, four deep claw marks burning whenever he moved his shoulder, but the bleeding wasn’t severe enough to stop him from using it.

Once his breathing settled, Sigurd flicked the worst of the blood from his sword, pulled a clean section from his torn coat, and carefully wiped the blade until the steel was clear again. Only then did he slide it into its sheath.

His attention returned to the corpse.

Sigurd walked toward it and stopped beside the severed head. Up close, the Bloodfang seemed even larger. Its armored body stretched across the clearing like a fallen wall of fur and muscle, and the black plates covering its shoulders were scarred from their fight.

He crouched beside the corpse, studying the wounds he had inflicted. There was the first stab behind the foreleg, several cuts along the rear leg, the massive wound from his earlier Severing Line, and finally the clean line across the neck that had ended everything.

For all his preparation, Sigurd had underestimated how difficult killing a Ferocious Beast would actually be. Reading about their physical capabilities in family records was one thing.

Standing before several hundred kilograms of muscle that could think, adapt, and tear him apart was another.

Ferocious Beasts weren’t some completely separate species born into the world. Most originated from ordinary animals that had absorbed Vis over long periods, whether naturally through environments rich in energy or through consuming plants, prey, and other materials saturated with it.

Their bodies gradually changed under that accumulation. Muscles became denser, bones hardened, senses sharpened, organs strengthened, and natural weapons such as claws, fangs, horns, or hides developed far beyond anything their ordinary counterparts possessed.

That process marked the beginning of their evolution toward something greater, but Ferocious Beasts themselves remained an intermediate existence. They possessed no Beast Core and couldn’t manipulate Vis with the structured control of more advanced creatures. What they had instead was overwhelming physical development.

A Ferocious Beast could possess bodily strength comparable to an Awakened martial practitioner, with different species emphasizing speed, defense, endurance, or raw power.

The Armored Bloodfang had made that painfully clear.

Sigurd looked at his injured arm and flexed his fingers. The movement hurt, but everything responded correctly. If those claws had landed several inches closer to his chest, the outcome could have been very different.

He had made mistakes during the fight that Osric would undoubtedly tear apart later, but he had also corrected many of them before the fight ended. His distance had improved.

He had stopped entering the beast’s reach without an exit. He had learned how it shifted its weight before turning and how the damaged rear leg affected its movement.

By the final exchange, he wasn’t simply reacting to what the Bloodfang did. He had been forcing it into situations where its available choices became predictable.

That realization pleased him more than the kill itself.

Sigurd reached toward the beast’s armored shoulder.

The instant his palm touched the fur, something changed.

He froze.

At first, the sensation was so faint that he wondered whether blood loss had made him imagine it. Something stirred deep inside his body, somewhere beyond his stomach and beneath the awareness he normally associated with his Vis Core. It wasn’t pain. It wasn’t the pressure he felt whenever he entered his Soul Sea, either.

It was hunger.

Sigurd’s brow tightened.

The sensation intensified.

His palm suddenly became warm against the Bloodfang’s corpse. Something moved beneath his hand, although the beast itself remained completely still. Sigurd focused, and his eyes widened slightly when he realized the movement wasn’t physical.

A faint current was leaving the corpse. He couldn’t see it, but he could feel it slipping from the Bloodfang and entering his body directly through his palm.

Sigurd should have pulled away.

Instead, his fingers pressed deeper into the beast’s fur.

The feeling was intoxicating.

Whatever entered him spread through his arm in a warm current before disappearing deeper into his body.

The exhaustion from the battle didn’t vanish, nor did his wounds suddenly heal, yet every instinct he possessed demanded more.

The hunger that had begun as a faint impulse sharpened until it felt ancient, vast, and completely disconnected from ordinary appetite.

For one brief instant, Sigurd’s awareness brushed against something sleeping within the darkness of his Soul Sea.

A shadow larger than mountains.

Stars scattered around an incomprehensible body.

Then the sensation deepened.

Sigurd’s breathing slowed as another trace of something left the Bloodfang.

Clap! Clap! Clap!

The sound snapped through the clearing.

Sigurd jerked his hand away from the corpse and rose immediately, his right hand moving toward his sword before he consciously recognized who was approaching.

Osric walked between the shattered roots while clapping slowly, a huge grin stretching across his face. The instructor looked entirely too pleased with himself for someone who had thrown a seven-year-old at a Ferocious Beast as a reward.

His eyes briefly passed over Sigurd’s injured arm, checking the depth of the wounds, before returning to his face.

Osric stopped several paces away and spread his arms. "Congratulations, Tenth Young Master. Your first real battle and your first kill. You even managed to keep all your limbs attached. I’d say today’s lesson went rather well."

Sigurd stared at him flatly. "You have strange standards for lessons."

Osric chuckled. "You learned more fighting that Bloodfang than you would have learned cutting wooden targets for another month. Training gives you foundations. Combat tells you whether those foundations remain when something is genuinely trying to kill you."

Sigurd couldn’t argue with that, which annoyed him slightly.

Instead, he glanced down at his ruined sleeve before looking back at Osric. "Where is my reward?"

Osric’s eyebrows rose. "You just killed your first Ferocious Beast and that’s still what you’re thinking about?"

Sigurd’s expression remained unchanged as he answered, "You promised me a reward for reaching Initial Understanding within seven days. Being teleported without warning, vomiting my breakfast, and getting clawed by an Armored Bloodfang doesn’t qualify unless your definition of gift is severely damaged."

Osric rubbed his beard while struggling not to laugh. "Fair enough. I suppose I did promise you something."

He opened his mouth to continue.

RUMBLE!

The ground moved beneath them.

Sigurd’s hand immediately returned to his sword.

Another tremor followed, stronger than the first. Pebbles bounced across exposed roots, loose leaves trembled, and somewhere deeper within the forest came the violent cracking of branches.

The enormous canopy suddenly erupted with movement.

Hundreds of birds launched into the air at once, their cries filling the forest as they fled from something approaching through the trees. Smaller animals burst from bushes and vanished in the opposite direction.

Sigurd’s eyes narrowed.

The pressure he felt now was nothing like the Bloodfang.

Whatever was coming was stronger.

Much stronger.

He turned toward Osric, expecting the instructor to finally display some concern.

Osric was smiling.

Sigurd immediately disliked that smile.

Osric looked toward the shaking trees and slowly stroked his beard. "Oh? Now that’s interesting."

The rumbling intensified.

BOOM!

Something enormous struck the ground somewhere beyond the canopy. Several trees shook from the impact, and a distant roar rolled through the forest with enough force to send another wave of birds screaming into the sky.

Sigurd drew his sword halfway from its sheath. "What did you bring here this time?"

Osric looked offended. "Why do you immediately assume this one is my fault?"

Sigurd stared at him.

Osric held the expression for two seconds before laughing. "Fine. Perhaps I’ve earned that."

Another roar echoed through the forest.

Osric’s eyes brightened as though he had suddenly remembered something amusing. Then he looked down at Sigurd and grinned. "Actually, I think I’ve found the perfect reward for you."

Sigurd’s suspicion immediately doubled. "What does that mean?"

He never received an answer.

Osric crossed the distance between them before Sigurd could react and planted one hand firmly on his shoulder.

Sigurd’s eyes widened. "Wait...."

The forest disappeared.

His stomach dropped as the world stretched into violent streaks of green, brown, and gold. Up became down, down seemed to rotate sideways, and every sense Sigurd possessed rebelled as space folded around them.

His last coherent thought was simple.

Not again.