The Tower King

"Now..." she whispered.

She released the rope.

The arrow cut through the air and lodged with deadly precision in the left flank of the Nocturnal Hunter. This time, it did not ricochet. She penetrated deeply between two ribs, snatching another cry of rage from the beast.

The shock was such that the monster tripped to the side, one of its hind legs flexing under its own weight.

Sora, breathless, lives his chance.

He staggered up, his arm numbed by the power of his previous attack. He grabbed his sword, his hands trembling, and put himself in guard.

The Hunter slowly straightened up, his mad gaze directed at him, a trickle of drool tinged with blood falling from his jaw. He growled, his breath hoarse, unsure.

He was hurt. Really hurt this time. But not yet defeated.

And Sora knew it: the worst was about to start.

The beast began to stand with difficulty, stumbling. Its breathing was irregular, almost wheezing. Blood streamed from his snout and flank, dyeing the fallen leaves beneath his paws. But his eyes... his eyes still burned with an animal rage, a murderous instinct that nothing seemed able to extinguish.

Sora clenched his teeth. He was supposed to prevent her from returning to Elwen. If he turned away from her, it would be over.

He advanced with a slow step, his gaze fixed on the Hunter.

"Come on..." he whispered, more for himself than for the other. "Look at me... It's me you want."

As if he had understood, the monster growled and straightened his head. He charged.

Sora wanted to move, but his legs didn't respond until the last moment. He narrowly dodged by throwing himself to the side, but the monster's leg lacerated his shoulder as it passed. He rolled, stood up with a cry of pain and hit blind, a wide waist towards the hindquarters of the Hunter.

Its blade bit the flesh. A bestial howl shook the trees. The beast stumbled, its hindquarters briefly drooped. But she immediately turned around, with a brutal and desperate movement, claws forward.

Sora only had time to raise his sword.

The shock sent him flying. His back violently hit a rock, his breath taken aback. He fell to his knees, panting, a dull pain spreading in his spine.

It is then that an arrow flew.

Elwen, still on the ground, his arm bloodied and his bow trembling, had taken advantage of the opening. His arrow hit the beast in the middle of his chest, an almost perfect shot. But the beast stepped back, growled... and stood upright.

"What?!" Elwen muttered, incredulous. She tried to notch a new arrow, but her right hand slipped. Blood smeared on her fingers. His grip was no longer firm enough.

The beast straightened its head, growled more raucously, and rushed.

"No!" Sora yelled.

He threw himself in front of her, brandishing his sword with both hands. The shock was brutal. The beast hit him head on, its mouth slapping a few inches from his face. They rolled together on the ground in a chaos of fangs and steel. The claws plowed the ground around him. A paw brushed against his thigh and a sharp pain pierced his muscle.

He managed to get under her, to slip his sword between her ribs, but the blade jammed halfway. Too little strength. He swore, withdrew it, retreated while crawling just far enough to avoid the sharp jaw of the Nocturnal Hunter.

"Elwen!" he screamed, again.

She had just gotten back up, vacillating, a cross arrow in her hand. She couldn't cock the bow properly.

"I... I no longer have strength..." she blew.

The Hunter turned his head towards her, sniffing weakness. He leaped. A black flash in the middle of the trees, a mass of muscles and rage.

Elwen didn't even have time to raise her bow, her gestures too slow, her forces too diminished and in this suspended moment, she knew that she wouldn't have time to step aside.

But Sora, driven by an instinct stronger than pain, fear, and exhaustion, intervened again, hitting the monster's side with what remained of his energy. The impact did not stop him, not really, but was enough to slightly deviate his trajectory, just enough for Elwen, falling aside, to escape the fangs that closed in on air, in a snap that echoed like a thunderbolt.

Sora was thrown against a tree. His head hit the bark violently, and everything shifted into a vortex of dull pain and muffled sounds. His vision blurred, the forms split, the ground seemed to rock under him as if he had been caught in a raging sea.

The Hunter grumbled again, hobbling, his sides lifted by hoarse breaths, his jaw cracking in the void with frenzied. He was on the verge of collapse, and yet he was still advancing, driven by a primitive will, a rage that refused to give up. Elwen, on the ground, extended his arm towards his last arrow fallen a little further, but his fingers slipped on the wood. Too much blood. Too many tremors.

Sora, he was struggling to stay conscious. A scarlet thread descended along his temple, warm, sticky. The taste of iron filled his mouth. He straightened with difficulty, one hand against the tree trunk, the other squeezing the handle of his sword. The monster vacillated, then leapt once more.

This time, Sora did not move. He screamed.

A wild, visceral cry. A cry that did not come from the throat but from the depths of the soul. He rushed in turn, his body screaming with pain, his mind clouded by blood and anger. He no longer thought, no longer calculated. There was only the momentum, the blade, and the certainty that if this attack failed, everything would be over.

Their bodies collided.

A monstrous, brutal impact that made the dead leaves fly all around them.

Sora planted his sword with both hands, straight into the gaping mouth of the Nocturnal Hunter. The blade crossed the flesh, broke the fangs, rose back to the palace. A jet of dark blood burst forth, splashing on his face, chest, and arms. The beast reared up in an atrocious howl, its legs beating in the air, clawing into the void. His weight carried Sora to the ground, but the young man did not let go. He thrust the blade up to the guard, his hand clenched, still screaming, his face frozen in an expression of desperate rage.

The Hunter collapsed.

A thud. A mass of flesh against the ground. Limbs convulsing again by reflex. Then nothing. Just silence. Heavy. Thick. Overwhelming.

Sora stayed there, stuck under the hot and bloody body of the monster, with his breath running out, wide-eyed. He couldn't move anymore. His muscles refused to respond. He heard a faint moan, then a hand touched his shoulder.

Elwen.

She had crawled up to him, her face pale, her lips trembling. "He is... he is dead?" she asked in a breath.

Sora tried to speak, but only a rattle came out of his throat. He closed his eyes, just for a moment. Just a second to catch his breath. Then he slightly nodded.

Elwen burst into tears. No joy. No relief. Just the nervous explosion after a terror that was too long, too violent.

They were alive.

The body of the Nocturnal Hunter lay there, enormous and grotesque, his mouth deformed by the blade still stuck across his skull. The blood flowed slowly under him, forming a viscous pool around the two young fighters. The air reeked of iron, death, sweat.

Elwen swung to the side, unable to sit still. She stared at the treetops without really seeing them. Sora, for his part, eventually extricates himself from the underside of the monster, sliding through the blood like a newborn emerging from a nightmare. He dragged himself to Elwen, collapsed next to her, his eyes fixed on the sky.

A silence. Then a hoarse whisper escaped from his slit lips. "Damn..."

Elwen sketched a broken smile. Her arm continued to bleed, she was still exhausted, but she had survived. In her village she had never known anything like this, she had never faced a creature of this kind, had never fought to survive. She didn't know how to react to that.

Sora, meanwhile, stared at the sky dotted with stars, his gaze empty... Well, not so empty.

Just after he had defeated this monster, a message appeared in front of him.

[ Congratulations The Climber Just Defeated: Nocturnal Hunter x1 ]

[ The Climber Won: +3 EPX ]

[ EXP Before The Next Level: 73 EXP ]

[ The Climber Has Won: +0.01 Vitality ]

[ Additional Reward The Climber Just Got The Skill: Bestial Sense ]

Sora remained speechless for a few moments. Not only did this fight just allow him to gain 3 EXP in one go, to increase his vitality, but the most incredible, he had just unlocked a new skill: Bestial Sense.

"Uh... I really just unlocked one of his skills? Isn't this a joke?" he thought, while catching his breath.

While he expected to receive an answer, he quickly remembered that Système0 is not the type to answer the questions he asks him.

"Can you use Scan of Skill on Bestial Sens?" he continued while keeping his gaze fixed on the treetops.

[ Affirmative. ]

[ Scan Of Skills ]

[ - Type: Passive ]

[ - Name: Bestial Sense ]

[ - Level: LV.1 ]

[ CAPABILITIES ]

[ - ]

[ ADDITIONAL INFORMATION ]

[ - The Climber More Easily Perceives The Living Presences Around Him In A Radius Of 10 Meters ]

Sora blinked. A shiver ran down his spine, not because of the cold. It was something else... From the excitement, after all he had experienced, all the creatures he had defeated, he finally recovered a second skill, he finally understood the complexity it represented to obtain only one.

At first glance, this skill may seem weak, or even useless, but in the current state of things, obtaining this skill was undoubtedly the best thing that could happen to him.

He was going to spend more than two months in a forest filled with monsters, some stronger than the Nocturnal Hunter he had just defeated, without having the slightest idea where the danger could be. But now everything was different, even in the densest forest or darkest night he could discern hostile presences. This skill could literally save his life.

"System0, how do I use my new skill?" he thought inwardly.

[ The Skill: Bestial Sense Is Already Activated ]

Not really understanding why Système0 was telling him that, he quickly focused and noticed a slight change, hidden in the back of his mind, as if camouflaged between all his thoughts: a small red dot had appeared, then a second one a few centimeters away.

Suddenly he understood; these two points represented him and Elwen, he could now feel his presence, as if a part of his body had infiltrated his consciousness, he couldn't touch it, but he felt it, like a slight pressure in the back of his mind.

However, he was extricated from his thoughts, when he felt the point move, he straightened up slightly and saw Elwen turning gently while looking in his direction, his arm bloodied.

"What are you doing staring at the sky like that?" She sighed while straightening up and sitting next to him.

"Nothing special... I was thinking." He replied, while barely catching his breath.

Elwen was looking at him in astonishment, he had hit the Nocturnal Hunter full force several times, had crashed into many trees, his head was covered with blood, he had numerous cuts all over his body and some of his fingers seemed dislocated, even broken, but yet it did not seem to show the slightest sign of pain, only fatigue.

And in a certain sense she was right, Sora didn't feel the pain too much, not because he was very resistant to it, but mainly because the adrenaline of the fight as well as the excitement of obtaining his new skill took over the pains of his body.

"You're really crazy, you know? You rushed straight at him as if you had a plan... when you had nothing, huh?" She replied, while looking him straight in the eyes.

Sora sketched a smile, then immediately grimaced feeling a sharp pain penetrate his jaw. "I had an idea... very vague." he replied, the voice hoarse.

He tried to get up, but his legs gave way under him. Elwen caught him by the skin.

"Hey, gently. You're being clever, but you're in tatters. Sit down."

He sat, leaning against the corpse of the monster he had just killed, joined by Elwen a few seconds later. The silence fell again for a moment, only disturbed by their still jerky breathing and the distant crackling of the branches.

"It was strong, this thing..." Sora whispered, patting the inert body of the Nocturnal Hunter.

Elwen nodded, then took a small translucent vial out of her bag. She drank a gulp of it, then handed the rest to Sora. "It's water. It won't help us heal, but at least one will stay hydrated thanks to that."

He grabbed the vial, his hand trembling, and drank in turn. The taste seemed different, it was probably the best sip of water he had ever drunk.

A few seconds passed.

Then, like a collapsing wall, the adrenaline suddenly left his body.

A first pain fell on his shoulder, fulgurating, as if a hammer had just struck it. Then his back threw it, his ribs seemed to tighten, his brain hammered his skull, and his fingers, which he hadn't even looked at until now, began to pulsate with pain, swollen, violaceous.

He breathed in brutally through his mouth, eyes wide open. His breath cut off. "Ah... shit."

Elwen looked at him out of the corner of his eye. "What's happening to you?"

He stared at him without moving, his teeth clenched. "I'm in pain... everywhere."

She let out a small laugh, almost mocking. "Do you only realize that now?"