Duskbound

Velik wasn't expecting an audience, let alone the hunter pair from yesterday, but he'd already ambushed the elite. Too late now. Best I can do is end this quickly and disappear.

A titanic flying squirrel was a new one, but nothing surprised him anymore. Practically every flavor of animal there was had a monstrous counterpart, and in the case of things like rodents and insects, they were almost always several times bigger. Weirdly, they were always the most aggressive breed of monsters, which had made them difficult for a younger Velik to deal with.

Unchecked aggression was great against inexperienced and low level hunters, but it didn't work against Velik. He knew he was a higher level with better stats. The only thing the monster had on him was the typical insanely high amount of physical resilience all elites shared and several hundred pounds of mass.

Wind tore around the two of them, manipulated by the elite monster and threatening to steal Velik's balance with each billowing gust of dead leaves. The opening was there, a tempting target as the monster spread its paws wide and bared its chest. All Velik had to do was leap forward and thrust his spear into the monster's fur. But he knew he couldn't muster up the speed to complete the strike when fighting against a headwind so strong that it ripped branches out of the trees.

So, he didn't fight directly against it. Instead, he let it speed him on his way as the monster's paws lashed out. Crackling lines of magic trailed behind it, tracing the path its nails cut through the gale. They were too slow to catch Velik, but only because he'd moved with the screaming wind instead of against it. Any other direction would have seen him wounded, at best.

His own spear flashed forward, scoring a hit against the monster and leaving a thin trail of black blood in the air as it swept away. The squirrel-beast screeched, more in rage than in pain, and lunged forward. Its full weight slammed down where it tried to pounce on Velik, but he was already gone. Leaping high into the air, his spear whipped around like a living thing to lead his dive. Point first, it slammed down into the monster's back.

Unlike most of the monsters Velik had killed lately, this one wasn't so easy to kill. Wind tore at Velik's arms, trying to pull him off-course, and fur hard as steel resisted the tip at impact. Without his [Duskbound] strength driving the blow, he couldn't get a clean strike in. Rather than puncturing a foot of muscle and possibly crippling the squirrel, his attack dug a deep furrow in the monster.

Velik's feet barely touched fur before they were sliding sideways, but his balance was perfect. He slid off the monster, swinging his spear even as he tumbled through the air to keep it at bay, then twisted to land upright and facing his opponent. It wasted no time in pursuing him, but just like before, it couldn't catch him.

This is taking too long. If it doesn't run out of magic soon, I'm never going to get a clean shot in.

Normally, Velik would have danced around it, harrying it with precision strikes and bleeding it out, but now he wanted this thing dead so he could get away from the hunters. Without the boost granted by [Duskbound], he wasn't going to be able to simply overpower it, which meant taking a risk.

Before he could attack again, the younger of the two hunters decided to help. His bow came up, an arrow materialized out of nothing, and then he shot it into a wall of wind so strong that it was immediately ripped off-target. Velik jerked out of the way just in time to avoid being struck by the magical bolt, but he didn't have time to follow up on that.

[Spear Warden] was an amalgamation of a few different skills related to controlling the battlefield, primarily [Serpent Strike], [Bleeding Thrust], [Shepherd's Cane], and, of course, [Spear Mastery]. His style focused on executing lightning-fast attacks designed to limit a target's movement options while he drove them into a position of vulnerability, where he then left deep, weeping wounds. Blood loss indirectly killed many of the monsters Velik hunted.

Two more arrows came in from the apprentice hunter, both predictably missing their target. The older man said something to him, but Velik was too busy to pay attention to that. The arrows hadn't come close to hitting him this time, and that was all he cared about. He watched the squirrel move, studied the way it swayed with the breeze, and he grinned.

Got you, you ugly bastard.

It was controlling the wind ripping around them, but it wasn't immune to its own magic. The only difference was that it could work with the wind, speeding up its movements or at least not slowing itself down, but that meant the monster itself served as a warning to help Velik compensate for the rapidly changing direction and speed.

The arc of its swinging paw told him that he could take a long step to the right, that the wind would push him the last few inches he needed to get out of the way in one smooth movement instead of two stuttered ones. When it rose up in front of him, he knew to expect another billowing cloud of leaves that filled the air and blocked his vision, and he was already shifting out of the way to slash his spear at its leg.

That didn't mean he wasn't still fighting against the elite monster's magic to deliver his blows, nor was he capable of casually slicing through its thick fur. Worse, whenever he tried to get out from directly in front of it, that long tail lashed out, proving that the thick, bony knobs on its length weren't decorative.

This would be so much easier in twelve hours. At least it's ignoring those other two. I'm not sure I could stop something this big if it decides to go after one of them.

Of course, that was the exact moment an arrow suddenly sprouted from its eye.

* * *

He figured it out, Torwin thought as he watched the kid with the spear dance around a monster five times his size. Gale winds cut through the field, throwing wood, leaves, and dust everywhere, as well as spoiling Jensen's aim. A few of the arrows had come close to hitting the new hunter, but the boy had the presence of mind to dodge out of the way.

Unlike the spear wielder, Jensen hadn't realized that he could read the sudden changes in wind direction by watching the monster's movements. Until he figured that out and compensated properly, the only way he was going to land a shot was through blind luck.

"This is impossible," his apprentice growled. "That thing's magic is a hard counter to us. We need to retreat."

"And abandon that boy?" Torwin asked scathingly, not that he truly thought the kid needed help. Unless he made a drastic mistake, the fight was his to win. It'd be a slog, but he'd wear the monster down with a thousand cuts and claim victory.

"I'm sure he knew the risks of venturing out here on his own. I can try to cover him if he retreats, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen."

"Jensen, you can't just abandon someone in danger out in the wilderness. That's not what a [Ranger] does."

"What am I supposed to do then?" Jensen demanded. He raised his bow and fired another arrow, barely even making a token effort to aim as the wind swept it away. "Should I run in there and jump around like a lunatic with him?"

Sighing, Torwin lifted his own bow and pulled an arrow from his quiver. Unlike his apprentice, neither of his weapons were system-crafted. They were enchanted by a guild [Enchanter], and had cost him quite a pile of decarmas, but Jensen's own equipment was obviously superior. Both of them knew that.

Torwin sighted down his target, read the ever-shifting wind in the elite monster's movements, and shifted his bow slightly off to the side. Wordlessly, he let the shaft fly loose. They watched together as it twisted, blown off a straight course by a stream of wind that sped up the monster's lunging strike, only to land directly in the squirrel-beast's eye.

"What the fu—" Jensen sputtered.

"You could do the same," Torwin told him.

"Sure, if I had your stats."

"Stats are a tool. They're worthless if you don't learn how to use them properly. Look at that boy. Look at the way he moves. He's not faster than that monster, not with its wind controlling skill slowing him down, but it hasn't hit him even once. Do you think that boy has my stats?"

Jensen scowled down at his bow, then grit his teeth and lifted it back up. Another arrow formed, but he didn't get a chance to shoot it. The boy with the spear had taken advantage of the monster's injury, stepped into its blind spot, and leaped ten feet straight up to drive his spear through the bottom of its chin.

Did the shaft just curve slightly to get around the monster's paw?

However the boy had done it, he'd dealt a lethal blow to the squirrel-beast. The wind abruptly cut out as the monster collapsed straight down, all but burying its killer beneath its bulk.

[You have helped slay an elite dire clubtail flying squirrel (level 22).]

Jensen sucked air in through his teeth and flinched at the sound of the impact as the corpse hit the ground. "Oh, damn. That's it for him."

"Come on, help me lift it off him. It might not be too late for a healing potion," Torwin shouted as he rushed forward, only to skid to a halt thirty feet from the body. The boy stood up, unharmed but missing his spear, and dusted himself off. With a glance over in their direction, he snorted and ran for the trees.

"Wait!" Torwin called out to him, but the boy had already disappeared.