Chapter 50: Death stalker

Caelus looked around the barren forest.

He scanned the ground, the trees, and what little undergrowth survived between the roots. Most of the plants were poisonous. He could recognize enough of them from appearance alone to know which ones were worth avoiding.

The berries on nearby bushes looked tempting, but he recognized them as deadly. The fruits hanging from the trees were equally unsafe.

A few were harmless-looking enough to be dangerous for exactly that reason. He had written creatures and hazards into the novel with far more detail than the island’s plant life. His memory could tell him what to distrust more easily than what to trust.

He gathered several samples anyway. Poisonous plants, poisonous berries, and the few edible specimens he could identify with reasonable confidence all went into the Eclipse Ring’s inventory.

Some might have uses beyond killing whoever ate them, and wasting potentially useful materials was hardly his habit. For now, he only needed options.

Corrupt creatures were rarely edible, which left hunting them as a poor solution to a problem he hadn’t planned for. He would have to make do with the island’s less hostile offerings.

He ate one of the safe specimens he had kept outside the Ring. It tasted salty enough to make him reconsider his standards.

Still, it filled his stomach.

He started moving again, keeping his steps light and his breathing measured. There was no advantage in advertising his position to anything hunting nearby.

The scoring system was a problem. Candidates could not see their own scores or anyone else’s until the examination ended, which meant Caelus had no reliable way to determine the threshold for first place.

He could estimate the number of candidates, and how quickly the stronger participants could accumulate points, but none of it gave him an exact figure.

He had to gamble on the number.

The Hero was probably not the difficult part. His sense of entitlement aside, Caelus expected him to spend a considerable portion of the examination helping other candidates.

Protecting people would matter more to him than maximizing his score.

Eve was the real problem.

She was among the strongest participants on the island, possibly the strongest.

While the Hero was probably spending time helping others, Eve could already be several kills ahead. She was likely moving from one Corrupt creature to the next, taking points before most candidates had even settled into their routes.

He could not afford to spend too much time. He needed to find creatures quickly and dispatch them efficiently.

The problem was that rushing blindly would only trade one disadvantage for another. More encounters meant more points, but unnecessary injuries would slow him down later.

He adjusted his pace instead of increasing it.

An oversized nail tore past his cheek, almost splitting his skull.

He tilted his head on instinct.

The projectile buried itself in the tree behind him with a heavy thunk. Close enough for the wind of its passage to brush his cheek.

That hadn’t been a warning shot.

He summoned his blade from the Spatial Ring and spread his awareness outward.

Moisture shifted through the air around him. The movements were faint, but the disturbances were enough to give him direction.

Something was to his left.

It stood roughly two meters tall and looked almost human from a distance, if someone had starved a corpse and forced it back onto its feet.

Its stone-silver skin was riddled with holes, ribs visible beneath it. Long fingers extended from thin hands, each tipped with a needle-like nail.

The face was unmistakably deer-like.

Hollow black eyes fixed on Caelus, each containing a single red point. Its mouth stretched unnaturally wide into a grin that looked far too pleased to have found prey.

A Night Ghoul.

They were nocturnal.

Seeing one this close to dawn was unusual enough to make Caelus reassess the creature rather than dismiss the timing as coincidence. From what he could sense, it was somewhere between low C-rank and mid C-rank.

That estimate was only an estimate.

The Night Ghoul vanished before he could track its exact position.

A blur crossed the trees.

It moved from trunk to trunk with disturbing speed, producing a noise somewhere between crying and laughter. Caelus couldn’t immediately determine whether the sound was coming from its actual position or being scattered by the trees.

The creature wasn’t simply fast. It understood how to make tracking it harder.

Nails tore through the trees toward him, aimed at his head, neck, and chest.

Caelus sensed them through the disturbances in the moisture around them.

He turned his blade and knocked one aside.

KLANK---

Another struck his sword hard enough to jolt his wrist.

KLANK---

A third came from behind.

He twisted and let it pass close to his face.

The difference between sensing an attack and having time to react to it was becoming inconveniently small.

The Night Ghoul increased its speed.

The next volley came at different intervals instead of a steady rhythm, forcing Caelus to stop anticipating the timing and react to each disturbance individually. He shifted between the trees, parrying what he could and moving away from what he couldn’t.

His blade caught another nail.

The impact numbed his fingers.

A shadow dropped from above.

Caelus stepped aside, and the Night Ghoul struck the ground, making the trees around him groan before springing toward another.

That was becoming harder.

The creature had realized what he was doing. Its movements became shorter and less predictable, using the trees to break the disturbances apart before launching another volley.

One nail grazed his sleeve.

Another buried itself in the soil beside his foot.

Continuing to react would eventually put him on the defensive permanently. That was exactly where the creature wanted him.

Caelus changed tactics.

He deliberately mistimed one defense.

He allowed his next step to drag just enough and gave the Night Ghoul the angle it had been searching for.

The Night Ghoul took the bait.

It lunged, needle-tipped fingers extended, its smile widening.

Caelus smirked and twisted his torso at the last possible moment.

Tier-one spell: Water Sheathe.

A magic circle formed over the blade as the compressed Water Blade settled along its edge.

He cut from the shoulder down.

The sword passed through the limb with surprising ease.

The water edge flickered during the turn.

The Night Ghoul screamed.

The sound tore through the forest as it stumbled backward, then dropped onto all three remaining limbs and vanished between the trees.

It was creating distance.

Caelus’s eyes narrowed.

Wounded or not, the thing was still thinking like a hunter.

Caelus raised one hand, forming a gun shape with his fingers.

A magic circle appeared.

He fired.

The Water Bullet spun so rapidly that it tore through the air with a sharp hiss.

Tier-one water spell: Death Stalker.

The Night Ghoul turned sharply between the trees.

The bullet turned with it.

Caelus watched the projectile curve toward the blood leaking from the severed limb.

The modification was simple. A small embedded circle and glyph gave the Water Bullet something to follow.

Moisture made an excellent target.

Against an uninjured opponent, the spell would be far less reliable. A bleeding enemy trying to escape was a different matter.

The Night Ghoul darted between the trees, changing direction sharply and using the trunks to break its path.

The bullet followed anyway.

The creature accelerated.

Death Stalker stayed on the blood trail.

Caelus fired two more.

The first caught up with the wounded arm.

The Night Ghoul twisted violently, trying to force the projectile into a tree. It almost worked.

Almost.

The bullet curved around the trunk and buried itself into the existing wound.

The creature screeched and staggered.

The second shot tore through its shoulder.

It attempted another change in direction, but the last bullet struck its neck and drove it into the side of a tree.

The Night Ghoul crashed against a tree and dropped hard.

One hand clawed at the ground as it tried to stand.

It managed half a step before collapsing again.

Caelus approached carefully.

The Night Ghoul’s fingers twitched against the ground.

He looked down at it and stomped on its head.

CRACK—

It stopped moving.

He cut open its ribs and retrieved the creature’s Soul Core. The core was warm in his palm, pulsing with residual energy. He secured it and continued.

Water Sheathe had performed well enough. The cut itself was clean, but the instability during the turn remained a problem. He’d need to correct that before relying on the spell against something faster or stronger.

Death Stalker had worked almost exactly as intended.

It wasn’t a powerful spell.

Give it a wounded target and enough blood to follow, and escaping became considerably more difficult. Against a healthy opponent, its value would drop sharply.

The Night Ghoul had been more troublesome than its rank suggested.

Its speed was obvious. Its adaptability was the real issue.

It had noticed his moisture sense, changed its attack pattern, and nearly turned the fight into a contest of reactions.

But compared to fighting Eve and Elysia, this was a walk in the park.

Caelus turned and continued through the island.

One kill was secured.

Eve was probably already ahead.

He needed more.