Chapter 732: Jungle Canines Vs Jungle Boars

Moon and the rest nodded their understanding.

Good to know. So we decide before we cross whether we’re engaging or observing. Once we’re in that clearing, the choice makes itself.

"Okay," Moon said, his voice low. "Let’s go. Stay ready. We assess when we see the field, then decide how to play it."

They advanced the final stretch, and the sounds of the battle rose around them, beast roars rolling through the trees, shrill cries splitting the unnatural quiet, the crash of heavy bodies colliding. The glow of the forest floor grew brighter ahead, the canopy thinning, the purple twilight opening up as the treeline approached.

Moon moved to the front, Honeybun and Mirage flanking him, and eased up to the edge of the cover to get his first real look at the two warring species and the battlefield they’d carved out of the twilight forest.

Moon reached the edge of the treeline and looked out over the battlefield, activating Eye of Truth on both species at once.

The clearing was chaos. Dozens of beasts locked in a brutal, sprawling melee across the open ground, claws crashing together beneath the purple dusk. On one side, the lean, dark shapes he already recognized. On the other, hulking, tusked brutes built like living battering rams.

[Jungle Canine Hunters]

[Details: Nimble, fast, and deadly pack predators that claim the shadows of the twilight jungle as their ally. Over countless generations they refined their speed and stealth above all else, shedding bulk and strength in favor of pure lethal speed. Theymove between the trees like living darkness, striking from angles the eye cannot follow. You don’t see them until they make their move, and by then, it’s usually too late.]

Moon skimmed the first entry quickly. He’d fought these already, felt their speed and their ambush instincts firsthand. Fast, fragile, deadly if they caught you unaware, it was nothing new. His attention shifted to the second species, the tusked brutes.

[Jungle Boar Warriors]

[Details: Powerful boars with immense, durable bodies, the immovable counterpart to the canines’ speed. Where the hunters refined speed, the warriors refined vitality and endurance, cultivating flesh and bone that shrug off blows that would fell lesser beasts. Their charges level everything in their path, and their thick hides turn aside all but the heaviest strikes. Slow to fall and slower to tire, they win their battles through sheer, grinding persistence, outlasting anything that cannot break them quickly.]

Moon read through it and understood the shape of the conflict instantly.

Speed versus endurance. Glass cannons against walking fortresses.

The two species were perfect opposites, and that was exactly why they were locked in a war of attrition. The Canine Hunters were faster, striking and vanishing, but their fragile bodies meant a few solid hits from a boar’s tusks or charge would end one outright. The Boar Warriors were nearly impossible to bring down, their durability shrugging off the canines’ quick strikes, but they were too slow to reliably catch the darting hunters. Neither side could decisively finish the other. The canines whittled the boars down cut by cut, while the boars crushed any canine that mistimed a strike, and the battle ground on, both sides bleeding, neither breaking.

He watched a pack of canines swarm a lone boar, tearing at its flanks, only for the boar to plant itself and gore two of them mid-swarm, the fragile hunters dying in an instant while the boar lumbered on, bleeding but alive.

Moon’s mind was already working the angles.

Two exhausted armies, evenly matched, both too committed to disengage. They’ve done half our work grinding each other down. And the moment we step into that clearing, both sides see us as a new threat, or a new opportunity.

He glanced back at his team, then out at the churning battlefield, weighing exactly how to turn two warring species into a victory that cost his team as little as possible.

Moon pulled the team back a few steps from the treeline and laid out the plan quickly, his voice low.

"Here’s how we play it. We don’t wade into the middle and let both species turn on us at once. We pick a side, wipe it fast, then mop up whatever’s left of the other while they’re still exhausted." He gestured toward the battlefield.

"The boars are the harder target due to their durability. If you go for them, target the eyes, the throat, and break their mobility, then grind them down. Their charges are the real danger, so the tank anchors and the rest work the flanks. Cian, keep everyone topped up."

Karl nodded, sizing up the two species. "My beasts and I are better against the boars, honestly. The hound can hamstring them, the hawk can blind them, and Bran can hold their charges. We’ll take that side."

"Good. Then I’ll take the canines." Moon glanced at his companions. "Everyone clear on their side?"

The team confirmed.

"Then let’s go."

They broke from the treeline, splitting into two groups, and both species spotted the newcomers at once.

Moon’s group hit the canines’ flank.

Mirage’s eyes flared purple, and its clone charged in first, a phantom steed thundering into the pack and immediately drawing a knot of Canine Hunters to it. The predators lunged at the clone, and their fangs passed through empty light as the clone dissipated, but not before it had captured their attention and pulled them into the open.

Taking advantage of the opening Mirage had created, Honeybun launched a volley of sharp crystal spears, and they tore into the gathered canines, punching through a stomach, shattering a leg, skewering a flank.

The hunters had no defense against the surprise attacks, and three went down injured in the first volley alone, their speed useless against projectiles that crossed the distance faster than they could see and dodge.

Moon watched from the sidelines, his hands crossed. If he entered the battle, it would be a waste of an important training opportunity for his two companions. It was better to watch from the side, and intervene only when necessary.

Honeybun and Mirage moved around him with the Hive coordination they’d been practicing, the real Mirage kicking a canine into the path of Honeybun’s claws. The two of them carved a widening hole through the pack.

Moon watched his Hive skill’s proficiency rise with a smile on his face.

[Hive]

[Proficiency: 27%]

’Not bad, it’s growing pretty quickly.’