Chapter 1460 - 939: Wild Pursuit_3

Chapter 1460: Chapter 939: Wild Pursuit_3

At last, he slipped silently to a nearby clear stream and swiftly snared a plump mountain hare with the steel wire noose trap he’d brought—skilled hands cutting its throat to bleed it, skinning and gutting it, then skewering it on a branch to roast with careful attention.

When the enticing aroma of crisped rabbit meat spread through the air, Legolas sat cross-legged by the warm fire, chewing slowly and swallowing with cool stream water, every mouthful of food turning into a rush of heat that restored his lost strength.

As night fell like spilled ink, he wrapped his Leather Armor tighter around himself and dozed lightly with his back against the icy rock wall, Spirit drawn taut like a half-drawn bowstring, keen hearing on guard for the slightest rustle of wind or grass outside the cave.

At first light of dawn, when the dim glow broke the horizon, Legolas was already bright-eyed, fully geared up.

With his Spirit well-rested, his senses grew even sharper; he sprinted along the freshly discovered clear tracks, like a venomous serpent locking onto its prey.

The footprints pointed steadily toward a stretch of towering ancient trees deep in the misty forest, a gloomier, more primeval zone.

Upon reaching a narrow pass, he chose a millennia-old spruce so wide three men would be needed to encircle it; agile as a monkey, he climbed, then used his hook-rope to swing deftly into the dense Tree Crown layer.

Nestled within the natural cover formed by the thick foliage, he lowered his profile, focused and held his breath, activating the Elf Hunter’s proud innate skill, Eagle Eye—the field of view suddenly stretched and expanded, every minute twig and leaf rendered in razor detail, as if he had drawn the entire vast, peril-ridden forest under his complete control.

At that moment, the target finally appeared.

From afar, the creature matched every single line of the notes’ description, like a living nightmare torn out of yellowed pages and hurled into reality.

Size and movement: a match.

In the leaden twilight-grey sky, a massive dark shape "glided through the forest like a phantom," over five meters from snout to tail, its shoulder height rivaling that of a burly warhorse.

It did not lumber and stomp; instead it moved with an eerily smooth sliding gait, fast enough to drag streaks of blurred afterimage through the trees, its limbs alternating to whip up a "Frenzy wind pressure"—wherever it passed, trunk-thick, tough trees were shoved by invisible giant hands, shaking violently, dead leaves and broken branches flying like rain.

When its huge feet struck ground, they "sank deep into the soil," leaving sharply defined three-toed claw marks whose span was as wide as three strides of a grown man; each heavy step made the earth’s skin quiver and left a deep impression behind.

Foot and claw traits: a match.

Its lizard-like, oversized head was studded with jagged bony knurls, and inside its maw the interlocking fangs were like a forest of serrated Dagger blades.

Passing a fallen hardwood trunk, it merely opened its jaws for a casual bite—amid a "crack" so sharp it set teeth on edge, the thick hardwood snapped on cue, the break exactly the "ferocious sawtooth shape" emphasized in the notes, wood splinters spraying out.

Head and body: a match.

Even at a distance of over a hundred meters, the scent borne on the mountain wind was suffocatingly intense—the damp mildew of rotting earth, the heavy iron-rust Metal tang, and a sharp, chemical-reagent sting from its glandular stench, three odors blended into a unique, nauseating imprint of Death.

Scent: also a match.

As its spine-bristled neck slowly rotated, a pair of icy golden slit pupils swept the surroundings like searchlights.

Its gaze was as sharp as Abyssal ice; every pause held the chilling hyper-vigilance of a top-tier predator, its patrol route complex and winding, far beyond a mere core territory—perfectly aligning with what the notes had deduced.

Legolas held his breath, fingertips unconsciously stroking the smooth feathers at the end of the arrow fletching.

The trial target of the Hunting Arrow Rule.

In the book it was marked as a creature that should exist only in the tales of ancient myth—the "Steel Predator" had finally bared its lethal fangs without reservation.

The hunt was only now truly beginning.