Chapter 18: The Scavenger’s Gambit

Chapter 18: Chapter 18: The Scavenger’s Gambit

Crouched low behind the earthen ridge, Eric held his breath as the ground beneath his boots shuddered under another bone-crushing impact.

*Coal, hold your position,* Eric whispered across the mental link, his eyes tracking every violent collision in the crater below. *Let them grind each other down to the bone. When they’re spent, we sweep in for a double win.*

*Caw, caw,* Coal responded in a low, resonant mental trill. His dark talons dug into the bark of an overhanging ironwood branch, his eyes locked onto the bloodshed with predatory focus.

In the cratered basin, the two behemoths tore into each other with savage, unbridled fury. Blood as dark as crude oil splattered across the crushed limestone slabs. One Gorgefiend had its left shoulder carapace completely caved in, weeping black fluid, while the other dragged a shredded, useless hind leg. Their earth-shaking roars grew hoarse, their massive, cavernous chests heaving as blood loss and exhaustion drained their vitality.

Coal shifted his grip, his wings snapping tight to dive.

*Hold,* Eric commanded firmly. *Not yet. Let them bleed.*

Suddenly, the Gorgefiend with the crushed shoulder went berserk. Driven by raw survival frenzy, it lowered its massive, calcified skull and charged forward in a suicidal ram.

*BOOM!*

The concussive collision echoed like a collapsing tower. It drove the limping fiend flat onto its back, crushing the stone beneath it. Lunging downward, the attacker snapped its cavernous maw wide, sinking its concentric rings of jagged teeth directly into the pinned monster’s throat. With several tons of dead weight bearing down, the pinned Gorgefiend thrashed weakly, its neck vertebrae groaning under the lethal pressure.

Panic spiked through Eric’s chest.

*Coal, we can’t let it finish the kill! The quest requires our last hits! Intercept now—pull it off!*

"CAAAW!"

Coal launched from the branch like a bolt of black lightning. Dropping into a supersonic dive, the crow aimed straight for the dominant fiend’s face.

*SHRED!*

Infused with shadow elemental mana, Coal’s talons tore viciously across the monster’s left eye socket, bursting the lens and spraying foul fluid.

*ROOOAAAR!*

Blinded on one side, the standing Gorgefiend howled in agony. It released its suffocating bite on the pinned monster’s throat, swinging a massive, boulder-like arm through the air to swat the flying nuisance from the sky.

Coal snapped his wings hard against the wind shear, slipping past the devastating backhand by mere inches. The sheer air displacement generated by the swing nearly sent the bird into a tailspin. Banking with razor agility, Coal circled the beast’s blind side, relentlessly dive-bombing with sharp pecks and scratching strikes to keep the enraged titan completely disoriented.

*Now!*

Vaulting the dirt ridge, Eric sprinted full speed down into the blood-slick crater.

His boots churned the loose gravel as he slid to his knees beside the pinned, dying Gorgefiend. The monster’s yellow slit eyes fluttered with fading consciousness, too paralyzed by its crushed windpipe to mount any defense.

Eric reversed his grip on the iron shortsword, braced his left palm against the flat of the pommel, and drove his entire body weight downward.

*CRUNCH!*

The honed iron blade punched through the fracture in the beast’s skull plate, severing the primary nerve stem. The dying titan gave one violent convulsion, then slumped into total stillness.

*DING.*

│ [QUEST PROGRESS: 4/5 Monsters Slain]

│ Current Status: Active

*One left.*

Eric wrenched his bloodied blade free and spun around to face the surviving Gorgefiend.

Even heavily mutilated and half-dead from its duel, the four-meter abomination was terrifying. Realizing its kill had been stolen, its remaining eye burned with pure malice. It abandoned Coal, turning its massive bulk toward Eric with a roar that rattled the loose stones across the basin.

*THUMP! THUMP!*

The titan charged.

"Coal, take the other eye!" Eric shouted, raising his round buckler and dropping his center of gravity.

Coal dive-bombed again, but the wounded beast anticipated the aerial ambush this time. It whipped its heavy skull violently to the side, its jagged brow-horn clipping Coal’s flank.

*WHACK!*

A sharp jolt of pain flared through Eric’s chest via the soul link as Coal was knocked out of the sky, tumbling awkwardly through the tall grass several meters away.

Left exposed, Eric’s survival instincts went into overdrive.

The Gorgefiend lunged, its cavernous maw snapping shut on empty air where Eric had stood a split second prior. The concussive shockwave of the missed bite threw Eric sideways, sending him rolling across the jagged shale.

Before he could regain his footing, the monster’s massive, stone-hard fist came crashing down like a falling boulder.

Eric put his round shield up in sheer desperation.

*BANG!*

The raw kinetic impact pulverized the wooden core of the buckler instantly. The steel rim collapsed inward, sending a searing shockwave through Eric’s arms that drove him down to one knee, coughing up a mouthful of copper-tasting blood.

Knowing a second strike would turn his bones to powder, Eric discarded the splintered buckler, ducked beneath the monster’s swinging arm, and lunged inward. He drove his shortsword straight into the exposed, bloody fissure in the monster’s shattered shoulder plate.

*SQUELCH!*

*GROOOOOWL!*

The beast bellowed in agony, thrashing violently. Its heavy elbow caught Eric across the ribs, launching him backward into the dirt and knocking the breath completely from his lungs.

The Gorgefiend wheeled around, raising both colossal fists to smash the grounded human into paste.

*CAAAAW!*

From the grass, a dark shadow rocketed upward.

Coal, burning on pure adrenaline despite his ruffled plumage, poured every drop of his remaining Level 4 shadow mana into his beak. The bone-white ivory tip flared with an ominous, pitch-black aura.

*THWIP—CRACK!*

Like an armor-piercing round, Coal drove his beak straight through the Gorgefiend’s remaining good eye, burying into the socket with lethal momentum.

*SKRRRRREEE!*

Completely blinded, the behemoth stumbled backward, flailing its arms wildly into the empty sky.

Gasping for air through bruised ribs, Eric pushed himself up from the dirt. He charged into the titan’s blind spot, leaped into the air, and gripped the hilt of his shortsword with both hands.

"Go down!"

With a roar that tore his throat, Eric drove the steel blade straight down into the gaping wound in the creature’s neck, using his entire falling momentum to bury the hilt to the guard.

*CRACK-SHLICK.*

The titan froze mid-stride. A deep, wet rattle bubbled from its throat, and the massive four-meter frame toppled forward like a felled tree, crashing onto the limestone floor with an earth-shattering thud.

Silence descended upon the crater, broken only by Eric’s ragged, bloody gasps as he collapsed against the dead titan’s flank.

*DING.*

│ [QUEST COMPLETED: The Hunt]

│ Objective: Slay 5 Rift Monsters within 24 Hours. (5/5)

│

│ Rewards Distributed:

│ - [Basic Gacha Ticket x1] -> Sent to [System Inventory]

│ - [Level Up x1] -> Applied directly to Host Body