I had left the plaza. Thankfully, some other beastkin had left after the disaster. I didn’t want to stay and see the savagery that would happen. Just thinking about it made me sick to my stomach.

I said a prayer to the System, hoping that Stormy’s soul would find peace. Whoever ate her would die horribly. She had too much Mana in her flesh.

A fitting end for the beastkin savages. They had a culture, alright. A culture of insanity and cannibalism.

“Where are you going?”

A large beastkin with a sword in hand stepped out from an alley with two others. “What business is it of yours?”

“Remove your hood. There could be more elves,” he declared and brought up his sword.

“Sleep. Sleep. Sleep.”

All three beastkin collapsed to the ground asleep. It was a useful spell when I wanted to avoid killing. The scent of blood would draw attention.

I quickly left the sleeping beastkin behind, setting a fast pace for the edge of the settlement.

There were no shouts or other alarms. I wasn’t sure why that group had intercepted me, but it bodes no good. I needed to get out of this place as quickly as possible. Climbing out of the valley the settlement was residing in took time, and the air grew colder. The wind also picked up.

I would try to make it back to the dungeon entrance I had come out of. That was my hope at least.

If not, I would find an isolated location to make a dungeon entrance with another ritual. No matter what, I had to get away from these beastkin.

As I approached the top of the ridge surrounding the settlement where I had run into Gartooth, I looked back. The plaza was teeming with beastkin, and the scent of blood drifted upwards.

I shook my head.

The top of the ridge reminded me how horribly cold this place was. The wind was icy and biting. I looked a moment to orient myself towards the mountain I thought had the ice pillar.

I set off at a brisk pace. Ozy adjusted himself to move out of my clothes and onto my shoulder.

“Halt!”

This time instead of three thugs, there were five armed beastkin moving after me. They were about a minute behind. I picked up my pace. Whiteclaw had clearly betrayed me, or something had happened to have random beastkin chasing after me. Perhaps some sensory skill he didn’t tell me about that the mask hid.

“Halt, or we will attack!”

I wasn’t stopping for these guards.

While the settlement didn’t seem to have much order, those wearing the symbol of the Fox Clan on their cloaks had backing from the legends who ran the place. These five had such symbols, so I considered them guards of the settlement.

“Fireball!”

They had used a spell skill.

Ozy poked his head out, and around my cloak as I continued to run. The Fireball exploded from a burst of wind into its center. Trying to dodge such an attack was foolish. Fireballs exploded and were a great area of effect spell skill for that reason.

If someone thought they could dodge, that was how they got slightly burned, slowed down, and caught. Ozy gave me his impression of their distance from me. The beastkin were slowly catching up and didn’t appear to be getting tired.

I didn’t stop running and fought them. I hoped that if I got far enough away from the settlement, they would turn back. If not, then when it got dark, they would hesitate in their pursuit.

Ozy was ready to act, but I mentally commanded him to conserve his Mana unless they used spell skills. I adjusted my course along a ridgeline and glanced back, using a range of sensory skills and Status Analysis. They were around level 60 with about 5 to 10 tier 3 skills each. The source of thɪs content is novelꞁire.net

I didn’t have more time to parse out more information with Status Analysis. They had higher stats than me but had fewer skills and skill levels. But there were five of them. While I had Ozy, I didn’t fancy my chances.

It wasn’t just about surviving, but about not getting injured. Sure, Ozy could patch me up, but counting on his healing was a bad idea. I wasn’t worried about minor mistakes in his healing but about taking damage.

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After fighting the members of the Dark Cabal, trying to take on an injury to deal one back was stupid. One shouldn’t depend on that method of fighting. That was how people died from pure idiocy.

Also, I wasn’t wearing heavy armor. The beastkin had Alchemically processed monster parts with some steel as armor. Alchemically processed, so the stuff didn’t break down after time like most things the dungeon created besides natural treasures. It would be medium armor for two of them and light armor for the other three if I had to guess by the amount of visible steel.

That made sense, since metal would bind up in this kind of cold weather and not keep heat. By using monster hide with steel plates as inserts, they could make more effective and warmer protection, and it would be easy to fix. Fixing actual steel armor would require a trained blacksmith.

This settlement was weak, and I doubted its ability to have a craftsman with a tier 4 skill after what I had seen. There wasn’t the infrastructure for such a legacy.

While adventurers were the benchmark of strength, craftspeople were the benchmark of civilization. The beastkin clearly had a very limited and stagnant civilization. Cannibalizing their own people, show executions, and a lack of systemic effort to lift their people out of despair.

“Fireball.”

Ozy burst this one apart again, and as I moved down an icy and rocky slope, I glanced back to judge their progress myself. They had closed about half the distance that we had started at, but they were struggling. Their stamina points were running out, and they didn’t have Empowered Running.

They probably had Focused Running at best, using up more stamina. They had pushed themselves instead of pacing their efforts like I had. Probably hoping to end things sooner rather than later.

I half expected them to break off the chase as we climbed up a mountain, but they didn’t relent. I didn’t sense any other threats or the monsters that Whiteclaw had talked about.

Another glance back at the top of the mountain showed there was no one else chasing me. There wasn’t much cover out here, and if anyone wanted to keep up with my pace, they had to keep moving. Ozy didn’t notice anyone or anything else either, but he remained hidden under my cloak.

I ran across the top of the mountain. The icy wind, slamming into me. But that only slowed me down slightly. I then began descending on the other side of the mountain.

It wouldn’t be long before it was dark. Then the temperature would really drop if we weren’t in shelter. Even with my Cold Resistance, I would freeze to death during the night if I were out in the open.

Still, the beastkin kept chasing me. They were now slowly losing ground against me and were getting more worn out. If any of them had been a legend, I would have been in real trouble. They would have been able to catch up with me right away and force a fight, allowing the rest of them to reach me.

But my current pursuers weren’t legends. Each step they took after me was a step closer to their deaths. While I wasn’t killing these beastkin or making trouble, I wouldn’t let them go either. Whoever sent them would not get them back or any more information about my fighting ability.

I arrived at the cold, shaded base of the mountain before starting my ascent again. Upon reaching the summit, my intention was to engage in combat at that location. However, I had not considered the possibility of confronting the beastkin.

Adjusting your thought patterns could fool Danger Sense and other sensory skills. Most of the time it wasn’t worth the effort. The only time such things came into play was if there was a trap of some kind.

If I focused on killing my pursuers, their Danger Sense would increase, and they would suspect me of turning around to kill them. The person controlled mana mentally, and these mental vibrations and tiny bits of Mana contaminated their surroundings.

Auras weaponized this concept. Purposefully expelling Mana and then using that Mana as part of a skill. Stealth skills sought to reduce these residual traces. It was very difficult to remove them completely.

Supposedly, divination-type skills used the influence of all the Mana released, like ripples into a lake, to figure out the future. My mother told me not to worry about such skills, since they were more confusing than helpful. I hadn’t come across any, so I wasn’t sure, but they just took the concept of sensing to a greater and wider extent.

This mountain was a big one, and running was exhausting. My stamina was getting lower, but Ozy hit me with a Greater Refresh. The beastkin didn’t have such a support skill to help them out, and I could tell they were starting to really struggle in their pursuit of me.

It was tempting to run through the night, but I didn’t want to freeze to death. The beastkin had more body fur and had adapted to this environment their entire lives. While they might not have as many skills, I knew their Cold Resistance would be far higher than mine.

I passed a small plateau, turned, and quickly ran to its edge to look down at the Beastkin. They looked up at me in surprise.

“Fireball. Fireball.”

The spell partially hit three beastkin, burning portions of their armor, as they scattered.

Ozy burst out from under the hood of my cloak.

“Formation two!” one of the beastkin shouted.

“Lightning Beam!”

One of the beastkin that was rushing towards my small plateau screamed and its body locked up. Ozy dropped and hit them with a Toxic Breath in the face. The poison wouldn’t do much damage, but it would blind and disorient the beastkin.

It would take them several minutes to return to the fight, and by then it would be over. Having Ozy use a more powerful attack might have killed the beastkin, but there were four more to worry about. It was better to preserve Mana where possible.

“Fireball!”

“Ward!”

I countered the spell skill, but the point had been to provide cover. Two beastkin leaped up onto the plateau with swords in hand.

“Vibration Blade!”

I cut through both their weapons as I pushed forward, giving no quarter. One beastkin lost a hand and screamed, clutching the bleeding stump. The other tumbled back off the plateau. I noted two other beastkin quickly racing around to get behind me, but they were a bit too slow. Ozy swept down and used another Toxic Breath on the beastkin who had fallen off.

My sword lashed out and the beastkin without a hand panicked, bringing his other arm up to shield himself. He was now missing two hands and had two bleeding stumps instead.

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