Chapter 19: Vul
Even though Zac moved like a specter through the woods he couldnt always avoid fights. A barghest was lying hidden behind a few bushes, and noticed Zac before he could reroute around it.
It immediately got up and without hesitation charged upon him.
Zac waspletely unfazed by the oing beast, and circted a small amount of cosmic energy through his body down to his legs. With a quick step he avoided the beast at thest second, giving it no time to adjust. He then followed up with a vicious swing down the throat of the passing beast. The barghest would have been decapitated had it not been for the limited size of Zacs hatchet.
Instead he tore a huge gash that severed both muscles and jugrs from the top and then continued until exiting down on the bottom, resulting in the head barely staying on.
The demon continued for a few meters before copsing with a thud. Zac continued on while going over the state of the axe. By now he had killed hundreds of barghests and the recent fight barely registered in his mind, even with the power-up of the beast. Even if the barghests had be stronger, they still were the mostmon and stupid of the monsters on the ind.
The empowered Gwyllgi that focused on speed were far more annoying to deal with. He still had a hard time dealing with them without getting a cut somewhere.
When looking over the hatchet he couldnt help feeling a sour lump in his throat. The axe was in a state of disrepair with scratches all over. The head had be a full two centimeters shorter from repeated sharpening against rocks. Zac knew the only reason the weapon still somewhat held together was that it was made from a solid piece of steel. Still, the shaft had started to bend, showing the strain it had been put under.
Thebination of Zacs superhuman strength and the hardness of demon bones had slowly warped the metal. He was quite worried, as he did not know what hed do when his weapon finally broke. He would be able to buy a shop and hopefully get a weapon that way when he finally upgraded the outpost to a town. But until then there simply seemed to be no weapons on the ind.
Zac sighed and continued on his way.
He barely used any energy during the fight, only enhancing himself for a few seconds. With the help of the gathering array he would be topped off again within a minute.
Zac kept stalking through the woods like death incarnate. Anything that was foolish enough to attack him was quickly ended with a swing.
He had initially been afraid that his daily excursions would we found out by the demons, but after a few days of observation he was quite content knowing he was safe as long as he did not hunt too close to the Heralds.
Every day new monsters would appear in the woods, likely summoned through the Incursion. More astonishingly, the demons killed each other far more than Zac killed them. He had lost count of the times that he had found a demon hunkered over a corpse of the same race, feasting on its carcass. There seemed to be simply no familiar affection between the demons. That Zac was responsible for a small part of the deaths seemingly went bypletely unnoticed.
Finally he arrived at the area where he had spotted the Herald earlier. He immediately became more alert of his surroundings, not wanting to create a stir with his target so close. He soon found the target, and it wasnt hard to notice.
The Herald was huge.
<strong>[Vul, Level 45]</strong>
That was all the information that the <strong>[Eye of Discernment] </strong>gave him. Either his mastery over the skill was too low to show more information, or the skill was simply too basic.
It at least showed that its level was over twenty levels higher than his. He did not know whether Vul was its name or its race. His skill hade only showed the race when fighting the random beasts in the forest, but here it also showed a level. The system somehow made a distinction between this herald and the other demons.
He was leaning towards the theory that Vul was a name, because the monster clearly looked a lot like a barghest. If a Barghest had been supercharged. Instead of three pairs of legs it had four, with the additional being positioned closer to the hind legs.
<em>Does that mean that its a spider rather than an insect </em>Zac mused with a dark sense of humor while looking over the beast.
Vul was also farrger than its Barghest brethren. If a normal barghest could reach up to Zacs chest with its head then this monster was a full head taller than him. It was evenrger than a bear, and from its oversized muscles looked that the bear would rather be prey than apetitor.
Just like the normal demon dogs it had an oversized head with an abyssal maw, with three rows of sinister fangs lining it. With its size the monster could easily fit both Zacs head and torso in its mouth for a quick bite. The paws which looked like talon had the same three long ws attached, but on Vul they were as long as small kitchen knives.
It seemed to be the alpha of the barghest pack, although it didnt seem very interested in anything exceptzing about and eating.
Zac had observed the monster from a distance a few times thest week, and had also realized that it not only wasrger, but it was also a bit smarter. Certainly, it was still a meathead, but he had noticed some burgeoning intelligence from its actions. It luckily didnt seem overly alert, as Zac had used the <strong>[Eye of Discernment]</strong> on it without any reaction.
Perhaps only magically inclined beings such as the imps could actually notice being screened by the skill.
He knew his customary method of killing a demon dog would not work with this monster, it simply was toorge a risk. He had gotten swiped almost countless times thest month, each time having a new wound to show for it. A simr swipe from this monstrosity could instantly end him if unlucky, and he was not ready to take that chance.
He slowly eased back into the vegetation after ascertaining the Heralds position. Taking down a beast like this would take some strategy.
Zac slowly made his way a few hundred meters away where his final piece of the puzzley hidden. Luckily Vul mostly stayed in the same area except for when it went on patrols in random directions.
He finally reached his destination, a particrly lush bush that had a thick leafy crown that was roughly the same height as Zac himself. After ncing around he gingerly made his way into the bush.
Inside there were four trunks of trees, each roughly three meters long and almost as thick as his thigh. One end of the tree was sharpened into a point. They looked as if they were made to form a palisade, but the real purpose was monster hunting.
The spear he had used the first time he hunted broke on the first demon, so he had learned his lesson.
During his weeks of fighting he had found a type of tree which had a dark trunk but white-grey veins. He hadnt recognized it and had tried to cut down a branch with a swing of his hatchet, and to his surprise he found that the tree was extremely dense and hard.
Cutting down the trees to make the four supersized spears had tired him out even with his superior physique.
He gingerly dug roughly half a meter deep holes with some distance from each other, then ced the wooden stakes into them at a nted angle. He had ced them so that the spear tips were hidden within the bush at roughly 150 to 180 centimeter height. Finally he covered the holes and ced down secondary smaller stumps beneath the stakes, so that they wouldnt tip over from their own weight before they could be used.
This was the only trap he could figure out that could help in his fight against the huge beast. The only other idea he hade up with was to dig a pitfall. But he did not have the tools for the massive undertaking of digging a pitrge enough to trap and kill a monster the size of arge minivan.
He took one more nce at the bush to inspect his work. He would only get one shot at this and didnt want anything to give it away before it was toote.
Satisfied with his work, he finally turned towards the Herald and started walking.