Chapter 280: Chasing Down the Savage Creed

When Kai left the capital to head into the eastern wilderness, he was glad for multiple reasons. "Civilization" no longer felt so safe now that he'd met the demons on the prowl, he was impatient to move forward, and he was getting restless anyway. He wasn't built to sit around inns, not when he could be hunting through open fields.

His only concern was that he had to leave Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena behind. Of course they could take care of themselves, and his cooperation with Gorutiel was actually helping shield them from other demons, but it still rankled. Until they achieved the breakthroughs they'd been struggling toward, they were all vulnerable.

Given the scale of power on Rosemount, they'd still be vulnerable afterward. But at least the odds wouldn't be so stacked against them.

So far, after several days in the wilderness, he hadn't run across a single follower of the Savage Creed. He wasn't really surprised, since if they were so easy to find then Gorutiel would already have eaten one. What bothered him more was that he'd seen so few monsters. Somehow he'd reverted to his default assumptions and forgotten that the Commonwealth wasn't overrun.

Even though he thought about this space as wilderness, it was just wild, not barren. In fact, back in Goralia soil like this would have been considered good farmland, and the chakra itself would have made it valuable territory. The result was that there was plenty of foliage and he rarely got a perfect line of sight. It would have been convenient to have the diamond star, but he thought the others had more need for it. So he had to wander, searching with his raw senses.

When he finally stumbled across a monster it was almost random. Kai rounded a corner and saw a squat beast that looked like a mouth on two legs. It might have had stealth abilities, because he hadn't noticed it, but the enormous jaws certainly suggested attacking power. Since it had sensed him and started to turn, he attacked quickly to injure it before it could draw on any abilities.

His Tyrant's Claw split it into slices of meat. Kai stared in surprise as they slumped to the ground.

Since he was particularly hungry for monsters, he bent down and swallowed the remnants in one bite, but it only told him what he already knew.

Monster: Mouthbeast

Threat: II (Beta)

>

It was a Beta-ranked monster, which was basically nothing to him now. Even if he ate a hundred of them, their essence wouldn't be worth anything. Kai was so disappointed that it wrecked his mood for the rest of the day.

Because there was so much ground to cover, he shifted in an aerial ability and the Thunderbird essence just to move faster. As another day passed without anything worthwhile to hunt, he began to think about ways to finalize the Thunderbird essence even though he thought it was premature. He realized that the real threat of boredom wasn't the lack of progress, it was the potential that it might push him to advance too quickly.

But the next day he finally spotted it: a bull half the size of a house, with shining golden horns that flowed with chakra. Golden hooves sparked as they struck the ground, then it bowled over a much smaller monster until it was trampled to death. At first Kai was just impressed by the sublime beast until he thought to examine its spirit:

Beast: Golden Bull

Total Power: 192

Gold Essence: 88

Physique: E-5 (95)

Soul Level: 3 (9)

"Doesn't the Savage Creed involve taking what you want?" Kai gestured toward the golden bull's heaving sides. "I'll take everything you hunt unless you send me somewhere else."

"I'm no teacher, especially for barbarians."

Apparently Kai was still a barbarian even to a man wearing animal hides. He didn't back down, though, and he saw the hunter relent.

"Some of us meet further northeast when there's a full moon. Take this." The hunter removed a fang from somewhere in his tunic and tossed it over. "They're the ones who might train you, but there's no guarantee they'll accept. Strength alone isn't enough for the Savage Heart. You need to have the spirit for it, and most don't."

"Thanks," Kai said. He was sorely tempted to follow the Savage Creed by eating the golden bull anyway, but there was no reason to antagonize potential allies. Besides, it wasn't that strong.

He left the hunter behind, though when he glanced over his shoulder he saw that the man was kicking the golden bull back up instead of killing it. Either he wanted the chase itself, there was some sort of honor for sacred beasts, or he was just stubborn. In any case, it wasn't Kai's problem anymore.

As he moved, Kai pulled both fangs out of his spatial ring and compared them. They were slightly different shapes and ringed with different shades of paint. Part of him wondered if he could just kill some animal with similar fangs to make his own tokens, but that probably wouldn't work. He could feel different chakra in each, and given how personal chakra could be, they were likely unique.

One fang had only earned him a bare minimum of respect, but presumably two would be better. Kai could keep finding and challenging hunters, if it eventually got him the power he needed.

That night Kai was setting up for rest when he suddenly felt a dark presence. Gorutiel loomed nearby, more dangerous than any predator in the wilderness, and for a moment Kai thought he might attack.

"You need more fangs?" he asked. After thrusting a hand into some sort of spatial bag, he thrust it out with a fang necklace covered in blood. "I accidentally killed one of them and took this. Seems like they use them as ranks or something."

"Are you watching me?" Kai asked.

"Nah, can't do that. But I decided to show up and I saw you at the end there."

"Well, I think we'd better not cheat, just in case the chakra can detect it somehow." Kai showed the two fangs he'd earned. "I have two and I'll earn more. I don't think I can reach the Savage Heart in a-"

"Don't worry about it!" Gorutiel took a lunging step closer and slapped him on the shoulder. "You don't get any satisfying prey in a day or two. I could run back and eat that guy, but it'd be pointless. Nothing like that fills me anymore."

For a moment Kai wondered if he actually had more in common with demons than humans. This didn't seem like the time to ask, though. Gorutiel might be grinning, but his eyes gleamed with ominous light. His patience might not last forever, and when it ran out, the cheerfulness might vanish just as suddenly.

"Do you need anything, then?" Kai asked.

"Just checking in." Gorutiel gave him a sharp-toothed grin and then disappeared into a cloud of dark smoke. Did they have a teleporter ally, or could he do that too?

After that Kai was again alone in the wilderness, and technically another major step closer to gaining the Savage Heart. But that solitude was no longer so comforting.