Free Web NovelChapter 9: Kill
"Roar!!"
The bear’s scream cut through the trees just as the sun started climbing, its first light cutting a blue line across the sky above the canopy.
Ethan was already in position. freeweɓnovēl.coɱ
The crossbow bolt left from somewhere overhead and punched straight through the center of the Red Clawed Bear’s forehead. Its body went slack instantly, all that weight dropping into Vlad’s grip like a sack of grain.
"Ahhhh!!"
Vlad lifted it.
The corpse rose into the air on the end of his spear and the notifications started coming through, one after another, faster than Ethan could really process each one before the next hit.
[You have slain a Tier 9 beast: Red Clawed Moon Bear]
[You have received a Treasured Echo]
[You have slain a Tier 9 beast: Red Clawed Moon Bear]
[You have received a Treasured Echo]
...
Five total.
Three cubs. The mother. And the one defective ordinary bear that had wandered into the wrong fight at the wrong time.
[4/15 impaled Tier 9, 50/50 impaled ordinary]
Ethan let go of the crossbow.
His knee hit the ground a second later, and he didn’t fight it. Blood ran down his arm in thin lines, courtesy of getting tossed around more than once during the fight. He dug a healing potion out of his coat and downed it in one go, grimacing slightly at the taste.
He smiled anyway.
Out here, every young summoner from the stronghold was grinding the same way, pushing themselves toward whatever edge they thought the hunter games required. Building reputations. Jockeying for position before the month was up.
Ethan had no plans to be one of them.
The politics, the showboating, none of it interested him. He wanted tier 8. That was the whole list. Get strong enough that what happened to him in his last life never happened again, and then get out of this stronghold entirely.
"Hmm."
He pushed himself back up after a moment, breathing out slow, and looked over at Vlad.
Still bloodied. Already healing fast enough that you could watch it happen if you paid attention. That was the difference an S-rank made, Ethan figured. Even half-wrecked, Vlad was operating on a different scale than anything else out here.
He walked toward the bear’s body and called the dropped items forward for a look.
One of them was a curved blade.
[Description: Red Moon Blade. This weapon is capable of causing passive bleed on its targets, forcing them to constantly bleed from the wound while slowly healing the wielder.]
"Figures." Ethan turned it over once. "Tier 9 beast, tier 9 drop."
He drew the edge across the bear’s hide, light and careless, and the skin parted easy under it, opening the carcass up for him to work.
Thirty minutes later he had everything worth taking.
Then the core surfaced.
It hovered there in front of him, glowing faint and red, the shell around it almost glassy. For ordinary beasts the core was nothing, just mush that broke down within minutes of being pulled out. Tier 9 was different. Tier 9 cores held together. Solidified into something that actually mattered.
Five thousand gold, easy, just for this one.
More than he’d made off fifty regular carcasses combined, and that haul had already felt like a fortune to him a few days ago.
"That’s one."
He waved a hand and sent the core and the rest of the materials into the ring, then stood up, holstered the crossbow, and let the moon blade fade out of existence.
He didn’t linger.
The forest swallowed him as he moved deeper, the early light barely cutting through the canopy this far in, shadows still thick enough to hide most of what lived under them.
Behind him, something shifted in the brush.
Low to the ground, careful, matching his pace step for step like it couldn’t afford to fall behind. Whatever it was, it kept its distance and kept its silence, and Ethan walked on without looking back.
