Duskbound

Book 2, Chapter 2

It wasn't enough to just avoid the bull. That was easily done a few different ways. For one thing, Velik had a significantly higher physical and a class that focused on both power and agility, so it was trivial to just stay in front of the monster. He could literally outrun it as it chased him, but that wouldn't keep its attention once the rest of his team started trying to murder it.

He had to hurt it, and do it enough that any damage the rest of his worthless team did wouldn't make it decide to attack them instead. At the same time, it was a team effort, and if he outright killed it without letting anyone else do anything, he'd be failing the purpose of the exam.

Why do I want to be part of this guild again?

With a mental sigh, his spear uncurled from where he'd wrapped it around his arm and fell into his hand. One of its properties was [Shape Shifting] which he used to great effect in combat by reforming the size and shape of the spearhead, and which also made the weapon convenient to carry around when he wasn't actively using it.

For this fight, he opted to form his spear into something long and thin, with a needle tip and a razor edge. It would dig long, shallow wounds into the bull or stab deep punctures that would slowly bleed the monster out. At the same time, it would let him keep some distance. He whipped it across the bull's face, scoring a line of thick, black blood across its nose, then pivoted out of the way, pushing off his back foot as he turned to hop five feet to the side. The bull lumbered past him, its horns slashing left and right as it shook its head.

Could have just put the needle through your eye and into your brain.

Arrows started coming in, most of them piercing the bull's hide and sticking out of its backside, but none of them really hitting anything vital. Milly started shouting orders, directing the chubby guy with the bow to aim for the joints in the bull's leg, which Velik would have agreed might have been a good call if he was confident the guy could aim well enough to hit that small of a moving target.

The bull whipped around, tearing up large chunks of ground with its hooves as it skidded and started trying to regain traction to build up another charge. Velik faded backwards, not because he needed the distance, but because he didn't want to get shot in the back by an arrow once the bull got closer. At the rate things were going, the archer's quiver was going to be empty long before he accomplished anything useful.

Milly and Lesta closed in behind the bull, chasing after it while Velik did his best to run it in a circle. It honestly wasn't that hard to do, since the arrows were little more than stinging annoyances and he kept stabbing the monster in the face. It was firmly locked onto him, so much so that the two women managed to jump it seemingly without its notice.

No! Not from that side, Velik mentally cursed.

They were called split tailed bulls because, unlike the mundane animal they resembled, they had two tails that could move independently of each other. Each tail had a thick, flexible, bony ridge that made getting hit like one essentially like getting whipped by a piece of heavy chain, and the tails were easily five feet long.

Approaching the monster from the ass end was the wrong move, but since the tails weren't flailing around wildly and didn't look like much to a casual inspection, Lesta didn't seem to realize the danger. She had a knife in either hand and was running at what Velik was sure was her top speed, apparently intent on vaulting onto the monster's back despite it being twice her height.

For all it was seemingly raging out of control, Velik wasn't fooled. The monster wasn't stupid, and it had some sort of sensory feedback in those tails that helped it keep track of what was going on behind its immense bulk. The instant Lesta tried to make her jump, one of the tails whipped down and struck her face. The other lashed out at Milly, who'd aborted her own attempt to leap on it with a pair of hand axes when she'd realized the danger.

To her credit, she scrambled over to Lesta and immediately started trying to pull the woman out of danger. It might even have worked under other circumstances. Velik still had its attention firmly on him, keeping it disoriented with a dizzying array of stabs and slashes. Some of them skipped off its horns, but even that was intentional, a way for him to steer its head back and forth.

The split tailed bull didn't need a clear head to kick out with its back feet. It leaned forward, putting weight on its front legs, and Velik yelled, "Back kick!" just as it started to activate the skill that would lend extra power to those limbs. A normal kick would have been bad enough with those hooves that could easily kick through an inch-thick plate of steel, but with it using a skill, there were good odds someone behind it was about to die.

He could see the two women under the bull's chest, and it wasn't hard to picture Milly taking a kick to the head as she bent down to pull Lesta clear. Her skull would be shattered into fragments that splattered the field, resulting in her instant death. Velik couldn't allow that. Not only would it be a completely senseless death, but he'd fail the exam if Milly died.

If he'd been under the effects of [Duskbound], he could have circled the monster in time to save the women, but that was a secret he was keeping to himself. His mental was high enough that nobody had been able to catch him with an [Identify] anyway, so other than the branch's guild master and Torwin, no one knew he wasn't fully human. He was strong enough during the day to not need the boost to his abilities dusk brought him anyway.

That wasn't to say he couldn't tap into it. At great cost, he'd commissioned a ring called Twilight Bond that had one single enchantment: [Darkness]. For a minute, he could simulate the conditions that gave him access to [Duskbound], something he'd tested and confirmed. After that, the ring would need to recharge before he could use it again.

Enjoy new chapters from empire

But that circled right back to people learning things about him he didn't want to share. They already knew his physical was significantly higher than anyone else's, so using that wouldn't be revealing much. It was probable that no one realized exactly how far he outclassed them, but he didn't have another choice.

[Shapeshifting] widened his spear's tip from a needle point to a thick, cutting edge. Just before the bull could kick out, he brought the weapon down on its skull, splitting the bone and slicing deep into its brain. Black blood seeped out of the crease he'd made between its horns, running down its face to dribble into the dirt.

The bull dropped straight down, landing hard on its belly and shaking the ground from the impact. Whether or not Milly could have dodged the kick was irrelevant. The threat was over.

[You have helped slay a split tailed bull (level 25).]

Velik walked around the corpse and looked down at the two women, both of whom were still breathing. Lesta was unconscious, having taken the bull's tail straight to the face, and Milly's eyes were wide in fear. Beyond her, their archer had a sickly look on his face and his last arrow held loosely on the string of his bow.

"Well, that could have gone better," Velik said, "but we're all still alive. That's got to count for something."

* * *

"You fail," Pevril told Velik – just him, specifically. The other three had already been given passes.

"How's that?" Velik asked.

They were standing in a line in front of the instructor, Milly helping support the still woozy Lesta. It had taken a few minutes to get her upright, but healing potions of dubious quality were cheap, and they were no longer in a life-or-death situation, so one had been swiftly administered to her. She'd get away without so much as a concussion or a scar.

"Your job was to keep the monster from attacking anyone else. Obviously, you didn't manage to do that."

"I'm not sure how it can be considered my fault that those two approached the backside of a monster known for attacking from the rear," Velik argued, feeling himself getting angry and doing his best to keep it under control. Pevril didn't like him, and this conversation reeked of his personal bias.

Some of the other instructors looked uncomfortable, but none of them were going to jump in to defend him against their boss, which meant Velik was on his own out here. Back at the guild hall, it might be a different story, but as far as things were concerned right now, Pevil was the ultimate arbitrator of Velik's fate.

"This isn't complicated. It's a team exam. Everybody has a job to do. Everybody but you did your job, and not only did you fail to do it, but you nearly got half your team killed with your carelessness," Pevril explained.

Must not stab guild instructor, Velik told himself.

"If you really believed they were in danger of dying, why did none of the instructors step in?" he asked. [Apex Hunter] pegged Pevril as being around level 32 or so, with a hunter type class. He was fast, but Velik knew he could put his dagger in the instructor's guts before the man could defend himself. Restraining that impulse took a lot of willpower, because it would have been ever so satisfying after month's of putting up with the man's abuse.

I am not redoing this, not because Worthless One and Worthless Two ran into melee range at precisely the wrong angle while Worthless Three emptied a whole quiver and accomplished nothing for it.

"It's not my fault they approached from the wrong side," Velik said. "I did my job perfectly, and when they screwed up, I salvaged the situation and saved them from getting hurt or worse. If anyone should be failed, it should be them."

"And the fact that you honestly seem to believe that just proves how unfit you are to be a part of this guild," Pevril sneered. "The grade is final. Fail. Now get the hell off my field."