'That… stinks.'
The familiar stench of blood invaded Sunny's nostrils, assaulting him in heavy concentrations. His nose… felt excessively sensitive, like he was one of those hounds from the Nightmare Gate.
He was in the middle of a large, overgrown forest, with mysterious fauna wrapping around trees and rocks. The first thing that came into his vision, was the pile of human corpses that littered the path before him. They were being feasted on by a pack of ferocious black wolves.
Immediately, Sunny's senses attuned to his situation and surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that he was holding a spear, and had a wooden bow and a quiver of arrows strapped along is back. The second thing he realized was that all his senses had been enhanced to a ridiculous degree. He could smell the hunger of the wolves, hear their heartbeats, and feel the rustling of the surrounding plant life through the earth.
Sunny could clearly see strange insects fluttering far away, like he was holding them in his hands.
The third thing… was that he had lost a sense. His Shadow Sense.
Before the black wolf pack could notice him, Sunny tried to summon the Cruel Sight… it didn't work.
'What the…?'
[By the way, you're in the body of a hunter from the Dream Realm's past, recreated through preserved genetic samples. To enhance the experience, you'll be limited to only using what's on hand. If you open your runes, you'll see a different set of Attributes and Abilities. Good luck!]
Sunny's expression soured as he felt like he should have been told all this earlier. Although he was tempted to open his runes, the wolf pack had already become alert to his presence. If he were to guess, the person who's body he was inhabiting had been dead at this point of time, so to the wolves, he miraculously revived.
It was all just guesswork, though.
'Spear, bow, dagger on my belt…'
Sunny certainly felt much weaker. Still Awakened, but not a Demon. Just a Beast.
'Good enough.'
Although he didn't know what his runes would have shown, Sunny had already figured out that he had enhanced senses, whether those were an Attribute or an Aspect Ability. So, he at least had some baseline to work with.
Sunny leisurely stepped forward, his spear pointed to the ground as he walked towards the nearest wolf. The beast immediately tensed, crouching on it's for legs as it bared it's fangs. The rest of it's kin began to surround him, trapping him in an enclosure of man-eating wolves.
Not a hint of panic appeared on his face as he casually walked towards the wolf. Completely tensed up in alarm, it prepared to lunge towards Sunny.
And the moment he took a major step forward, the black wolf pounced, it's jaws large enough to devour his torso in a single bite…
As for Sunny?
He was already running away.
Sidestepping the wolf, Sunny ran through the opening it left behind, escaping the circle of beasts. His eyes scoured the corpses littering the earth, looking for what was useful, and what wasn't.
He grappled a few objects; ropes, flasks, a hatchet and a few other things. This much would have started to weigh him down as a mundane human, but his Awakened strength and dexterity made it easy to both grab and put away the materials.
The wolves stared at him for a moment, before chasing after him.
'I'm not going to fight those things head on! I'm not crazy!'
Sunny lost his entire arsenal of Memories, and had a completely unfamiliar Aspect. He also had less Essence… but wasn't much weaker, surprisingly. It seemed like this body had an Attribute that increased his strength.
Speaking of Attributes…
Attributes: [One With Nature], [Survivalist].
Aspect: [Life Hunter].
Aspect Rank: Awakened.
Aspect Description: [You are a ruthless predator, both amongst men, and beasts.]
Aspect Abilities: [Pragmatism], [Shroud].
Glancing through the descriptions of his Attributes and Abilities, Sunny gained a general understanding.
[One With Nature] enhanced his senses, while [Survivalist] gave him a particularly robust disposition. He required less to survive.
His Aspect allowed him to calmly see the weak spots and optimal path towards victory, while also being able to camouflage himself.
Thankfully, he didn't have an unfamiliar Flaw.
With a heavy pivot, Sunny dashed behind a tree, brushing through bushes. In less than a second, the wolves were right on his track, making heavy grunting noises before freezing.
Somehow, every trace of Sunny had disappeared.
Above the pack, Sunny was testing the strength of the rope he grabbed when running away. It was actually powerful enough to withstand his Awakened might.
Must have been made of some special material.
Checking the length, Sunny tossed the rope from his perch to another tree, watching as it slung over a branch. He leaped to that branch, tying the rope around it. Then, pulling out another rope, Sunny wrapped it around another branch, before leaping to another tree to continue the process.
At some point, the wolf pack noticed that ropes were magically forming across the trees like a web, but couldn't see Sunny himself. Expending plenty of Soul Essence — he no longer had Shadow Essence in this simulated body — he kept hiding away every trace of him. He was practically undetectable.
Unfortunately, the cost of this Ability was drastic.
'Shadow Step takes less than this…'
Usually, at least. As long as he wasn't teleporting across long distances, his Essence was usually able to keep up with his usage of it.
He supposed this was the struggle of those with weaker Aspects. Someone with an Dormant Aspect might have a costly Awakened Ability, but if that Aspect was Supreme, then that Ability might be packaged with the Dormant Ability, saving plenty of Soul Essence.
Either way, Sunny was truly grateful to have a Divine Aspect. He couldn't possibly live with something like this!
Sunny looked down at the wolves, although they could probably jump high enough to get atop the trees, their sense of balance was horrible. It was a good thing, really. That meant that Sunny's plan was working.
Once the grand web of ropes was set, Sunny disabled the camouflage.
Immediately, all the wolves turned their attention towards him, catching on to his scent. They howled, barked, and clawed at the tree he was on, but didn't climb up.
With a smirk, Sunny pulled out his bow, drawing the string as he set the arrow. He wasn't very experienced with one, but he should be able to manage…
A wolf was suddenly nailed through the neck. Flying back as blood gushed from it's wound, another arrow flew into a wolf's eye. Immediately, they began to grow feverish, mindlessly rushing towards the tree Sunny sat upon.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Dynawolf.]
Sunny blinked. He was doing pretty good for a newbie.
Also, the Spell's voice was replaced with Herta's. He found that strangely funny.
Counting the total amount of wolves, Sunny found that there were more than two dozen. With a sigh, realizing that his arrows weren't enough, he pulled out a hatchet, and swung down on a branch. It was massive, the size of multiple adult humans.
But it was instantly dislodged from the tree through Sunny's Awakened strength.
Changing course due to the rope that connected it to another tree, the trajectory of the branch didn't simply drop down, but swung. A few unlucky wolves were caught in it's path, and as the massive branch hit them with devestating force, dragging them through the air, their bodies were crushed against the tree it was bound to through the rope.
Sunny was already on the move, understanding that the same trick won't work twice. Despite that, he proceeded to cut of branches to let them swing, hopefully killing the wolves along the way. None died, but a few ended up being injured.
Which was good enough.
Pulling out a flask of alcohol, he poured it over a wolf under him. As the Beast tried to shake the liquid off, Sunny was already pulling out an unlit torch. Stepping on the torch to keep it in place, Sunny pulled out his steel dagger and a flint arrow, placed them against the torch, and dragged.
On his first try, the torch lit up with flames. Nodding to himself, Sunny waited for the wolf to stay in one spot, before throwing the torch at it.
Then, it lit up in flame.
Pained howls grew distorted as the rest of the pack stayed cautious, moving away from the pyre. The burning wolf flailed around, it's silhouette dancing in the flames as it ran into it's kin… to start feasting on them?
Sunny blinked in astonishment. He had expected the wolf to set something else on fire, like the trees, but instead, it began to devour it's own. He supposed Nightmare Creatures are usually this demented.
After a few moments, Sunny smelt something strange. It was kind of like… gas?
His eyes widened, turning as he leaped through the trees. He was definitely not sticking around for what comes next.
In the next couple seconds, a massive explosion occurred amongst the wolves, incinerating them all, which caused a chain reaction of more and more explosions. The blasts were deafening, and caused his ears to ring.
[You have slain an Awakened Beast, Dynawolf.]
[You have slain…]
Dynawolf. Dynamite Wolf.
'What the hell?!'
There was no way such a creature naturally appeared in nature!
After a few moments of explosions, Herta contacted him.
[Looks like you killed everything. A bummer. We wanted to see how explosive wolves could effect an ecosystem… besides just blowing it up, but that's a given.]
"I, uh…"
Sunny was speechless.
[Don't ask me. Those things aren't natural. Normal Awakened wolves would be too easy, so we added a little bit of spice. Well, you did good. The data regarding the Path spiked a bit. Two more times and you should encounter Lan. Next round, we'll send you into a battle against the Borisins.]
In the next second, Sunny's belly button felt like it was being hooked as he was pulled out.