Ruthless V5Ch42-Twelfth Night

It was twilight, the sun still below the horizon, the light still dim enough to conceal even some things right in front of one’s face.

The wind was starting to pick up. The season was changing, and a brisk breeze brought the scent of wet fur to Doppelganger’s nostrils.

He crept through the underbrush, pressing his body closer to the ground. The enemy was somewhere close.

There was a rustling twenty feet to his left, and he let out a quiet whistle, one that could easily be mistaken for a bird’s song. The rustler moved closer and responded with a quiet burbling noise. The Blood Slime’s usual audible signal.

Doppelganger and his allies were well practiced in their coordination by now. It was their twelfth night doing this.

That sound means the Pantherfolk are coming, he thought. I was starting to think nothing was going to happen tonight.

The monster waited, still and silent, half-melted into the shadows, for the creature to step into view. Doppelganger did not bother using Invisibility. He needed his fellow monsters to see him, so that they could coordinate properly.

The night was almost silent for a few seconds. Then he heard the soft padding of Pantherfolk feet on dewy grass.

Another fifteen seconds passed. Then he saw the muzzle of the Pantherfolk in the moonlight. Doppelganger waited. He could hear the other, and then he saw him.

Two Pantherfolk had entered the grove beside which Doppelganger stood, completely frozen in place, waiting. He could see them, but he was fairly certain that they could not see him.

The two Pantherfolk stood in a line for a moment, their throats almost right beside each other. Doppelganger extended his arm with the Ego Weapon his creator had sent to him, Roscuro, held outstretched. The Soul Eater Orb had already turned itself into a short sword, but now it reshaped to meet the task before it, growing longer and somewhat thinner.

The Ego Weapon could now shapeshift much more than it had been able to when Doppelganger first encountered the weapon, from the infusion of souls it had received over the subsequent weeks.

As Doppelganger was about to pounce, one Panther turned his back on the other.

“Hurry up and relieve yourself,” the one with his back turned now said. He sounded a stern but sleepy tone. “Today is going to be a long day already.”

“Yes, sir,” said the other. He shifted a loincloth out of the way. Doppelganger heard the sound of urination in the grass. Worse, he smelled it. He wrinkled his nose. That was one of the few negatives in having a fraction of the Progenitor’s powers: dealing with the Progenitor’s high Perception.

He waited there, biding his time, ignoring the sound and smell and sight of the inferior Pantherfolk. Suppressing his own bloodlust for long enough to actually make the opportunity he needed.

The soldier shook himself off into the grass, flipped his loincloth back into place, turned his head slightly, and opened his mouth to speak. The other soldier had half-turned back and also looked ready to say something, but this motion half-aligned their throats again, and Doppelganger saw the opening that he had been waiting for.

He lunged forward, the blade in hand, and he struck with the full force and speed of his single, spring-like jump.

Predator’s Strike!

The Pantherfolk had only a moment of awareness that they were under attack as he leaped through the air. Only a second to move. They were a fraction of a second too slow. Both moved, but in the same direction, backward by a few inches in the time it took Doppelganger to throw himself forward.

It was the worst way they could have maneuvered if they wanted to avoid the blow. He swung slightly, and the sword bit into both Pantherfolk’s necks.

The blade did not decapitate them. Doppelganger had learned by now that he lacked sufficient Strength to deal a lethal blow in a single hit, even using the Progenitor’s best melee attack move. The Pantherfolk simply had more levels than Doppelganger did.

But what he could do was inflict grievous, critical injuries by striking weak points with precision and force. Those were the sorts of injuries that would, even if caused by a weaker enemy, eventually result in death for an organism if it did not have the opportunity to heal itself.

The Pantherfolk naturally had no intention of allowing themselves to simply die. They turned toward Doppelganger, drew their swords—and that was when the other monsters attacked.

The slime burst out from just under their feet, a position that it had oozed into, unnoticed, while Doppelganger sprung his trap. The red, jelly-like creature leaped onto the closest Pantherfolk’s head, enveloping it and preventing him from crying out.

At the same time, the other monsters in Doppelganger’s small crew attacked the other Pantherfolk. There were three of them—a snake-like monster, a large spider creature, and a bird monster. They all attached themselves to the body of the monster closer to Doppelganger.

The Pantherfolk, suddenly struck in the legs by the snake, on the back by the spider, and on the top of his head by the bird, lost his balance and went down in a heap of flailing limbs.

Doppelganger himself swung Roscuro down at the Pantherfolk on the ground, ignoring the one dealing with the Blood Slime for now. Through trial and error, he and his fellow monsters had observed that the average Pantherfolk had no good way of dealing with the slime. Only the magic-users had any way of dealing significant damage to it during the time frame of a normal fight. In the corner of his vision, Doppelganger could see the Pantherfolk with the Blood Slime wrapped around its head, desperately and ineffectually clawing at the liquid, which simply reformed itself wherever the talons managed to clear any of it away.

Doppelganger swung his blade down, and it transformed back into the short sword version in mid-swing for more heft and a larger wound.

The blade stabbed into the same hole Doppelganger had already made in the neck, spearing clean through the left side. The Pantherfolk opened its mouth as if to cry out, but only blood spewed forth from the opening.

Almost as quickly as he had stabbed the first Pantherfolk, Doppelganger turned and struck the other. As he pivoted, the sword in his hand transformed into a short spear with a very sharply pointed spear head—the form that would have the most penetrative power. The Pantherfolk’s hand groped for the sword it had dropped in the midst of attempting to grapple with the Blood Slime, but its hand moved too slowly to save it. Far too slowly.

The spear stabbed down straight into the enemy’s chest. When it hit, Doppelganger felt the delay, the resistance, as the monster’s body battled against the spear tip.

This was the difference in levels coming back to bite him again. A human or monster body should not be capable of stopping a spear thrust, especially not from such a powerful weapon, with its back against a solid surface—in this case, the ground. But the monster had probably a dozen or more levels up on Doppelganger.

If I had not hunted on the way here, I would not stand a chance against these creatures, he thought, frustrated.

Every night had been a battle for survival, until tonight—since he had now clearly mastered the art of dealing with the standard Pantherfolk enemy. There was not a scratch on Doppelganger this time. Everything had gone perfectly.

Sure enough, after a moment’s delay, the spearhead pierced through, then slipped further in, passing through a gap in the Pantherfolk’s ribs.

Yes!

As the point pierced its heart, the creature let loose a terrible sound—it was so loud that it actually splattered the Blood Slime with its intensity, not killing it but scattering its particles over the surrounding grass. It was a sound the Pantherfolk could never have made naturally on its own. A piercing, painful scream.

It was the sound of a soul shattering.

Then the Pantherfolk’s body began to disintegrate, following what had happened to its essence.

Doppelganger felt the energy move from the area where the dead thing had lain into the Ego Weapon in his hand, but his eyes and mind were already on the next enemy, the surviving Pantherfolk. He had only a limited time now.

“Move, bird,” Doppelganger whispered.

The bird leaped slightly to the side of the Pantherfolk’s head, where it had been positioned, pecking and gouging at its eyes and head, and Doppelganger leaped in.

The Pantherfolk was trying to rise at the same moment that Doppelganger swung diagonally with his spear, and the two beings’ force came together in a complementary way—from the perspective of Doppelganger at least. Their shared force and the angle of attack pushed the Roscuro spear through the Pantherfolk’s eyehole and into its brain.

This time, the soul-piercing shriek that escaped the creature as it died was right in Doppelganger’s face, and he could not help but wince at the painful sound. The body disintegrated, he felt the energy enter Roscuro again, and he felt a bit stronger himself.

But most importantly, Doppelganger heard the sounds of the world stirring. Those Pantherfolk who had been left behind in the camp while these two went alone to relieve themselves in the woods were now awakening and moving with urgency.

That was the cost of letting Roscuro absorb the souls this time, but a deal was a deal. The Soul Eater Orb had been more than helpful thus far.

His versatility as a weapon was more than worth allowing him to make a bit of noise.

Doppelganger felt the kill notifications and a level notification wanting to pop up, but he continued to forcefully suppress them. The situation was not resolved yet. He looked around and saw nothing approaching yet.

It was good that Doppelganger and his bestial brethren were at the edge of the woods already. They had chosen this spot carefully for potential ambushes, and Doppelganger could not help but think about how differently things might have gone if he had to contend with more than two of the Patherfolk at once.

As Doppelganger stood, quietly relieved, assessing his next move, the members of his monstrous crew took decisive action. The snake creature retreated backward, into longer grass where it could hide. The spider monster darted up into a tree. The bird monster flew away. And the Blood Slime simply turned into a puddle, splashed all around where the Pantherfolk had fallen. It clearly still had control of its movements, despite having been splattered by the Pantherfolk’s death rattle. One of the many benefits of all the levels the monsters had gained out there.

And Doppelganger activated Invisibility and pressed himself flat against a nearby tree.

Knowing the enemy as he did by now, he understood he did not have enough time to truly hide. The Pantherfolk were too quick on their feet. Instead, he would use this near-perfect Stealth Skill and observe from his present position.

He stood as still as he could, making sure to continue breathing—this was not the moment to hold his breath yet—and watched and waited.

As he stood there, Doppelganger saw the slime begin absorbing the blood from the Pantherfolk—what remained of it after the creatures’ involuntary vanishing act, at least.

Then they flooded into the forest. The shadows of enemies racing across the ground in the distance before the enemies themselves came into view.

There were just three of them visible, though Doppelganger could hear that there were more coming.

They’ve started going in trios now. Clever.

Doppelganger had gotten lucky a few nights ago when, after the last time he allowed Roscuro to absorb the souls of the enemies, he had managed to corner another pair of Pantherfolk—this time, the stragglers of the crew sent to investigate the screaming.

If Doppelganger could defeat one pair of Pantherfolk, most other pairs would also be doable for him. Though the Panther Army had great diversity of forces, most of the regular foot soldiers had the same generic Skills and strengths and weaknesses—most of which were visible to him at a glance.

But it seemed the enemy had shored up that weakness in their strategy.

The trio that presented themselves before him was even well balanced.

A Panther Scout and two Panther Warriors.

Despite the presence of the Scout, as Doppelganger watched, the trio began wandering away from his position.

Doppelganger grinned, blissfully happy to be in his invisible state. This could give him a window to get away. He turned and began slowly and carefully ascending the tree while beginning to go over the events of the hunt in his mind.

For Doppelganger, every fight was a learning opportunity. He was only a couple of weeks old, after all.

Strange that they only send these small groups after me, though, Doppelganger thought. It’s as if they don’t feel we’re a threat at all…