The calm, restrained breaths of the savage creatures shifted into a more constant growl. It was that slight shift that he recognized that lent him the information to act first.
Just before the creature directly in front of him, veiled by the foliage, leapt out from its hiding, he stomped his boot forward against the ground.
He was already midway through carving his blade through the air as the growling fiend jumped at him, baring its teeth at his jugular as its crimson eyes locked onto him. Backing his swing with the strength of the stomp, the air hissed as the steel took a slight curve before pushing through the beast.
"Graah!" He roared.
In a bloodied mess, his strike taken as a pre-initiative bisected the black-hided creature directly down from its nose to its tail as it fell to the grass in a mess of two halves.
