The beasts cowered. They didn't dare move, fearing what might come if they anger the beast sauntering in front of them. If they were to twitch even a single muscle, then who knows what—literally—crushing wrath might fall upon them.
Eodum appreciated the lack of ambush. It had pretty much just emerged, and no attacks coming its way was a pleasant change of pace. It also gave it a nice reprieve from the absurdly powerful enemies it's been facing lately. Maybe it could relax in this forest. Just some pleasant grinding.
… Nothing?
Eodum had expected some sorta dramatic event to interrupt it, but nothing seems to have happened… no? Nothing, really? Okay, well, Eodum wouldn't look a gift horse in the mouth.
The rat grabbed a few bites out of the scattered corpses all around, eating as it walked. Eodum supposed it should've started hunting, but it just wanted to relax for once…. Right, fuck, it needed to help Henry and Sheila. Okay, fuck, let's go. Fuck.
Eodum sent some tentacles to the sky and gripped the trees. With a tug, it sent itself hurtling towards the canopy, crashing through any branches in its way. That was when it ripped right through a strangely fleshy branch.
Curling tendrils around nearby trees, the rat came to a jolting and abrupt stop. The rat was glad for its high physical stats, otherwise the stop might've snapped the rodent's neck. Looking back, it saw how it had come crashing through not a tree branch, well, that too, but instead, there were little bits of fleshy pieces along with some feathers laying strung about throughout the trees. Little bits of yellow yolk and goopy egg liquids were also splattered, intermixed with red-crimson blood. Flaky, white egg shell parts were also scattered.
It appeared Eodum had hurtled right through a nest of chicks of some sort. They had to have been the children of some kind of monster, but it was hard to tell if their mother would be a problem in the future as the little hunks of bird laying around didn't signify its species. Eodum silently slunk away, hoping to not have this affect it in the future.
Crawling in the shadowy dark of the forest, Eodum cast its gaze downwards, keeping an eye on all the creatures below. Eodum wanted to pick one out to hunt without it causing a war. Slipping by without notice a little farther, Eodum finally spotted its new prey.
It was a large bear-like monster, and while on all fours, it would probably come up to sound a human's shoulders. It had large spike-like plates running down its spine, ending with a large gathering of them protruding out of every inch of skin on the beast's long tail. Around it, there were many of its children, all around the size of Eodum. One in particular though was different.
While the creatures seemed to all have dirt-brown fur, darkening the closer it got to the monsters' spikes, this one had blood-red markings scoring in tiger-like patterns across its body. Not only that, its eyes were also different—red irises that seemed to emanate anger but also intelligence.
Interesting. Shame they were about to become breakfast.
Silently, Eodum lowered from the canopy, eyeing its prey with a predatory gaze. Once it was only two meters above its prey, it shot forth many tentacles, spearing and latching onto the bears. Fortunately for the red-striped bear, it looked up just as Eodum got into position to attack, and the small monster managed to evade a grim demise. Staring at its family, it let out a few yelps of grief and shock, but then something in its eyes changed. Glowing slightly, veins stretched up from the whites, and the red turned a deep, bloody crimson.
Of course, the young monster was only a cub, and it never really stood a chance against Eodum. As if playing with its food, it easily deflected and nulled the bear's stronger-than-average strikes. Its eyes dulled a little, returning to the more mundane red, and it ran because it could do nothing else.
Eodum let it run. It was such a small and weak creature, defeating it wouldn't be worth the xp or food. Instead, Eodum's maw stretched to incredible sizes, big enough to surround the rest of the bear family, and with a sickening crunch, it brought its jaws on them with incredible force. Eodum was actually surprised by the force it mustered. Then, the reason made itself clear.
[Skills: Gravity Crush have leveled up.]
Oh, right. Eodum had forgotten about this skill. Now it was level six, pretty good. Testing around with the skill it managed to regulate how much mana it could pour into the skill. It was a strange feeling. Its jaws gravitated to each other, so it was like individual pieces of it fell in different directions. Kinda disorienting, but whatever.
Finishing its meal in one big gulp, Eodum started searching for more prey.
*****
It had been a day like any other. The cubs' mother woke them, and as per usual, she led the bear and her siblings out to hunt. The cub and her brothers and sisters were all still fairly young, but the mother seemed to believe that learning to hunt and kill early would only do them good. She was wrong.
They walked out of the den and went upon the usual path while the young cub wondered what they would hunt that day. Those small furry rodent things with the horn? Maybe one or two of those lanky, bipedal green thingies? She hoped it wasn't the green thingies, those were never tasty.
As she wondered, she also looked up.
Death.
Narrowly avoiding death by diving to the side, a spiked tendril drilled into where she was just walking. Looking up, she saw something that she couldn't believe. Her family was there with the beast.
With darker than dark flesh and fur, sparkling with those things she saw at night, it inspired fear and grief in her. Wait, there was something else too: rage.
This creature had slaughtered her family, and she watched as it reared more tentacles back to kill her. Anger.
Her vision was slowly being polluted, red reaching in from the edges, slowly encapsulating her whole world. She was angry. She was enraged.
Rushing in without a second thought, she tried to attack it, but the creature managed to easily deflect her attacks. After maybe the ninth attack, she was suddenly in control of herself again, and following her instincts, she ran. She ran, but the thought of revenge and coming back to the rat was now firmly in her mind.