Strength from an unknown source flooded the bear's body. Her muscles swelled with power and her body transformed. Overall, her body stayed the same, but now there was an energy, a feeling, a deep intimidating force that practically rolled off of her body. Staring the wolf down, she let out a primal roar and rushed it. The wolf was startled for a momentary second before letting loose a volley of lightning.
The lightning struck home.
The bear didn't care.
All feelings were dulled, all sensations but anger were gone, and the only thing the bear could react to now were targets for it to shred to bits. Continuing her straight path towards the canine, the beast pounced. The wolf, not expecting to have to deal with something with so little value for its own life and so much moxie, retreated, trying to get away from the menace only a fraction of its size.
Sometimes even if something is weak, it's terrifying to see it rushing you like it has no chance of losing. It's also terrifying because the thing you thought was under you was now impacting the ground with such force that it created clouds of dust.
While it retreated from the small cub, unsure of what to make of it, Kali saw a chance, and she ran up and added a long cut across its body which ended up perpendicular to the cut she made before. It startled away from her only to end up with the small cub on it.
The critter scrambled across the wolf's electrified body and clawed its way into the flesh of the monster. Leaving scars across every inch of skin she could, the cub was bucked off the wolf as the canine beast ran away, realizing it was outmatched by a creature clearly stronger than it and a creature weaker than itself but willing to kamikaze the wolf.
After the wolf retreated, the bear tried to go after it, but she was held back by her own injuries. Before she could get any further than two meters, her vision returned to normal, and the small cub realized just how much pain she was in as well as the extent of the damage.
Crumpling to the ground, the bear whined, and to her joy, Kali rushed to her side. Her words were urgent, and the bear could understand this despite not understanding the words being said—the tone is all an animal needs to hear.
She felt shocks of pain whip through her, but she tried her best not to move nor whine as Kali examined her injuries. Looking at the status she came to understand was a reflection of herself, she noticed that her health was around a tenth of its max of twenty-five. She was only a cub and those were the attacks of an evolved creature, so the skill she had must've reduced the damage taken.
The cub was pulled close to Kali's chest, and hurriedly but carefully, Kali rushed the small beast back to the cave. The entire time, she was in a slight daze from the pain and loss of health. Her mind fogged up until she couldn't process anything but simple ideas and thoughts. Eventually, she passed out, though not before hearing one last thing from the system.
[Congratulations, you have met the Xp requirement and leveled up!]
[Congratulations, you've been named: Courage!]
[You are now a named monster, a being of greater importance and significance than the monsters around you!]
[You have been named by Kali. Being in a 10 meter diameter of each other will buff both parties!]
[You have bonded with Henry: you can no longer get a name and Kali can no longer name monsters.]
Then, darkness.
*****
Eodum strode through the forest, indulging in the satisfying sound of twigs and sticks snapping beneath its claws. Eodum stretched its body to send a probe upwards to get a sense of where it should head next. It suddenly found itself not looking at the mountain, but instead, it looked into the distance outside of Kraude. Twisting the probe around, Eodum let out its equivalent of a groan as it realized it was heading in the completely opposite direction.
Improving Eodum's mood, however, it saw that there was a group of easy prey quite near it. It was a nest of some sort. As the rat approached the gathering of assorted objects, a certain familiarity about it struck Eodum. It smelled of something that Eodum had to really focus on to remember.
What was it again… Oh, right! The neurons suddenly fired in Eodum's brain and it was able to remember the eggs it crashed through when it first started hunting. They had a slight saltiness in both flavor and, somehow, smell.
While Eodum digested that information, it heard the loud, ear-piercing screeches of a bird behind it. Twisting around, it saw a bird the same size as itself swooping down at it. It was coming down with curled up claws, diving straight at Eodum. Jumping to the side, Eodum evaded the claw-punch and good thing it did. The bird proceeded to sail through a tree Eodum was near, crushing the large plant at its base.
The tree went down, kicking up a large cloud of dust that once finally cleared, revealed the bird inside of it, glaring at Eodum. The bird looked like a hawk, with a small beak that curved at the tip in addition to the already smallish head. Where normally a hawk's feather might be brown and a tannish white, the bird had mostly light blue feathers with some that were a very pale yellow.
The bird's beady eyes glared with all the emotion a bird's eyes could show, and with the power of a skill enhancing it, the hawk let out another screech. This one sent waves of air rolling away from it, and Eodum had to brace itself against the ground. The two monsters stared each other down, and after a long moment of a tensely watching each other, the two beasts sprung into action.