August, watching the white lion bound away, stealthily dismounted the tree.
As much as he would like to stay and get a better perspective on the fight. He knew that if the clashing predators made their way to the black tree, it could easily come down.
The two beasts clashing was bound to be quite destructive. Though, it also would provide much appreciated safety. .
No other creature in this region of the forest could hope to get involved. Instinct was a great way to survive, and if those beasts had survived even a fraction of the time August did, they would know getting caught in the crossfire would result in a prompt shredding.
Which is why August planned to do quite the opposite.
If he could manage to stay just far enough away from the creatures battle, but close enough to watch, he could remain safe from fleeing beasts as well.
Not to mention August had unfinished business with the armored rhinoceros. If the beast was injured enough after this battle, he might just test his luck.
It was another hastily made plan, by this time, his impulsiveness was also fueled by a burning hatred for the behemoth.
Within minutes he had fully descended the black tree. Surrounding him were the torn apart corpses of quite a few reptilian birds.
The white lion had spared the birds no mercy. Tearing off their wings, it had also singed the scales off some, and he remembered watching one get fully turned to ash in mere seconds from the beast's ability to breathe blue flames.
Ignoring just how dangerous this single fact alone make his own plan, he quickly extending his hands and cupped them, he started to envision the yellow mist streams once more.
There was a familiar weight in his hands soon after. A few fell to the ground as they were simply too big to all be carried.
Opening his eyes, he saw a familiar lavender screen, three of them in fact. This time however, the screens displayed an unfamiliar message.
"ERROR; Corpse is too mutilated, aura network not intact."
"ERROR; Corpse is too mutilated, aura network not intact."
"ERROR; Corpse is too mutilated, aura network not intact."
August simply sighed and nodded to himself silently. He did not know what an aura network was exactly, but it was not too hard to at least come up with a vague idea.
'So when a body is too torn up, I can't extract aura molds? Maybe because I need all of a corpse's energy?'
It didn't really matter at the moment. August simply noted this information for the future.
Inspecting his haul, there were three orbs in his hand and four had fallen onto the ground.
He quickly converted six into lances, and stored the excess.
August did not want to find himself in a situation where none of his weapons could help him. And armor was very impractical with how he needed to maneuver through the trees of the dark forest.
Use of trees in was very important. More often than not, August would have to shuffle to the ends of branches to jump to other ones to avoid the monsters below. That was a skill he couldn't afford to compromise.
By now, he had started to make his way to the clash of predators, swiftly dodging creatures who ran in the opposite direction attempting to escape the crossfire, and doing his best to not enter the line of sight of any beasts that could not recognize the danger.
Soon, the battle came into sight.
The armored behemoth charged, the ground shattering like glass beneath its feet, propelling it forward at incredible speeds. The nimble feline however, leapt onto its back and proceeded to bite down into the gap between scales. Then, it suddenly reeled its head back and ripped one out entirely.
Almost immediately the armored rhinoceros roared out in pain, stopping suddenly and throwing the white lion from its back.
Immediately the armored beast raised a leg and attempted to crush the competition– a little bit too literally, but the lion rolled out from beneath the behemoth's leg, baring it's fangs before rapidly circling the armored rhinoceros, who failed to keep up.
August's eyes widened at the sight before him.
Not because of the realization of the white lion's plan to both exploit the blind spot of the rhinoceros. Or even that the beast was capable of making such deductions and acting accordingly.
It was not due to the fact that the sword left in the behemoth's eye was gone, either. There was many ways for the hulking beast to remove such a weapon, even coincidentally getting it caught in a branch would have done the trick.
What caught August's attention and drew his surprise, was something he noticed when the beast turned.
While the behemoth charged, he could only see the front of the hulking body. Even after the beast turned to stomp on the white lion, the side he had seen was nothing out of the ordinary.
But while the white lion circled it, the clumsy behemoth turned it's other side to where August stood.
And it was there he saw it.
A long, gaping slash running from the beast's abdomen to the shoulder, perfectly and cleanly cut into the gap between it's armored plates.
August found himself bubbling with dozens of thoughts and repressed emotion.
The wound had clearly not been inflicted by another beast of the forest, it was much too clean and thorough to be a laceration. Whatever had harmed the behemoth possesed both a well forged Blade and skilled precision.
At first August felt intense sadness at the loss of his comrade, she had continued to fight alone even after he had left her to die.
Then he saw something else.
Another slash wound on the beast's hind, this one still bled a generous amount.
Then another, further up on the beast's shoulder, it was so cleanly carved that one could even believe it was made by a butcher. The wound was almost fresh, inflicted within the last few hours at least.
Another thing he noted was that the cuts seemed to become more precise the more recent they seemed.
To say August became filled with hope was an understatement. Suddenly, he had found himself hoping the white lion would run away.