The beast did not charge imdiately. That was the first thing Robert noted—and it told him more about what he was dealing with than the size of it had. A beast that charged imdiately was operating on instinct. A beast that held its position after detecting prey and waited to see what the prey would do next was operating on sothing closer to assessnt.
It was quite large. Robert registered that fully as he made his way closer, reducing the distance to twenty ters, and the distant lights from the deep zone caught their outline between two of the wide, ancient trunks.
Low to the ground in its waiting posture but not small—a body built for sustained force rather than speed, covered in a hide that had the particular layered quality of sothing that had taken damage before and continued.
Its head was broad and flat, its eyes catching the minimal light in a way that confird it had already located both precisely. It was not looking at Robert.
It was staring at Sai, quickly identifying the secondary target. Whether this was due to instinct or learned behaviour from experiences with pairs did not really matter. What was evident was that the beast understood threats often ca in groups and had developed a knack for deciding which one to deal with first.
Robert moved left. Three steps—deliberate, visible, drawing the beast's attention across without rushing the transition. He needed its focus to follow him before Sai moved.
The beast's eyes shifted. It tracked Robert for two seconds. Then its weight shifted forward from its waiting posture into the particular lowered stance of a beast preparing to close distance—the front legs bending slightly, the rear haunches loading, and the head dropping by a degree that indicated the charge decision had been made.
Robert activated Twin Dragon Fang at full output. The difference between controlled output and full output was not subtle. The technique at full power produced a sound—the particular sharp double impact of split force delivered at maximum cultivation energy—and it produced a pressure wave that the undergrowth between him and the beast registered visibly, the low plants flattening in a radius around the strike's path before the strikes themselves arrived.
The beast moved the mont the technique activated. Not away—toward. It had committed to the charge before the strikes arrived, and its montum was already built.
The first strike caught it across the left shoulder—not the vital point Robert had aid for because the beast's movent had shifted its positioning by the half-second the technique required to travel. The second strike arrived at the adjusted position, but the beast's hide absorbed the split force differently than an unmoving target would have—distributed it across the layered surface rather than concentrating it at the impact point.
The beast did not leave anything behind; it just wrapped up its charge.
Robert was already on the move—executing a Swift Turn at full throttle, shifting direction from a fully loaded stance without any hint of what was coming. His body transitioned smoothly from the follow-through of the technique into a lateral motion, all before the beast even realised its target had slipped away from where it was aid.
The beast's montum carried it through the space Robert had been standing in. Three hundred kilograms of committed force passing through empty air.
It turned faster than its size suggested it should be able to. Experienced. This beast had missed before and knew what ca after.
Sai moved from the left.
Shadow Cross Slash — the arc of his blade sliced through the air, striking the beast's vulnerable right flank just as it took a mont to adjust its turn.
The crossing lines of force created a brief visual disruption, just as the technique intended—the beast's defensive reaction veering off by exactly the margin that the technique's geotry demanded. The slash struck. It was not a finishing blow, but it was a real one.
The beast made a sound—low, compressed, the sound of sothing registering damage without conceding to it.
It turned toward Sai. Robert was already at its rear. Twin Dragon Fang again—this ti from behind, at the position the technique's vital point targeting had been designed for, with the beast's attention fully committed to the threat in front of it. The first strike. The chaos unfolded. The second blow hit a spot that was already shielded.
The beast's legs crumpled.
It did not hit the ground instantly — it fought against the collapse with a fierce determination typical of a beast that has always relied on being upright for survival. But the strength faded from its back legs in a way that the front legs could not compensate for, and it fell sideways onto the forest floor, creating a noise that the thick canopy of the deep zone muffled before it could echo too far.
Robert was beside it before it finished moving.
He extracted the core with steady hands. Rank Three. The density of it was imdiately different from the Rank Two core sitting in his storage ring—heavier in a way that was not entirely physical, the cultivation energy compressed into it carrying a quality that the mid-zone cores simply did not possess.
He held it for a mont. Twenty points. He looked at Sai.
Sai had a minor cut across his left forearm, a consequence of the beast's rapid turn that had brushed against him. It was not the beast's main attack, just a side effect of being so close to sothing that massive and fast. He examined it, his face reflecting more of a damage assessnt than any real sensation of pain.
Not serious. Functional.
Sai looked up from the cut and t Robert's eyes.
Robert looked at the deep zone ahead — the ancient trees, the isolated light points, the compressed silence of a space that had not finished offering what it contained.
One Rank Three core. First hour of day one.
He set the core aside, and they pressed on deeper. In the western area of the mid-zone, the Brown Clan was having a first day that was quite unlike any other.
Conner Brown had not moved toward the deep zone. He had not intended to. His strategy had been built on what his cultivation level and Dustin's could sustain across three full days without overextending—consistent mid-zone hunting, Rank Two cores accumulated steadily, and a score built through volu rather than depth.
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