[A/N: Day 1 (3/3)]
_________
Cael stood at the cave entrance, rain dripping from the rocky overhang in uneven intervals.
Thunder rumbled in the distance, a low and constant growl that never seed to move closer or farther away.
He had made a decision.
The snake. The only creature he had encountered since arriving in this dead forest. If there was any clue to be found, it would start there.
With a quiet exhale, Cael stepped out of the cave and into the rain.
He moved through the trees with practiced silence, using Black Lightning Steps to mask his presence.
The journey back to where he had killed the snake took only a few minutes.
But when he arrived, Cael searched for the dead snake’s body.
The snake’s corpse was nowhere to be seen.
’What happened? Did it get eaten?’
Then the wind shifted. The rain, which had been falling in steady sheets, began to soften.
The droplets grew finer, almost mist-like, as the storm’s intensity waned.
The leaves above him, heavy with water, began to sway gently, producing a sound that was neither rustle nor whisper.
It was sothing else entirely.
Eerie.
The wet leaves rubbed against each other in uneven rhythms, creating soft, almost lodic creaks that seed to co from every direction at once.
The sound was neither loud nor threatening, yet it carried an unnatural weight as if the forest itself was speaking in a language Cael could not understand.
He felt his skin prickle.
-STEP
He took a single step backward, his boot pressing lightly into the damp soil. The sound was barely audible, lost beneath the creaking leaves and the distant thunder.
But sothing heard it.
The stalks bent and swayed, revealing a shape that had been perfectly hidden within.
Even Cael’s enhanced senses had not detected it.
A deer stepped out.
Its fur was a deep, earthy brown, almost indistinguishable from the forest colors.
Its body was lean and powerful; muscles coiled beneath its skin like tightly wound springs.
But it was not the deer’s size or strength that made Cael’s breath catch.
It was its antlers.
They were not bone. They were not flesh. They were crystalline... green diamonds that caught what little light remained and refracted it into scattered beams of pale erald.
Each point of the antlers glowed faintly, pulsing with condensed mana that swirled within like trapped lightning.
It was a [Perfect Gold] rank Beast.
Cael’s eyes widened.
The deer’s gaze locked onto him. Its eyes were not the dull, instinct-driven eyes of a normal beast.
They were sharp and with a trace of intelligence.
And between its antlers, wind mana was gathering.
The air shimred, distorting as layers of compressed wind ford a sphere no larger than a fist.
The pressure was imnse, dense enough that Cael could feel it pressing against his skin even from twenty ters away.
A wind beam.
’It’s charging an attack, and it’s aiming directly at .’
Cael’s mind raced.
He had not sensed this creature.
Not its presence, not its mana, not even the faintest hint of its existence.
The deer had been hiding right in front of him, and he had walked past it without the slightest suspicion.
’How?’
The deer’s green diamond antlers were glowing brighter as the wind beam reached its peak intensity.
Cael had a choice.
He could kill it.
A [Perfect Gold] beast was strong, but not beyond his ability to handle.
Death Reaper’s Requiem would suppress its rank. Ti Deceleration would give him the opening he needed.
The deer would die, and Cael would move on.
But killing it would tell him nothing.
He needed answers. He needed to understand what was happening in this forest.
And killing every creature he encountered would only close doors, not open them.
So, Cael chose a different path.
He activated Black Lightning Step.
In an instant, he was gone from the deer’s view.
His body dissolved into shadow and reappeared directly beneath the deer, rging with its own shadow as if he had always been there.
The deer’s eyes widened. Before it could react, Cael reached out and pressed his palm against its flank.
’Mark Tracker.’
A faint pulse of mana transferred from his hand to the deer’s body, invisible and undetectable.
The mark settled into the creature’s mana signature, a silent beacon that Cael could sense from anywhere.
The deer’s body tensed as it realized sothing had happened, though it could not tell what.
Cael did not wait for it to figure out.
He turned and ran.
His feet barely touched the ground as he weaved between trees, using wind to enhance his speed and Black Lightning to mask his presence.
The forest blurred around him, shadows stretching and rging as he moved deeper into the darkness.
Behind him, the deer recovered from its confusion.
A low, resonant sound escaped its throat, then the deer gave chase.
The wind beam that had been charging between its antlers finally released, cutting through the air with devastating speed.
The beam was aid at Cael’s body.
Cael grinned.
He extended his hand, and his own wind mana surged outward.
Not to block the beam but to redirect it.
His mastery over wind had reached fifty percent, enough to seize control of external wind-based attacks if he acted quickly.
The beam twisted mid-flight, curving away from Cael and slicing through a cluster of trees instead.
Wood splintered. Leaves exploded into the air. The rain itself seed to part around the attack.
The deer skidded to a halt.
Its eyes followed Cael’s retreating figure.
Then, as if reaching a decision, the deer turned and disappeared back into the dense grass.
Its green diamond antlers dimd, and within seconds, it was gone, absorbed by the forest as if it had never been there at all.
Cael slowed to a stop.
He stood beneath a large tree, rain dripping from the leaves above, his breathing steady despite the exertion.
The forest had fallen silent again, only the soft patter of rain.
He smiled.
The mark was in place. He could feel it now, a faint pulse at the edge of his awareness, like a distant heartbeat.
The deer was moving away, deeper into the forest.
He looked up at the sky. The clouds were thick, heavy with unreleased rain, and the light was fading.
Shadows stretched longer. The mist grew thicker.
Cael did not want to be out here when true darkness fell.
He focused on the cave, the image of its entrance, the damp walls, the shallow puddles on the floor, and activated Teleportation.
The world twisted.
When his vision cleared, he was standing inside the cave, the sound of rain echoing softly from the outside.
Cael walked to the far wall and sat down, his back against the cool stone, and muttered,
"I hope this deer can lead to a clue."
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