When Kallen had been running earlier... before he even came in contact with the ambushers, he had come across a very powerful beast. Fortunately, he was more agile than it, and a little faster as well, and thus, was able to outrun it.
Although he did not fight the beast, it had made him work harder than all the other three beasts he had met combined... the shadow cat included, and was the reason he'd been so gassed earlier.
It had chased him down a good distance, and Kallen had to pull on everything he had to outrun it and make it give up.
And now, he was back to it, and to the very thing it was protecting.
He had been waiting… hoping, in fact, for it to come out and jump him like it had the other time. That way, he could just make a beeline for what he was headed for.
He could only curse his luck that it didn't, and was ironically, now in the worst position he could have wanted it to be.
