POV: Rowan
Rowan said to Sora, "My peerage members are nuts."
Then he smiled and added, "I fucking love it."
Sora laughed, a soft but amused sound. "So do I."
Rowan glanced in the direction Aika had gone. "You sure Aika's going to be alright?"
Sora replied, "Oh yeah, she'll be fine—as long as she doesn't panic or do something stupid... like jump in the water with it. But let's focus on what we're doing, right?"
The two of them were making their way through one of the deeper sectors of the island—a zone choked with twisted trees, broken fences, and rusted signage warning of high-level predators. The ground was uneven and littered with bones, metal scraps, and crushed ferns. Faded Jurassic World banners fluttered weakly from torn poles as the humid wind picked up. The air smelled of rotting vegetation, wet stone, and something predatory.
Rowan said, "So what are we looking for—"
He stopped.
From the thick brush ahead, a pair of big, red glowing eyes stared back at them.
Then, a large grey dinosaur stepped out from the shadows—its skin a patchy blend of scaly armor and muscle, with twitching quills protruding from its head and back like jagged wires. Its mouth curled back to reveal needle-like teeth. Its movements were twitchy, unnatural—almost like it was glitching between thought and instinct.
Rowan stared at it calmly and said, "Scorpius Rex. I thought that thing died in the Camp Cretaceous cartoon."
Sora looked at him, raising an eyebrow. "You actually watched that?"
Rowan looked away nervously. "Hey look, it's charging at us."
As the creature rushed at Rowan, a quest window popped up:
Quest: Apex Predator
Quest Condition: Display true dominance to the opponent in front of you. Leave no doubt who is truly at the top of the food chain.
Reward: One passive skill
Punishment for failure: Immediate loss of one random skill and 72 hours under the influence of Itachi's Tsukuyomi while at the power level of a normal human and zero access to skills.
Bonus Condition: Take down the enemy without using any active skills or weapons.
Reward for completion of bonus task: A choice of one of three active skills randomly chosen by the system.
A smile slowly crept over Rowan's face, his desire to fight shooting through the roof. Battlelust burned through his veins like fire as he turned to face the Scorpius Rex, arms crossed, calmly waiting for it to reach him.
Noticing the look on his face, Sora let out a sigh.
"Well, that creepy look on your face tells me that I'm not needed," she said. "So I'm just going to go over here and wait."
Rowan paid zero attention to her, his eyes laser-focused on his approaching enemy.
"Okay then," Sora muttered to herself and moved away from Rowan, materializing a chair and some popcorn. She sat down and began munching as if she was waiting on a movie to start in a theater.
The Scorpius Rex had finally reached Rowan, and instead of trying to bite him, it jumped in the air and tried to swing its tail at Rowan, poisonous thagomizer aiming for his head. Rowan caught the tail before it could reach him and squeezed hard, causing immense pain to the creature as it screamed in agony.
"Finally," Rowan said under his breath.
Then he turned his head until his eyes were level with the creature's as it struggled to pull its tail out of his grasp. Rowan's eyes, burning with intensity, met the creature's eyes full of rage and madness.
And then Rowan spoke again.
"Finally. After all this time being the one on the receiving end… always being the one who's outmatched… finally, I get to be on the other side of it."
The demonic grin on his face widened even further, exhilaration and battlelust making him take on an aura of madness equal to the creature's—yet different in feeling. Whereas the creature's madness felt like chaotic hatred and fury aimed at everyone and everything without control, Rowan's madness was like a knife piercing its target and filling the Scorpius Rex with dread.
"Let's have some fun," Rowan said before gripping the Scorpius Rex's tail and swinging it in a giant circle, faster and faster and faster, until the creature was just a blur.
Finally, when Rowan felt his muscles straining with the effort—even through the mana enhancing them—he let go, sending it smashing into the ground with enough force to cause a crater.
The creature lay there twitching for a few moments, and Rowan stood waiting, clearly in no hurry.
After a few moments, the creature amazingly stood up, a little unsteady, and then shook its head as if shaking off the damage. Though it was clearly hurt—as cracks in its hide could be seen and its left ear was leaking blood—its rage and fury only seemed to intensify as a result of the damage.
However, the Scorpius Rex spun around to face his enemy, more angry and desperate than it had ever been before. While the intelligent part of it advised it to run, the madness and rage would not allow such an action. So it lunged at Rowan, claws slashing and teeth snapping, attempting to pin him to the ground.
Rowan planted his left foot to anchor himself and then shot his right leg up at the perfect moment in a vicious snap kick that slammed into the underside of the creature's massive chin. Despite the size difference, there was a massive disparity in the power between the two beings, so when Rowan's seemingly tiny foot made contact, a thunderous boom resounded along with a sharp crack of teeth breaking and bone cracking.
The creature's head snapped back on impact, and the force of the blow sent the creature backward, slamming into a massive tree about 30 ft away. Recovering as quickly as it could, it got back onto its feet—just in time to see Rowan standing directly under it.
Without a word, Rowan stomped on the creature's right foot just behind one of its massive claws, breaking its toe and snapping the claw loose so quickly the creature didn't even have time to roar in pain from the initial blow.
Rowan put his foot under the massive claw, kicking it into the air until it was eye level with him. And then, faster than a human eye could follow, Rowan jumped and performed a spinning roundhouse kick, sending the claw screaming point-first back at its owner. The claw shot forward like a missile, burying itself into the connecting tendons between the creature's right upper and lower leg—and burying itself deep.
The Scorpius Rex roared in pain and staggered, only remaining standing through pure willpower and boundless rage. The creature took a desperate swipe at Rowan, and Rowan simply took one step back as the claw slammed into the ground in front of him.
The creature was toppling forward now, having stretched its claw out while off balance, its leg unable to properly support it. Before the creature could retract its claw, Rowan stepped on it, helping gravity and momentum pull the creature's face further downward. Rowan reared his fist back and slammed it into the creature just below its right eye. He felt bones crack under his mana-infused fist—a clear sign that he had cracked what he believed to be the creature's orbital socket.
Rowan lifted his foot and let the creature fall to the side onto the ground after the blow. As it lay there dazed, angry, and for the first time in its existence feeling something it couldn't identify—but Rowan could.
It was fear.
The intelligent part of the creature knew that it should feel fear and should run from the tiny being in front of it. The feeling was now so pervasive in its mind that it was overriding the rage and instinct that it usually operated by.
Rowan walked toward the creature calmly, the vicious smile still on his face. Out of pure desperation, from seeing its tormentor walking closer to it, intent on killing it, the Scorpius Rex released every venomous spine and quill it could in all directions. Knowing that it would be defenseless after this encounter for a little while—but not caring—in a desperate bid to survive. The intelligence and the madness finally agreeing on one thing: that they needed to kill the tiny being in front of them.
Not expecting the sudden attack, Rowan quickly lost the smile on his face. He halted his advance and put every ounce of focus he could into weathering the unexpected onslaught. Cloaking his body in mana, he began bobbing and weaving, putting to use his training and combat experience solely for defense, focusing on nothing else.
He wasn't sure if the poison from these quills could affect his demon biology, but he wasn't willing to take the risk. He reasoned that if you put enough holes in anything—or put them in the right places—it will die. And he had no interest in becoming a pincushion, because at that point the venom would be irrelevant. He'd be dead anyway.
By blading his stance as he bobbed, weaved, and made use of footwork, he was better able to protect his brain and heart, which he reasoned he damn sure didn't want to fucking spike in.
The onslaught lasted about 5 seconds, but it was a tense 5 seconds for Rowan, with a couple of close calls, having to use the back of his fist to parry some of the more dangerous spikes. After 5 seconds that were so tense they felt like 5 minutes to Rowan, he had weathered the storm.
He stood there looking at his dying opponent, cursing himself. He had gotten careless. He had gotten drunk on the perceived disparity in their power and completely let his guard down. He had acted like all the people from the noble class and from society that he hated. He acted like he was superior in every way to the opponent in front of him and had forgotten to give proper respect to them.
He was a warrior, not a torturer or an arrogant elitist—and he had forgotten that. He realized that even the best of people can become drunk on power, and that if he allowed it to happen with him, he would become everything he despised and fought against.
Rowan took a deep breath and walked up to the dying creature. He placed his left hand atop the creature's massive head and smiled sadly.
"Thank you… and I'm sorry," he said to it as he gathered most of his remaining mana in his right hand, bringing it down with explosive power onto the creature's head, smashing a fist-sized hole through its skull and destroying its brain—killing it instantly.
As he stepped back from the creature's corpse, he muttered under his breath:
"Hunt complete."
The moment he did so, the quest window popped up, telling him he had completed the quest and the bonus condition. He barely paid any attention to it as he turned to walk towards Sora, as he was deep in thought.
A second notification popped up—and it caught his attention.
Completed hidden condition for this quest.
Hidden Condition: Honor the Fallen
Condition Description: Seize the chance to gain small personal enlightenment.
Completion Reward – Choose One:
Option 1: Gain all three skills from previous condition reward and upgrade two of them one level higher.
Option 2: Reincarnate the soul of the fallen Scorpius Rex into a demonic egg. Upon hatching of the egg, it will be reborn as a baby demonic familiar that can grow in strength alongside you, with its potential for growth in power always being identical to yours.
Rowan looked at the notification, stunned into absolute silence.
What the fuck am I going to do? he thought.