The trapper's distress call was weak, but loud enough for my enhanced ears to hear.
I ran fast.
Real fast.
Good thing I was already close, because I was running so fast, the surrounding trees were getting torn to shreds by me.
Getting to the source of the shout, my eyes saw a sight that wasn't all that dissimilar to war documentaries.
Pure carnage.
Lots of bodies, and lots of wounds coming out from those bodies.
Hopefully, they were still alive.
The wounds, in particular, were a sight to see.
Most were cuts and bruises, but some had a large hole torn into them—as if something had pierced or punctured through.
Blood was gushing out.
That was expected.
What was not expected was the darkness.
Something dark oozed out from them.
It resembled something I once dealt with a long time ago, though I hoped that it wasn't so.
Like a freight train suddenly stopping, my body ceased all movement instantaneously in front of the wounded newbies, causing the wind to fwoosh them.
Some of them, who weren't laid or planted themselves on the ground, involuntarily moved along with the wind, getting thrown from a slight distance, but most assuredly not adding to their wounds.
A bit of friendly fire because of the situation causing me to move as fast as Orcly possible.
You know what they say about stopping—it's not the speed that hurts you, it's the sudden stop.
That's what a genius, old man, once said.
"What happened?"
I spoke in a loud voice, alerting every one of my presence (if they weren't already alerted by the abrupt entrance I made).
One of them managed to make words that weren't just groans of pain.
"Over the…re…Tomas and Ror-ic…Trying…keep away…"
That was all I needed to hear.
I nodded and turned, beginning my rampage of the forest once more.
A quick sprint brought me over to a steep ravine in seconds.
I caught the two slightly narcissistic but decent goofs fighting for their lives against a damn black hole of an animal.
My gut was coming closer and closer to a truly unpleasant conclusion.
They went up and down the rocky ravine, shooting their crossbows at the thing, not with the intention to kill, but to just distract.
They were tag-teaming it, desperately trying to keep space between them and the enemy.
And they were barely just holding on.
Any second, and one of them would miss, and then they'd fall.
Having no time to think, I decided to first give some breathing room for the two.
How, you might ask?
By charging it, of course.
As the thing was about to make another pass at them, I swooped in and shoulder tackled it from the side.
The thing went flying.
*SMASH!*
Right into the stone walls of the ravine, making a thing-shaped hole right before an avalanche of stone buried it in.
It won't be a problem for a while, at least.
I turned back to the two poor bastards.
They were panting like crazy and looked like they'd forgotten how to breathe.
"Go! Back to others, now! I handle this!"
They snapped out of it.
Tomas gave me a breathless nod of thanks.
Roric managed to shout, though.
"Give 'em hell, forest keeper!"
They scrambled away, running in the direction where I came from.
Likable goofs, those two.
But now I was alone.
Solo.
Mano-a-mano.
I caught myself making a smile.
This was the fun part.
I didn't want to come to early conclusions, but after seeing what it looked like, I had to accept that it was another Void-being, just like the Void-Stag.
I decided to name it like its contemporary.
Void-Bull.
Quickly deciding on its name, I readied myself for battle.
I already had a plan in mind for how I'd deal with this one: it's a lot similar to that old mythical tale of a man flying too close to the sun to the point that the wax on his feather wings wore off, and he fell straight down to his demise.
After a short while, the Void-Bull pulled itself out of the landslide.
It was mostly fine, much to my expectation and also disappointment.
It shook its massive head with two horns to the side pronged forward, and looked right at me with eyes that were only twin pinpricks of light.
It let out a sound like air escaping a great depth—a huff—and then turned.
I thought it was going to do a special move, like create a dust storm or something, but what it did was far more unexpected than anything than what I had in mind.
It ran away.
Turned and ran away.
…Huh.
My smile did a flip and became a frown.
I felt stupid for some reason.
Am I missing something?
Was it a trick?
Was it going to circle around and ambush me?
I stood still for another moment, listening for any sound cues.
But nothing.
Just the wind howling, and the ever-shrinking faint sound of the Void-Bull.
I sighed.
Chasing a potentially ambushing, cowardly, black bull inside its territory is a far less pleasing sounding choice than checking on the small, wounded humans I was supposed to be guarding.
They were probably gonna need me to bring along the more severely wounded of them back to the settlement.
Duty calls.
The Void-Bull was a problem for later.
I turned my back on where the stupid thing had fled and ran back.
Humies.
Always needing my help.