She Really Hissed at Me?
Seeing the giant leopardess in front of him hiss at him, Taryn was honestly stunned.
He knew hissing was a feline instinct when frightened. Not just house cats, either. Even big cats would hiss all the same when something truly scared them.
Still, he had not expected even a leopard would be no exception.
Even so, through the instincts of the beast, Taryn could still sense what this jungle leopard meant by it.
It was something along the lines of, Who are you? Why are you here? Are you going to fight us?
As he thought about it, Taryn also realized these jungle leopards looked strangely familiar, as if he had seen them somewhere before.
But if he had to say exactly where, he could not remember. Were they some kind of monster from the Monster Hunter world? Taryn was not sure. Either way, he had no real desire to fight.
Odogaron's battle instinct was wildly violent, especially when fully unleashed.
With every beat of his heart, massive amounts of biological stimulants flooded through his body, carried by his endocrine system to every part of him, constantly agitating his nerves and consciousness. Even so, Taryn still held on to himself.
He was full now. He had no need to feed any further. And right now, he did not even know where he was, let alone have any interest in starting a brutal fight with an unfamiliar beast pack for no reason.
Although the Speed Eating Jewel let him recover stamina quickly, in an unknown region like this, there was no telling whether the noise of a battle would attract the attention of other predators.
And for wild creatures, aside from territorial disputes and the need to survive, the harsher and more unfamiliar the land, the more important it was to stay in good condition and reduce the chances of injury or weakness as much as possible.
With that in mind, Taryn retracted his extended claws. But just as he was about to leave-
[Ding. High-intelligence beast pack detected. Mission issued.]
[Current Mission: Subjugate the Beast Pack]
[Mission Objective: How can the future Lord of Dragons not have his own beast-vassal kin? Defeat the beast pack before you, subdue them, and make them the vassal kin of the Lord of All Dragons.]
[Mission Reward: Trait - Great Girros's Venom Fangs]
[Accept?]
Seeing the system mission, Taryn raised a brow, then turned his gaze back toward the jungle leopards.
He was extremely familiar with Great Girros. Like Odogaron, it was one of the common creatures of the Rotten Vale.
Its animal basis was something like a blend of Komodo dragon, cobra, and viper. It specialized in venom, with fangs connected to venom glands that secreted a powerful paralytic toxin.
A Great Girros was simply a Girros king whose size far exceeded that of ordinary Girros.
It was the lord of its Girros pack, hunting cooperatively with smaller Girros and using the paralysis toxin in its fangs to bring down prey.
Poison-based abilities like that were common enough in nature, but it was true that Odogaron did not possess anything like them.
Thinking that, Taryn swept his gaze over the pack and quickly locked onto the nearly six-meter-long giant leopardess that clearly ruled them.
He did not know what this kind of monster was called, but certain traits told him this was a feline hunting beast.
And that largest leopardess should be the pack leader here.
Judging from her state just now, especially the changes in her eyes, it was obvious these jungle leopards possessed considerable intelligence. No wonder the system had classified them as a high-intelligence beast pack.
At that thought, Taryn ran his tongue over the corners of his mouth and fangs, smearing them with sticky saliva.
The reason he had chosen to avoid battle at first was simply because he disliked meaningless bloodshed. But now there was a system reward on the line, and that changed everything.
"The one harming you is not me, but the system. Roar!"
As the thought passed through his mind, Taryn let out a deafening roar.
The instant he entered battle mode, the dark-red muscles all across his body bulged in succession, and savage ferocity surged from him without the slightest attempt at concealment.
A total of sixteen serrated rending claws snapped from his forelimbs like switchblades. Before Nidalee could even fully react, he had already become a crimson afterimage tearing through the air.
At first, when she saw that this unknown beast had only been quietly watching her and her pack, even retracting its claws, Nidalee had thought it might simply have wandered into her territory by accident and had no intention of truly starting a fight.
But the very next moment, just as she relaxed slightly, she saw the beast pause, then turn its gaze back toward her pack, its eyes suddenly brimming with eager battle intent before it launched straight at her.
"Hah!"
Nidalee's pupils shrank, and a sharp, piercing hiss burst from her throat.
Her four paws slammed into the earth, kicking up mud in all directions as her giant cheetah-like body darted aside to evade Taryn's charge. At the same time, she opened her jaws and lunged for his face.
Almost in the same instant, the jungle leopard pack behind her moved with the wind. More than a dozen sleek feline forms leaped through the forest, rushing to Taryn's flanks in the blink of an eye and forming an airtight encirclement.
But Taryn felt no fear at all. The stimulant secretions constantly produced by Odogaron's glands were already raging madly through his blood, burning through his nerves.
Yet that biological stimulation was nowhere near enough to shake the reason in Taryn's mind. What truly immersed him in this battle was the raw killing aura of the moment.
This was not some virtual fight inside a game. This was killing that was sharper, more vivid, and far more real.
Under Taryn's control, Odogaron's thick neck displayed astonishing flexibility. He tilted his head aside to avoid the jungle leopard queen's bite, then turned and sank his jaws into the leopardess's chest.
Fangs pierced flesh. Blood poured down his throat. A primitive delight flowed into Taryn's heart along with it, erupting into even more biological stimulants and making him instinctively clamp his jaws tighter.
But Nidalee clearly had no intention of waiting to die. The instant the pain tore through her chest and left foreleg, she let out a low growl and bit toward Taryn's neck with her gaping jaws.
So hard. That was Nidalee's first thought.
But immediately afterward, a vicious glint flashed in her eyes as the primal magic within her body erupted.
Empowered by that surge of strength, Nidalee forcibly bit through the thick scales and hide of Odogaron's neck and sank her fangs into the even redder muscle beneath.
But that was all she managed. She had only pierced the hide, nothing more.
Taryn felt not the slightest fear. Instead, he snapped his jaws shut harder, wrenching Nidalee's mouth away from his body, then whipped his head and hurled her more than a dozen meters away, smashing her into a dirt pit.
At the same time, several more jungle leopards lunged in from both sides, but Taryn ignored them completely. Twisting his upper body, he sent his thick tail sweeping in a full circle.
The blow struck two jungle leopards and launched them flying. With just that one hit, the nearly four-meter beasts had their bones cracked and sinews torn, their bodies slamming into towering ancient trees hard enough to make the trunks shudder.
As the pack leader, Nidalee's body was obviously far sturdier than an ordinary jungle leopard's. Seeing her packmates flung aside, she struggled back to her feet and let out a tense, low cry.
In response, Taryn merely threw back his head and roared in pure exhilaration. There was no pain in that roar, only uncontrollable excitement and joy.
The copper-sweet scent filled his mouth. Feeling the life-and-death clash of beasts, the most primal instinct of Taryn's life had been awakened completely.
Under that intense excitement, the pain from the bite in his neck had already turned into fuel for his frenzy, making his eyes grow even redder, more vivid, like flames set alight.
Seeing that Taryn's condition had not weakened but instead risen, a flash of shock crossed Nidalee's eyes before it was replaced by even greater ferocity.
With a fierce cry, Nidalee, as the leader of the pack, realized clearly that her people were no match for the monster before them. She let out a deep roar and charged Taryn again of her own accord.
Only if she kept this monster occupied head-on would the rest of her pack have a chance to surround and attack.
Unfortunately for her, Taryn was in the grip of intense exhilaration.
"ROAR!"
Letting out a savage roar of excitement, Taryn spewed dense blood-scented breath from his open jaws, mixed with sticky saliva that scattered everywhere. The thunderous soundwave hammered into the leopard pack's ears.
Felines had hearing far superior to humans, one of the finest predatory senses they had evolved.
And now, caught off guard, that terrifying wave of sound blasted straight into their eardrums. Pain flashed through Nidalee's eyes at once.
It was not just Nidalee. Several jungle leopards nearby also halted mid-charge, crouching low and pressing themselves toward the ground in an attempt to reduce the impact of the soundwave.
It did little good.
And before Nidalee could recover from the sonic assault, Taryn was already on top of her.
His foreclaws slashed in a relentless chain of strikes. The sharp double-layered composite claws raked across Nidalee's body again and again.
Her stone-like outer armor was torn apart by force. Blood sprayed out, splashing over Taryn and mixing with his own to form a glaring dark crimson.
His serrated claws ripped through flesh. Feeling that astonishing pain, Nidalee threw back her head and growled low as she launched a counterattack.
But her retaliation clearly failed to achieve the effect she wanted.
Because every sensation of claws tearing flesh, every instant of blood splashing, every wound, every thread of pain only made Taryn more excited.
Unconsciously, the hunting techniques stored within his inherited memories began to merge into his instincts, making his movements faster and more violent with every passing moment.
He was clearly a beast, yet the muscles all over his body knotted and coiled like pythons. Every tremor, every tightening of those muscles carried the force to crush everything in its path.
A deep, delighted rumble kept spilling from his throat, as if he were savoring this savage battle to the fullest. Even Nidalee's resistance became fuel for his joy.
When the rest of the jungle leopards saw their leader being utterly suppressed, their eyes reddened as well, and they threw themselves at Taryn in a frenzy.
Some bit at his tail. Others bit at his back. Using their sharp fangs and claws while he was locked in combat with Nidalee, they managed with difficulty to tear open his scales and bite into his flesh.
Blood poured from the wounds without stop, staining Taryn's body and the mud beneath his feet red.
But in the grip of intense exhilaration, Taryn could not feel the slightest pain. On the contrary, the stimulation of those wounds only drove him deeper into madness.
Whirling around suddenly, Taryn bit down onto the spine of a jungle leopard that had tried to leap onto his back. With a sharp crack, he crushed its backbone.
Warm blood poured down his throat into his belly. That vivid thrill of slaughter made him let out a savage cry of delight.
Then he hurled the leopard with the shattered spine away, smashing it into another leopard charging toward him. The collision produced a sickening crack of bone, and both beasts tumbled to the ground, unable to rise, let alone continue attacking.
It was a brutal, vicious melee. Taryn's entire body was covered in wounds. His scales were broken, his flesh ripped open, and blood dripped constantly from every cut. Yet his eyes only grew brighter, and his whole body trembled with excitement.
Every swing of his claws, every roar, carried a violence as if meant to destroy the world itself. In his mind, there seemed to be nothing left but the primal instinct to kill and the exhilarating ecstasy that came with it.
Looking at the increasingly frenzied Taryn, Nidalee could not help the trace of fear flashing through her eyes.
In their close-range biting struggle just now, wounds had already spread all across her body. Her stone armor had shattered into a miserable state, blood had soaked through her fur, and her movements had begun to slow.
But she still did not retreat. As the leader of the pack, she could not stand by and watch her people be wiped out.
In a daze, she once again saw the final warning from her adoptive mother before her death, and the promise she herself had made to her pack.
That conviction reignited Nidalee's fighting spirit. Drawing a few more threads of primal magic from a body that was nearly spent, she sprang into the air and lunged at Taryn's face with jaws wide open.
"ROOOAR!"
But with dynamic vision far beyond that of ordinary monsters, Taryn had obviously already seen Nidalee's movement.
And there was not the slightest fear in his eyes. Instead, an even madder fire ignited within them.
He did not dodge. He did not retreat. He suddenly threw back his head, opened his jaws wide, bared a mouthful of blade-like fangs, and crashed viciously into the leopardess's incoming bite.
Their jaws locked together in a crosswise clash.
A chorus of cracking sounds rang out as their fangs collided and stabbed into each other's flesh, each one racing to tear deeper than the other. Blood gushed from the corners of their mouths, running wildly down Taryn's face and Nidalee's fur.
Nidalee still did not retreat. The elemental magic she was born with strengthened her jaws, and her saber-like fangs also pierced into Taryn's draconic snout.
But Taryn was clearly not restrained by the pain. In the very next instant, he violently tensed his thick neck and heaved upward. Under the leopardess's disbelieving stare, he flung her bodily into the air.
First he swatted aside several jungle leopards trying to surround him, then slammed her down hard into the earth.
Boom.
With a heavy crash, the ground caved inward. Mud and shattered stone flew everywhere, and fine spiderweb cracks spread outward in all directions.