Shooting on the Move

Below, the wild boar rammed relentlessly, its thrashing tusks intermittently blocking the flight path of any arrow and making it even harder for Xilutaiya to take aim. Mick gradually drew the giant boar away from the direction where Kailun and Lei were. Sprinting nimbly through the mountain woods, he tossed stones back from time to time to keep the colossal beast's attention fixed on him. Stamping down hard on the loose earth once more, his foot skidded slightly, sending up a spray of dirt, before he kicked forward again and surged ahead. Because his focus was entirely on the giant boar and staying alive, he did not notice at all that Xilutaiya had already leapt into the trees on the other side. Enraged, the giant boar snorted and squealed in relentless pursuit. Despite its massive frame, it was neither bloated nor sluggish; like a dense, heavy spring, it tore through the forest, ramming right and left. Whenever its thick, fleshy body crashed into a large tree, it merely jolted slightly, suffering no harm whatsoever. *No good.* After aiming for several moments, Xilutaiya lowered her bow. Under these conditions, she could not aim properly. There were simply too many shifting variables and interferences, and her arrow had to strike the giant boar's eye squarely to have any effect. Seeing that this wouldn't work, she began leaping across the branches once more. Thanks to her nimble body and keen vision, she could always find sturdy boughs to land on, but bounding like this was intensely draining, requiring the support of her Breathing Method to achieve the necessary speed and power. Her window was limited; she could not drag this out. After thinking for a few seconds, she decided to drop down and aim at the giant boar from the ground. It would afford a far better angle of fire, even if it was much more dangerous. With that decided, she leapt down from the tree. The tips of her boots touched the ground lightly, and she took several quick strides forward to cushion her momentum. Then, drawing her bowstring as she sprinted, she trained her arrow on the giant boar charging alongside her. From this angle, she avoided the interference of the boar's tusks and could adjust her own running speed to remain roughly parallel with the beast, minimizing any shift in aim caused by its motion. At this moment, Mick finally noticed what Xilutaiya was doing. Amazed by how agile the young girl was, he understood that this was a critical juncture. No longer darting erratically, he broke into a straight run, doing his best to make the pursuing boar run in a straight line as well. The passage of time grew excruciatingly tense. Xilutaiya regulated her breathing as best she could, settling into a state of calm composure, then slowly leveled her arrow at the giant boar galloping beside her. One second... two seconds... three seconds... At the fifth second, Xilutaiya finally caught that fleeting opening. She sprang into the air. Time seemed to slow; across two brief seconds, the arrow shifted bit by bit toward the giant boar's eye until it was fully locked on. The bowstring snapped loose. The white-fletched arrow shot forward, piercing through the gaps between the leaves and hurtling toward the boar charging across the trees. A bloom of blood burst across the giant boar's face. The arrow had struck true, piercing its vulnerable eye. ('Basic Archery' proficiency +56) The swaying shaft soon snapped under the impact, but the arrowhead remained lodged deep in the giant boar's eye. Maddened by the wound, the beast turned viciously ferocious. In a blind rage, it wheeled around and charged toward Xilutaiya. Fortunately, having lost vision on one side, the boar could no longer dodge the trees along its path; it smashed through trunk after trunk, its thick hide scraping away splintered wood and bark. "Roar—!" Plumes of thick white steam hissed from its snout as it unleashed a thunderous bellow. The sound wave made the hearts of the two nearby clench painfully in heavy, stifling oppression. Any ordinary small animal or hare would likely have had its heart ruptured on the spot. "Go!" Stowing her bow, Xilutaiya made a swift escape, and Mick quickened his pace to follow. With one eye ruined, the wild boar's speed dropped even as it gave chase, and the two steadily opened up distance between them. Ten minutes later, Xilutaiya finally halted, leaning against a large tree to catch her breath, while Mick simply collapsed against the trunk, sliding to the ground. Jogging and sprinting at full tilt drained stamina in completely different ways. All they could do now was hope that the giant boar would not track them down. Remembering something, Xilutaiya reached into a small pocket of her corset-belt, took out the bracelet wrapped in black cloth, and slipped it on. A surge of warm vitality instantly radiated from the bracelet, spreading throughout her body and dispelling her earlier fatigue and muscle soreness. Even the backlash from pushing her Breathing Method was gently soothed away. *If that's the case, doesn't it mean I can use the Breathing Method for much longer every day? No wonder the 'Blazing Sun' attribute is called one of the Three Higher Attributes—its effects are so versatile and potent.* After about a minute, Xilutaiya had completely recovered her form. Her heartbeat and breathing returned to normal; had it not been for a few stray beads of sweat on her forehead, one would never have guessed she had just been fleeing in frantic haste. Mick, on the other hand, was not faring nearly as well. He barely managed to struggle to his feet, regaining only a fraction of his strength, while the strain of his Breathing Method and the soreness in his muscles remained hard to endure. "Let's move," he said, knowing they couldn't linger here. He took the lead to guide Xilutaiya. ... Half an hour later, the two reunited with the other three, finally bringing their harrowing forest venture to an end. "Let's go back, let's go back! I don't dare stay here another second," Kemiya said, raising a hand. "Agreed." No one objected; after all, they had just narrowly escaped disaster. The five packed up their things and began the descent. Going down the mountain was trickier than climbing up, however, and their pace slowed considerably. The trek was relatively smooth and uneventful until they reached the halfway point, when several reddish-orange-furred Ti Wolves bounded out of the woods and blocked their path. "How come we didn't run into a single one on the way up, but now five show up all at once?" Kemiya couldn't help complaining. "They probably caught the scent of our sweat," Kailun deduced. On the way up, they had been full of energy and in no hurry, so they hadn't sweated much. "Ugh, really? That can happen?" "Time to fight, everyone." Kailun was the first to draw her short sword; at this range, there was no time to use a bow. The five reddish-orange Ti Wolves did not waste a moment. As Kailun drew her blade, they swarmed forward. Kailun kicked one back and blocked another's snapping jaws with her sword, but she could not evade a third, which clamped its teeth onto her bracer, forcing her to grit her teeth and hold it off. The situation was critical. Mick rushed forward, drawing his sword to intercept a wolf coming from behind. Meanwhile, Lei, who should have covered Kailun's other flank, was too slow; he could only watch helplessly as the remaining Ti Wolf swept past him and lunged for Kailun's back. Yet that Ti Wolf never reached its mark. Another sharp short sword thrust forward, piercing straight through its neck and choking out a struggling whimper. Ripping her blade free, Xilutaiya planted a foot on the wolf's body and drove her sword into its skull, killing it instantly. She then surged forward to help Kailun deal with the remaining beasts. Working together, the party quickly dispatched the five Ti Wolves one by one, giving them no chance to flee. The only cost was a shallow cut across Kailun's wrist. After washing the wound, Xilutaiya carefully bandaged it for Kailun, and the group finally had a chance to catch their breath. "The giant wild boar shouldn't be able to track us this far," Kailun said, looking back across the boundless mountain forest. "And we've got five more catches," Mick noted, counting the Ti Wolves on the ground and nodding with satisfaction. Once they settled down, they began tallying their haul. In their earlier rush to flee, they had discarded most of their less important game and finds; all that remained was a light pouch of herbs and the five wolf carcasses before them. While Kailun and Mick skinned the wolves, Kemiya finally pieced a few things together. "Tiya, you ran so fast earlier, your agility was amazing, and your swordsmanship is incredible too!" she blurted out in a string of eager remarks. "Yes, yes," the young girl said, seated on a rock with her short sword and longbow resting across her lap. "I actually know a Breathing Method, and I have some combat ability," she explained, twirling a lock of hair by her ear. "Do you remember the assessment that day? I was originally planning to take part. I didn't expect Teacher Haide to tell me I didn't need to, so I dropped the idea. Later on, even though I had chances to explain, I figured keeping a low profile would save a lot of trouble, so I never mentioned it to everyone." "Whoa! Doesn't that mean Tiya is an all-around genius?!" Kemiya gasped in shock, speaking the thought on everyone's mind. *No wonder she could coach Lei and me on combat techniques,* Mick realized. *That's probably why Tiya picked up archery so quickly, too,* Kailun thought. "I wouldn't call myself all-around. I'm just fairly good at the things we're learning right now," the girl said, shaking her head slightly. She knew well enough that there was always someone greater out there. "Besides, Tiya is so pretty!" Kemiya added, bringing up a point everyone had overlooked. With all the running and fighting earlier, the cumbersome spectacles had been lost somewhere along the way, leaving Xilutaiya with no way to conceal her naturally striking looks. "Yay! The prettiest Tiya, the most genius Tiya, the cutest Tiya~!" Kemiya circled the girl, studying her up and down with delight. Faced with this, Xilutaiya could only put on a helpless, embarrassed expression and wave her hand, urging Kemiya to stop. "All right, all right, I know Tiya gets shy. Heehee," Kemiya said, stopping herself. Packing up the wolf pelts, the five set off once more. On the way, the conversation revolved almost entirely around Xilutaiya—her background, why she had disguised her appearance, where she had learned her swordsmanship, and so on. "Now that everyone knows, let's find time to train outside the city from now on. Not only can we get real combat practice, but it'll also help Tiya stay out of our other classmates' sight," Mick and Kailun proposed. "Outside the city? Wouldn't we have to walk a really long way every time?" Kemiya grumbled slightly at the thought of the effort. "Kemiya, don't you want to train your ocular technique? Like trying to entrance small animals in the grass with your eyes?" "Huh, that's true. There's never any good target to practice on in the city." Thinking of that, Kemiya stopped protesting. Chatting as they walked, they gradually reached Burnt Stone City. "Finally back. What a heart-stopping day this was." "I need to report this to the Hunter Guild in the city. A giant wild boar like that poses a serious threat," Kailun said. "Mm-hmm, and I need to check by the Adventurers' Guild to see if there are any short quests available lately—something to hone my skills and earn a bit of coin," Mick said after a moment's thought. Beasts were numerous in the mountains, and those that had condensed complete attributes were even more formidable than humans of the same rank. After all, any individual that survived the ruthless culling of that environment was inherently an elite of its kind. These savage, unenlightened beasts had once been the overlords of the Fourth Era, mighty rulers of the land. Yet as the ages turned, the world was no longer theirs. —— Attribute [Beast Fang]: The defeated beasts that gazed upon the stars; debased defiance and slaughter.