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Chapter 114: New Life, New Hunt

The problem was that he wasn\'t sure how much he could trust those senses. They\'d been trying to track down an allegedly dangerous monster that had survived the incursion, but his instincts had led him wrong several times. Though Zae Zin Nim didn\'t say anything, he could tell that she was growing skeptical.

He could feel his companion in the distance, gliding over the wasteland on a cultivator\'s deceptively slow steps. His hunger twinged every time he became aware of her, urging him to pursue. It seemed to want to eat everything, but especially anything powerful, and Zae Zin Nim was the most powerful person he was likely to find nearby. So far he\'d never felt like the urge stood any chance of overwhelming him, but it bothered him that the hunger had grown so much stronger.

She gave no indication if she felt his interest, but she slid in his direction. "We were off," she said curtly. "There\'s another destroyed fort ahead."

"So it didn\'t go north after all." Kai frowned and tried to look in the same direction she did, ineffectually. Ever since she\'d broken through, her eyesight had been better than his. "Does it look recent?"

"The corpses look fresh. We might be only one day behind the Claw Tyrant."

"Then we head to the fort and see if we can pick up its trail again."

Zae Zin Nim took the lead and they began running toward the alleged fortress. Kai was sorry to hear that another one of them had fallen, especially here. They were traveling in the borderlands between Goralia and the Krysal City States, where the population had ties to both nations but not the complete support of either. During incursions they suffered more than most, especially on account of the unusually powerful monster that had made it through the incursion.

When they\'d heard rumors of the Claw Tyrant, Kai had immediately insisted that they hunt it. For the sake of helping the locals, yes, but also for a reason he couldn\'t speak aloud: he wanted to eat it. Now that he had fully embraced his new monstrous identity, there was no point holding back. To gain power, he needed to find and consume as many powerful monsters as he could.

Of course, he also needed to figure out how to sort through the mixed powers within him. That was a sore point and Kai let it slip out of his mind as the fort came into view.

It had been a dull cube of stone, just a fortification designed to hold the line against monsters. The damage made it obvious that the Claw Tyrant had been there: something enormous had sliced through the stone walls like they were butter. The size of the cuts suggested a massive beast, but the rumors suggested that a Claw Tyrant\'s entire body was shaped like a claw. Whatever it was, it was too rare to have appeared in any of his old clan books, so they were hunting based on instinct.

When they got closer, Zae Zin Nim went to examine the corpses and the scratches on the ground. Kai\'s gaze instead slid upward, noting the crystalline towers at the four corners of the fort. They had all been smashed or knocked down, but the crystals hadn\'t been taken despite the power they represented.

That was always the pattern with monsters: driven to eat and destroy, yet they didn\'t seem to need food. They were simply driven to consume life. At times like this, he could understand why people saw his soul and were afraid of him.

"This thing doesn\'t leave much trace." Zae Zin Nim crouched beside one of the bodies, scowling as if it had offended her personally. "No fur, no feathers, no tracks. We must be close, but I have no idea which way it went."

"I could try to track it, but I don\'t know if it\'d be accurate." Kai walked to stand beside her. "Do you think I have a chance, or am I just guessing?"

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"Do you mean with some monster ability?"

"Or something like that."

Her eyes narrowed sharply as she examined him. She stood up and folded her arms in her sleeves before answering. "I don\'t think it\'s your imagination. You broke into E-rank Physique, so all your senses should be somewhat improved. Your Physique seems to enhance monstrous abilities, so it\'s possible you have capacities you\'ve yet to fully master."

"Actually, when you put it that way..." Kai thought about the monsters he\'d eaten and shook his head. "I don\'t have random monster powers, it\'s all specific abilities from specific monsters. Nothing in my soul is specifically sensory."

"Then do we try to imagine where it went from here?"

Instead of answering, he closed his eyes and focused. Most of his monstrous abilities contributed raw strength or techniques, but Monstrous Hunger seemed to under-gird them all. Many months ago, it had helped him track down Zae Zin Nim in her cave hiding place, so he knew he wasn\'t imagining it.

What he needed to do was push aside all the other sensations and focus on hunger alone. She was probably right, his other senses were just sharpened by his Physique, not enough to be supernatural. To track a monster as slippery as the Claw Tyrant, he needed to rely on something better.

First he felt the corpses around him, though thankfully there was no urge to eat them. Zae Zin Nim\'s strength was like a bonfire, but his hunger reluctantly accepted that he wasn\'t going to eat her. When he managed to look past that... he did feel a tugging in his stomach. It led them further northwest, toward a craggy area more like the Krysal City States than the flat wastes of home.

At least, the nation that had once been his home.

"That\'s my best guess." Rather than linger with those thoughts, Kai pointed northwest. "I can\'t guarantee it\'s the Claw Tyrant, but I feel something strong that way."

"My guess is no better." Zae Zin Nim shrugged languidly. "But before we go, I want to take all these crystals. I need more qi to cultivate, and I\'ll take any source I can get."

Kai didn\'t object and actually helped her gather up all the fallen crystals. The dead couldn\'t use them, and given what he\'d seen of the Frontier nations, he doubted anyone else would use them better. He wanted to help the people just trying to survive against monsters, but he wasn\'t going to weep over taking this unused power.

Once they took everything, Zae Zin Nim shoved some of the crystals at him. He did need to keep cultivating, less for the sake of raw power than because he really needed a better way to avoid looking like a monster to everyone they met. Class potions were limited and the battle at Monskon City had showed their clear limitations.

That accomplished, they ran northwest on the trail of his hunger. Zae Zin Nim grumbled about lacking a vehicle, as she had many times, and he could understand her frustration. He needed to hunt down monsters, yes, but he also needed time to cultivate, time to train his new Physique, and so much more.

It might be a full seven years until the next incursion, but Kai seriously doubted that those years would be passed in peaceful training. If he wanted to survive without support from any nation or clan, he needed all the power he could get.

As they reached the crags, his hunger grew stronger and Kai began to feel confident that he hadn\'t led them wrong this time. They\'d hunted a few monsters in their way, both for money and as a test of his abilities. There had always been hunger, but nothing like this. Soon his hunger began forgetting about Zae Zin Nim in favor of the delicious sensation that floated at the edge of taste and scent.

Metal flashed between two crags.

Both of them rounded on it, Zae Zin Nim gathering her qi and Kai automatically tightening his hands into claws. Nothing moved. The hunger seemed to be all around him now, too ravenous to track anything specific. Kai forced it back down and focused on all his other senses, trying to pick up the monster that was now hunting them.

Zae Zin Nim acted first, whirling and unleashing her technique. Trails of qi expanded around her like a flower before streaking off into the crags. They pierced some of the stones without slowing and arced through the air, hammering into something behind them.

During their travels, Kai had seen that technique tear through flesh and utterly destroy monsters, leaving nothing for him to eat. He\'d complained in the past and she usually threw out weaker qi techniques.

This time, her best wasn\'t enough.

As the stone cleared, he finally caught sight of the Claw Tyrant they had been hunting for days. It looked like a severed hand from some giant made of steel, standing on six fingers and still as tall as he was. At the back, where there should have been a wrist, there were only strange twisting spirals and yellow flames.

Worst of all, its entire body appeared to be made from steel or some stranger metal. Many of the qi bolts had struck it, but they hadn\'t left so much as a single scratch. Kai focused his spiritual sight on it, pushing through the distortions of Frontier monsters to try to gauge its strength.

Monster: Claw Tyrant

Threat: VI (Zeta)

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He winced as he saw it was ranked as Zeta. The strongest monster he\'d ever formally hunted before had been a Delta, a full two ranks lower. This thing was potentially equal to the worst threats that had almost destroyed Monskon City.

The Claw Tyrant lacked anything that resembled eyes, but as the disembodied hand skittered in their direction, he saw that it definitely had a mouth.