novelraw Chapter 173: Gale Bulls
Chapter 173: Gale Bulls
Standing atop several elevated rocks, Guilliman’s gaze peered down at a group of bull creatures scattered across the ground below in varying sizes.
These were Gale Bulls.
A species of monster native to the valley. Born in it, shaped by it, adapted to its winds in ways that made them something beyond just large and strong. The gale was part of them, threaded through their biology, and coupled with the raw physical mass they carried, they became something close to an unmovable force of nature when roused.
The herd moved slowly below.
Unhurried.
"What we’re looking for is on higher ground," Evil Spirit Lucas said, his eyes already drifting upward toward something further along the ridge. He pointed down at the herd without looking at it, his finger tracking across the mix of creatures until it landed on the ones with the red horns. "But you guys can hunt the Wayfarers below."
The beasts surrounding those red-horned ones gave them a wide berth.
Not out of companionship.
Out of instinct.
Something in the herd understood, without needing to be told, that those particular creatures were operating in a different category.
’Unlike most beasts, Wayfarers tend to stay on their own.’
Guilliman observed them from above, his expression still.
’They only command the strength of others during journeys. It’s a form of hierarchy. A signal to the rest of the herd that they aren’t competing for dominance. That they have no interest in stealing anyone’s position.’
He held that thought for a moment.
At this stage of development, beasts had begun forming something that resembled an understanding of social structure. A crude version of it. But it was there. The logic of rank, of territory, of knowing when to press and when to step aside. It wasn’t intelligence exactly.
But it wasn’t nothing.
......
Guilliman didn’t linger on it.
He moved.
His silhouette dropped from the rocks with barely a sound and slipped into the outer edges of the herd, threading between the bulls without disturbing the space around them. The herd shifted slightly, the nearest animals registering his presence the way they registered any passing thing, as something that wasn’t a threat yet, adjusting their distance by instinct without breaking rhythm.
He kept moving.
Slow and steady.
Gradually the bulk of the herd fell behind him and the figure ahead grew larger.
A lone bull.
Five times the size of the ones he had passed through.
It stood apart from the rest at the far edge of the clearing, its head low, its red horns catching the grey light of the valley. Everything about its posture communicated that it had chosen this distance from the herd deliberately.
Guilliman pulled out a short dark dagger and continued forward.
The plan was simple.
Catch it off guard. Close the distance while its attention was elsewhere. One clean approach, one clean strike at something vital before the creature could bring what it was actually capable of to bear.
Simple.
Unfortunately, the beast had heightened senses wherever wind existed.
And wind existed everywhere here.
The moment Guilliman’s movement broke the natural flow of the air around him, something changed in the creature’s posture.
The head lifted.
Then the eyes found him.
—BOOM!!!!!
A sudden sonic boom cracked the air like something had been torn open.
The Gale Bull launched itself skyward, the sheer force of its departure displacing the air around it in a violent outward wave that caught Guilliman full in the chest and threw him off his feet.
"What the—"
He hit the ground and before he could process anything further his ears were assaulted. Piercing, resonating, overlapping sound slammed into him from multiple directions as one by one the other bulls around the clearing lifted into the air as well, their bodies rising against the sky with a heaviness that shouldn’t have been possible for creatures their size.
The whole herd.
Gone.
Airborne in seconds.
Guilliman pushed himself upright, jaw tight, the ringing in his ears hammering without mercy.
Gale Bulls could fly.
Not glide. Not leap to impressive heights. Fly. Properly. Using the wind as something closer to solid ground beneath them.
It was why they were widely known to be among the harder hunts in the valley despite the enormous output their genes produced. Most groups that came across them and lacked flight-based abilities turned around without engaging.
High risk.
High reward.
Mostly high risk.
"Hey."
Guilliman looked up.
Eric was already in the air, wrapped in a steady burn of flame, hovering with the comfortable ease of someone for whom this was a default state.
"Are you good?" Eric glanced down at him. "You can fly too, right?"
Guilliman stood.
The buzzing resonance of the Gale Bulls’ sonic output kept pounding at his eardrums in irregular waves, each one slightly different in frequency, enough to keep his concentration fractured if he let it.
He didn’t answer immediately.
"I have something similar," he said.
He turned slightly and summoned Thane.
The creature materialized beside him wrapped in its raven feathers, dark and still, waiting.
"Soul Resonance."
—woosh
The coat of feathers moved.
Not settling. Melding. The raven feathers spread outward and wrapped around Guilliman’s frame like they belonged there, the wings extending from his back fully formed, dark as the space between torchlight.
He lifted off the ground.
Fast.
He climbed quickly, the wings cutting through the valley air with a clean efficiency that closed the gap between him and the herd in a matter of seconds.
Eric had already spotted the particular beast he wanted and was moving toward it without waiting, angling away from Guilliman’s direction without a word.
Guilliman’s eyes were already locked on the one that had started this.
The one that had thrown him.
He shot toward it.
,,,,,,,,,,,,,
Below, on the ridge of rock where the others still stood, Poison Lilly watched.
Her purple-tinted hands rested at her sides, faintly pulsing as they always did. Her eyes moved between the two figures climbing the air above the herd.
"Hmm."
A quiet sound. Thoughtful.
"Those two seem promising...."
Her gaze drifted sideways.
The young man still seated on the ground where the sonic boom had initially thrown everyone back hadn’t moved with any particular urgency.
She watched him for a moment longer than necessary.
"Unlike some people," she added flatly.
Then her attention returned upward in time to catch Guilliman appearing beside the Wayfarer Gale Bull in the upper air, his body pulling alongside its flank, the spear in his hand driving forward in a clean thrust aimed at the rear of the creature.
Precise.
Unhurried about it.
This wasn’t Guilliman’s first time fighting a Wayfarer beast. The elevated instincts, the territorial aggression, the way they moved when they felt genuinely threatened rather than just cautious. He had dealt with that category of opponent before.
And flight was not new to him either.
Disorienting, yes.
Harder than ground-based combat in ways that required specific adjustments to timing and force and spatial awareness.
It might be hard.
But it sat within his line of experience.
And that made all the difference.