World Keeper

Chapter 735: The Hunting Storm

Keenan watched as Jace walked through the forest once again, having begun making regular trips out of the forest whenever he began running low on supplies. To Keenan’s wonder, he was never gone long enough for one to walk back to any settlement he was aware of, typically only leaving for one or two days at a time. Despite this, he always returns with a full supply of edible herbs and fruits.

If he had to guess, he assumed that Jace left the forest to begin foraging in a safer area, because he was simply not strong enough to fight the monsters lurking within the forest itself. That would make the most sense to him, as he had never seen the man actually fighting. Of course, if he was too weak to fight the local monsters, it made even less sense for him to return so frequently.

Since their first conversation, Keenan had not yet met with Jace personally again. He would watch the felyn man between his own hunts, but always kept a wary distance. He still remembered the various disasters that he had inflicted on those he had once called his friends with his mere presence. Although Jace apparently had some blessing that bolstered his luck, would that really be enough to last around him?

Regardless of if it was or not, the thought of it brought to mind the faces of those that had been affected by his ‘curse’. The looks of scorn and hatred that he had dealt with for years, until he was able to take no more. Whenever he thought of that, he pushed back any notion of interacting with Jace again. People were all the same. Once his power outgrew Jace’s blessing, Jace would turn on him just like everyone else.

Down below, Jace’s ears seemed to prick up suddenly, and he raised his head to sniff at the air. His felyn senses had caught traces of something even before Keenan had. “There’s a storm coming.” Jace muttered with a serious face.

He did not continue making his way back to his standard camp, instead spinning his staff briefly in his hands before catching it. Using the staff as a guide, he began knocking on trees one after the other, until he found one that seemed to give a more hollow thud. “You’ll want to find shelter for this one. It’s going to be bad.”

Keenan didn’t know what he meant by that. During his years within the forest, he had endured many storms. Some of them had grown so strong that they uprooted mighty trees, others sending lightning down in thick waves.

What’s more, Jace did not seem to be carving out a hollow to rest in at the ground level. Instead, he climbed up the tree for nearly five meters before he began to work. Once Keenan saw that, he had a brief realization. A flood? He had never experienced a flood within this forest, due to its higher elevation. Any rain would flow downhill long before it could build up to such an extent.

Keenan felt as if Jace’s actions were foolish, and jumped over to a tree where he was carving. “Wrong. No floods here. Too high.” Jace did not seem surprised by his presence, but merely shook his head.

“You’ve been out of the loop too long. Lately, there is something strange about the water on Earth. Whenever enough of it is gathered, the water becomes a predatory beast. I can feel a storm gathering, and it’s a big one. If the water in the clouds can turn into such a monster…”

Keenan blinked at that, unsure how to respond. “Seen storms, no problems yet. Why now?”

“I don’t know.” Jace smiled bitterly. “This is different from my luck. A few days ago, I got a message saying that I had received an evolution, and was awarded a ‘Danger Sense’. Just now, when I felt the storm coming, that sense activated.”

Keenan gave a small nod. He had also received a similar message at the same time. The evolution that he received was ‘telekinesis’, though Keenan had yet to fully explore his limits with that ability.

Given that explanation, however, he was at least somewhat more willing to believe Jace’s claim that the coming storm was truly dangerous. “Move.” He said in a simple tone, forming black claws along one of his hands. Sensing something, Jace immediately dropped down by three meters.

Keenan’s hand pierced into the side of the tree where Jace had been working, and allowed his ki to carve out a large hollow. It was easily big enough for Jace to rest in, without exposing any of his body to the elements. Jace reached up to feel the entrance, smiling in satisfaction. “Are there any trees around here with large leaves? Big enough to cover this up?”

Keenan thought about that, glancing up high above them. In truth, many of the trees in this forest held such leaves, though that was not something that Jace would have known. He simply jumped away to gather enough to cover the entrance, returning a few minutes later to find Jace pushed back into the hollow as far as he could go. The uneven floor and rough walls did not bother him in the slightest.

This only served to reinforce Keenan’s suspicions that something was really going to happen. Jace did not seem to be the type to fake such caution, not when he had openly slept in a forest far above his level. For him to be this worried, he truly believed that there was a danger approaching.

After Keenan covered the entrance to Jace’s hollow with the leaves he had gathered, he heard the first crack of thunder from the distance. However, something sounded strange about this thunderstrike. It was not the explosive sound of lightning striking the earth, but rather it sounded almost like a deep, echoing roar.

His eyes went wide, and he immediately leapt out of the tree he was working on. With black claws again forming on his hands, he tore into the side of another nearby tree, carving out a second hollow for himself. Just like Jace had suggested previously, he went to the top of the nearby trees and began gathering leaves to cover the hole he had just dug.

That was when he saw the stormcloud. It seemed to roll in with a narrow body, pushing towards the forest. That alone wasn’t all that strange, Keenan had seen narrow clouds before. However, he had never seen the lightning acting like it was

Three streaks of lightning could almost constantly be seen crackling within the cloud. One at the frontmost part of the cloud, near its base like one would expect, but always streaking back and forth in the same curved pattern. The other two were actually higher than that, near the top of what he could see from the cloud, forming smaller patterns that appeared to be eyes.

The sight of this cloud sent chills down Keenan’s spine, and he quickly went back to the hollow that he had formed for himself. There was no hesitation as he covered what he could, only stopping once he heard the rain beginning to fall. Moments after he rushed inside his hollowed tree, the storm began. Water crashed down through the trees, easily brushing past the thick leaves that would normally stop them.

Through the small gaps in his leaves, he was able to see what was going on below. At first, it appeared to be a rather normal storm. The ground became muddy from the pouring rain. But then, he saw the water acting… strangely.

It did not flow downhill as one might expect, but rather formed puddles along the slight incline. These puddles grew wider and wider, and soon he could hear the cries of beasts. One creature, a beast that Keenan had taken to calling the Panther King due to its prowess, ran across the muddy ground with its fur soaked by rain.

The moment that its paw splashed into one of the unnatural puddles, Keenan thought that he saw jaws forming along the edge of the splash, clamping down on the creature’s leg. The Panther King released a slight hiss, but kept running. It seemed as though the jaws had been unable to pierce its tough hide.

Then… Keenan saw something that would truly haunt him. The forest floor darkened, the wind beginning to roar as a black form rushed between the trees. Keenan wasn’t able to make out the shape of the creature at first, due to its speed and almost gaseous nature. However, it was flying in the direction that the Panther King had fled.

Only seconds later, Keenan could hear the pathetic cry of the Panther King ring out briefly, before being cut off all at once. This wasn’t the last time that Keenan would see that black mass, as more and more creatures ran across the puddles. Smaller creatures, such as rodents or young pups, would entirely disappear after causing the jaws to emerge from the puddles. There was no trace of where they went, as they simply vanished the moment that the jaws clamped shut.

Those too large for the jaws to fully enclose were immediately chased by the black figures. And, after the first few instances, Keenan was able to recognize their shape. Sharks… flying sharks seemingly made of dark clouds. Obviously, it was not the same cloud he saw above, but rather something spawned from them.

The size of the storm shark seemed directly proportionate to the size of the creature that had stepped in the puddles, and they would hunt their prey relentlessly. There was one creature, a snake that tried to slither into his hollow for safety. Keenan had no intention of pushing it away, as that would only draw attention to his hole.

Unfortunately, he noticed how the rain had already covered the snake’s body. There was a flash of black from outside the hollow, the leaves covering its entrance almost blowing free from the sudden movement, and suddenly the snake was gone. Keenan shivered as he realized that it wasn’t just the puddles. The cloud was hunting with the rain itself, using that to mark its prey. The puddles were simply the smaller predator that would consume whatever beast it could.

When he realized that, Keenan pulled himself further back into the hollow, his back pressing against the far side. Some of the water had been tracked in with the snake, and he did not dare to stay too close to it, even if it were only a few drops. He thought of using something to quickly dry the water, but did not know if disturbing it that way would summon the storm sharks.

All he could do was simply wait it out. The storm continued this way for nearly five hours before it had finished passing. Hugging his knees against his chest, Keenan kept his eyes on the wide puddles outside the hollow, now seeming to form a solid layer of water over the forest floor. The flood appeared to be no more than an inch deep, but Keenan knew that the depth meant nothing. Anything that was consumed by those watery jaws vanished without a trace.

Thankfully, the passing of the storm seemed to remove the unnatural effect of the water itself. Having lost its power, the water rushed downhill, no doubt forming a small wave as it flowed to the nearest river. Even after the mass of water had flooded away from the area, Keenan continued to watch the ground with a wary gaze.

It was only when he saw the other nearby hollow opening up, Jace extending a shaking hand to climb out that Keenan believed that the danger had passed. Without touching the muddy floor, he jumped from his tree to the one where Jace had been hiding. The felyn’s face was utterly pale, his eyes having a black cloth wrapped over them that Keenan didn’t see before. “Was it… was it as bad as it sounded?”

After he asked that, Keenan was able to somewhat understand. Jace had been horrified by the sounds of the storm and the screams of the dying monsters. So horrified that his natural curiosity made him want to see what was going on, to make sure that he was safe. The blindfold was there to stop him from opening his eyes due to the temptation. “Worse… need leave.”

“Is it coming back?” Jace asked with a shudder, though Keenan shook his head.

“No… animals all dead. Can’t hunt here anymore.” There were bound to be a few beasts that had taken shelter from the rain, but he could not be sure how many. Most beasts would not have hidden in places where the unnatural rain wouldn’t have reached, aside from some birds. What did remain was undoubtedly not enough to sustain the normal ecosystem of the forest.

Keenan knew what happened when such events took place. If there were not enough monsters, more would spontaneously begin appearing. This was something that he had read about in school, though it was a rather rare occurrence in the present day.

Sadly if new monsters were simply spawned in like that, Keenan would have no idea what level of power they had, or what methods would be needed to hunt them. It was better to find an entirely new forest, one where he could gauge the levels of the monsters safely.

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