Chapter 3: Chapter Two: Great Khan
Sothing ca around the corner.
??It had been a coyote once. Will could see the origin in the shape of the skull, the set of the shoulders. But a hundred thousand years of mana exposure had warped it. It stood shoulder-high to his chest. Its pale gold eyes moved with a calculation animal eyes weren’t supposed to contain.
??It wasn’t hunting on instinct.
??It was thinking.
??That made Will slow down. He’d killed plenty in the tutorial—faster things, bigger things, things that hit harder than anything had a right to. But they’d all moved on instinct. Hunger or territory or fear. This thing was weighing him.
??It had heard him talking and co to investigate.
??"Don’t run," Khan said, his presence sliding along their telepathic tether. "It reads flight as weakness."
??"I know." Will already had the folding knife open. A small blade for sothing this size, but he’d worked with worse. His bow was across his back and empty, which was annoying—at range, this would have been straightforward. Up close, it was more interesting. "It’s smarter than the tutorial mobs."
??"Yes. Everything out here will be. The tutorial was a nursery." Khan’s voice had shifted into sothing flatter and more precise, a cold Sovereign’s resonance. "Watch the shoulders. When they drop, it commits. That is your mont."
??"You want
to hunt it. In a street. With a folding knife."
??"I want you to stop thinking about what you don’t have and start using what you do." A pause. "You have fought. I have seen it in your mories. But you fought reactively—waiting for the attack, responding, surviving. That is good. That kept you alive in the tutorial. Out here, it will eventually get you killed."
??The creature circled left. Will turned with it, keeping his weight low, giving it nothing easy. The sickeningly sweet sll of 100,000-year-old rot drifted off the beast’s matted fur.
??"A hunter does not wait to be attacked," Khan continued. "A hunter decides the animal is already dead and completes the formality. There is a difference in the body when you decide that. The creature will feel the difference."
??Will looked at the gold eyes.
??Decided.
??He moved left as it lunged—not back, left—the knife coming up in a thrust, not a slash. The beast’s jaws snapped inches from his face, hot saliva spraying his cheek. He drove the blade toward the throat, his hand finding the angle without being told. A jarring impact shot up his wrist as the steel scraped violently against hardened cartilage.
??Snap. The folding knife sheared off at the hilt, the tal blade lodging uselessly deep in the coyote’s thick neck.
??Then ca the give. The sheer, dead mass of the Level 1 beast delivered a blunt-force trauma that slamd into his chest. A sickening crack echoed in Will’s own ears as one of his newly healed ribs gave way. The impact tore a harsh grunt from his lungs and dragged him down violently to the moss-covered asphalt before the beast’s own montum carried it past him, its throat tearing open from the embedded steel. Its legs scrabbled briefly before going dead still.
??He forced himself upright, his vision swimming with a sudden flash of vertigo. Checked himself—hoping for no damage. He rolled his shoulder where the massive thing had clipped him going past, but as the initial adrenaline spike leveled out, the reality of the hit set in. A sharp, radiating fire blood in his chest. Bruised, bleeding, and stripped of his only blade. Not fine.
??"The angle was correct," Khan said.
??"I’ve done throats before. Different shape on this one." Will crouched next to it, pressing a hand against his aching ribs. He was already thinking about what was usable. The teeth were dense, the claws longer than a normal coyote’s, the hide thick. Tutorial instinct taking over—you kill it, you take what it offers, you move. "The intelligence is new, though. It actually thought about ."
??"Everything out here has had a hundred thousand years to think. Respect that without fearing it."
??"Wasn’t afraid. Just noting it."
??"Good."
??Then the notifications ca. They didn’t fade in politely. The text pixelated into his vision with an invasive, static-laced hum, bringing a sharp, tallic taste of copper to the back of his throat.
??[FIRST KILL ON THE SURFACE]
[Target: Evolved Coyote (Mana-Touched)]
[Threat Level: Common]
[EXP GAINED:
120]
[LEVEL UP: 1 → 2]
[STRENGTH: 11/20 ( 1)]
[DEXTERITY: 12/20 ( 2)]
[INTELLIGENCE: 15/20]
[LUCK: 30/20
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