"In Inuit folklore, it"s known to use its resemblance with dogs to deceive lost travelers."The creature in question finally stopped eating and turned toward Lazar.
As he expected it wasn"t the least surprised to see him and even looked amused to meet a human who hadn"t fallen into the trap for once.
"What differentiates an Eeqidi from a dog physically is the fact that it"s bigger and has a human face. Also, it was specified in the book that his sense of smell is closer to that of dogs than that of humans. The main thing to remember about them is that as soon as someone approached them without suspicion, then they would throw themselves on them to devour their brains."
While Lazar was still a.s.sessing his opponent, the Eeqidi was stretching its 4 paws.
It no longer took this fight seriously after seeing the build of Lazar.
From an outside point of view, no one would bet on him either even taking into account the fact that he has a weapon.
On one side you have a 6 feet long creepy bloodthirsty monster with a muscular build, black fur, red eyes and a human face who has nothing to do there displaying a sinister expression.
On the other side, there is Lazar who has a good musculature but who must be half the weight of this monster.
But the reality was quite different for him.
"It"s obvious that mother nature or whatever gave birth to this s.h.i.t designed it so that its specialty is surprise attack. His claws aren"t impressive and don"t look sharp at all, the main danger comes from its speed and its jaw. With teeth like that, it will only take a bite to kill me. On top of that, I feel like my body is less resistant with this blade in my hands. But it"s also easier to move and it"s more important for an opponent like that."
He had never fought a monster, but when it came to hand-to-hand combat with or without a combat knife...
No one could boast of being his equal at Fort Benning, not even his instructors.
Tired of waiting for Lazar to decide to attack, it was the Eeqidi that act first by rushing at him.
Not wanting his second snack of the day to run away, he reduced the distance between them in barely 2 seconds and threw himself on Lazar to tackle him on the ground.
It didn"t go as planned because Lazar took a step aside at the very moment when he had thrown himself in the air to avoid it.
He didn"t limit himself to avoid it.
In the continuity of his movement, he sliced with disconcerting ease one of the back paws of the Eeqidi.
It couldn"t land on the ground correctly and from his amputated limb spurted a geyser of blood.
Now there was only pain that was visible on its face, he had underestimated his opponent and with one paw less he had lost his advantage in speed.
He understood quickly that he couldn"t run away, he had to kill this human if he wanted to have a chance to survive.
The next few seconds were going to sign his death warrant if he didn"t have a genius idea right now.
Lazar wasn"t going to cross his arms during this time.
He reaffirmed his grip on his weapon and ran towards the Eeqidi to give it the final blow.
That was a real surprise for him when he felt blood splatter his face.
He didn"t think that the beast was smart enough for coming so quickly to the conclusion that its best option for survival was to throw blood from its stump onto him to blind him.
This had the effect of disorienting him for an instant.
The beast took this opportunity to prepare another charge by gathering as much strength as possible in its 3 remainings paws.
Seeing that Lazar was no longer moving and that there was blood all over his face, the Eeqidi could already see himself savoring his brain who had been so hard to win.
It pounced on him with almost as much strength as the last time.
"You won"t have me like that."
Lazar certainly hadn"t planned that the Eeqidi would do that, so what?
As a Navy Seal, he was trained to use his other senses when he was deprived of one. Blind, he counted on his hearing and his touch.
It was far from being as effective as his eyes.
But the growls of pain, the sound of his strides and the change of wind direction were more than enough to predict the trajectory of the a.s.sault of the beast.
The outcome of the fight was decided from the start.
The Eeqidi was cut in half and was dying on the ground.
"All it could do was try to pounce at me. I didn"t even have to make a move very different from when I cut his paw, very clever but no fighting instinct."
Noting that the Eeqidi was still breathing and seeing his blank gaze as it stared at the lower part of his own body right before his eyes...
He walked towards him and finished him by plunging his blade into his head.
"Disappointing and you really was an a.s.shole."
Not wanting to open his eyes for fear that blood would enter inside he felt two large discharges of electricity run through him but he didn"t saw the black smoke that emanated from his body at the same time.
[You have eliminated an Eeqidi (E ★★★☆☆) .]
[You awoke as an Evolved human being.]
[150 experience points obtained.]
[Your level has increased, level 0➞1.]
[Your level has increased, level 1➞2.]
"Mmh... very interesting."
3 pages with different t.i.tles had appeared in his brain at the same time.
"Let"s see..."
The first page was ent.i.tled "BESTIARY".
There were several sections framed and a letter was above each of them.
In each section were several dozen lines and question marks for each line except one in the section named "E".
It was written Eeqidi and a patch next to it was highlighted.
Lazar attributed the responsibility to the fact that he focused on the patch to justify the opening of a whole paragraph of description.
[Eeqidi ⠆Inuit folklore]
♦ Danger level ⠆E ★★★☆☆
♦ Description ⠆
The Eeqidi is an evil anthropophagous creature, he comes from the isolated and desert plains of eastern Greenland. its thick fur protected him from the polar climate that prevails there.
His doglike appearance serves to inspire confidence in humans and he will not hesitate to tear them apart as soon as they lower their guard.
Although it"s particularly fond of surprise attacks, his strength and powerful jaw often give him the advantage against an enemy considered as dangerous as him.
"I already knew them, but it"s still nice to have a more precise description. So I must kill monsters so that they appear in the bestiary, it"s obvious given that I have no information on the monsters coming from the crater and that I only got this notification when I killed the Eeqidi. Also, It looks like the bestiary is ranked in ascending order of level of danger. The Eeqidi being of rank E ★★★☆☆, it"s in the same place as lines with 3 question marks and the first lines begin with 1 question mark while the last lines have 5."
The bestiary was already a satisfying discovery but the information he found there was less important than what followed.
"Let"s go to the second page."
"It"s the page made to compare which has the biggest" was what he thought when he came across the page of "ACHIEVEMENTS".
This page is designed as a sort of ranking to know who had done what and in what order, apparently with rewards...
The layout of this page was the same as that of the bestiary with framed sections and letters above each of them.
What changed compared to the bestiary is that there are no lines with question marks, there are only lines with possible achievements and a cross on the same line if it has been completed.
There is also a patch on each line that doesn"t flash and when you press it you can see a ranking indicating the name of each person having completed the achievement in chronological order.
Lazar"s name was present in two rankings and he also noticed that only his reward was visible, not that of others.
♦ Kill a rank E monster ⠆⌧
• 2520th ⠆Lazar Sogorov.
• Reward ⠆awakening.
♦ Kill a rank E ★★★☆☆ monster ⠆⌧
• 3rd ⠆Lazar Sogorov.
• Reward ⠆+5 stat points.
"They put my birth name... it"s going to be a problem."
He didn"t want to stay on this page for too long.
He just memorized the names of the two people who killed a rank E ★★★☆☆ monster before him and went to the next page since no one had killed stronger monsters yet.
"...A Status window."
There was nothing really important to see here, apart from the confirmation that he had no personal skills and the number of experience points he had to earn to increase his level.
This is what he believed before seeing the number of energy points he has and the "statistics" part.
There were 4 types of statistics and 10 stat points available to increase them, Lazar was almost tempted to thank the G.o.ds.
It was surely something definitive so to make his decision he took the time to read the definition of each statistic.
"Increasing my const.i.tution will make me stronger, more enduring, more resistant and I will recover from injuries faster. Increasing my agility will make me faster, more flexible and will decrease my reaction time. Increasing my perception will allow me to improve my senses and increasing my energy attributes will allow me to have more energy points and increases the power of my skills."
He knew that he shouldn"t only think about the possibilities offered by each statistic.
"To make my choice, I must also take into account the problems I encountered against the Eeqidi. If he had hit me I would have died and it wasn"t far from it when he managed to send blood to my face, so I have to greatly increase my const.i.tution first. I will not much increase my agility and my perception since they"re already pretty high and I"m also going to increase my energy stats a lot. I need to have a ranged attack and I can barely feel any energy. If I find myself having to fight against several opponents, for example, I have to be able to use the Energy slash. The bonus of energy points is also welcome since I don"t know what this skill is worth, it would be nice if I can use it more than 3 times."
It only took a few seconds for him to agree on the distribution of his stat points.
[Lazar Sogorov]
♦ Age ⠆18
♦ Level ⠆2 (0/300)
♦ Energy points ⠆(30/30)➞(51/51)
• Energy regeneration rate ⠆(1,1 points/min)➞(1,6 points/min)
♦ Evolution status ⠆Evolved human being
♦ Skills ⠆None
♦ Statistics ⠆[Stat points available ⠆0]
• Const.i.tution ⠆7(-1) ➞ +5 ➞ 11
• Agility ⠆9(+1) ➞ +2 ➞ 12
• Perception ⠆9 ➞ +3 ➞12
• Energy ⠆5(+1) ➞ +5 ➞ 11
Lazar felt overwhelmed with power after he added his stat points.
But he kept in mind that this was just the beginning and that in the bestiary there were several columns after E.
"The Eeqidi shouldn"t even be a bigger threat than a gnat compared to these monsters and in my current state, neither do I."
He finally decided to clean his face with his t-shirt.
He grabbed his bag and put the blade back into its scabbard after wiping it on the Eeqidi"s fur.
Then he opened his eyes and headed for the car where the corpse was.