On the forest floor, the smell of blood was thick, galloping could be heard echoing through the trees. Suddenly out of a bush, a deer sprang out. It"s body was pure white with two streaks of blue running from it"s antlers to the tuft of it"s tail. Additionallly, on it"s antlers were sever globes of blue, like the decorations of a Christmas tree. Between them sparks of lightning would crackle front time to time.But all was not right, it"s legs had many tears on it ranging from skin deep to some that showed it"s bones. Behind it, silent rustles rang out continuously as branches and bushes were constantly being kicked in th chase.
Flashes of brown and yellow scales would emerge from the gaps of the forest just for seconds at a time before they disappeared. These were the same as the Lizards that Zhao Wei had fought before. Except they were much stronger, any one of them were at least one and a half times the size of the boss Zhao Wei fought and there were at least four of them giving chase right now.
These were adults, their skins had grown tough and turned brown as they aged, their claws would crush trees as they jumped from one to another. In fact, besides their instinctive habits to hunt silently and run around trees, they may as well have torn down a few while running through them.
The deer was not weak by any measure, in it"s beautiful horns, burnt dry blood layered it"s edges, with it"s cries it could release lightning strikes that could kill each lizard 10 times over. Zhao Wei called these Thunder Droppers. They usually lived in an area they had changed to suit their needs. When the blue b.a.l.l.s on their antlers matured they"d drop to the ground which made a field of lightning for half a kilometer each in which none of the other forest inhabitants could enter.
But this one was young, it might"ve ventured too far from where it"s parent"s area of protection was. And with it"s luck it had run into a large pack of what Zhao Wei called Death Wishes, as anybody were to be caught by them, they"d wish for death. He"d met many of their prey before. And most of the time, thy were left alive after the beasts were done feasting. Although Zhao Wei was thankful for the free kills they dropped, he still quite pitied the animals as he knew that their venom didn"t relieve pain from personal experience.
It had lost due to the terrain, the Thunder Droppers generally lived in fields, there their lightning discharge could hit anything from a mile away. In the forest however, their powerful abilities were dampened by the trees which blocked their view and many times dampened the hits.
It"s not to say that the pack didn"t suffer from it. Originally, they had 8 members in the pack including the leader. 3 had been killed instantly by direct hits as they probably never encountered each other before. After that the reptile"s learned to use the trees as cover only striking when they were confident. Additionally it seemed that each discharge of lighting from the young doe drained quite a bit of energy from it. Still, some residue from the lighting would hit the reptiles here and there, burning scales and chatting their flesh.
From his observations, Zhao Wei noticed that Thunder Droppers didn"t fight aggressively if not threatened, he theorized that most of their energy would continuously go into charging those b.a.l.l.s which would consistently generate electricity for a long time as he hadn"t seen any of them run out of energy.
Whilst it kept running, one of the pack popped up from infront of it to bite which it kicked away with it"s front hooves crushing it"s chest. But this moment of delay caused it to be encircled by the other three which stayed near the trees to watch it.
It looked left and right to find any openings, seeing none it prepared to fight, not knowing it"s fate had been sealed. On one of the tree barks a single reptile had crawled in while the others made a ruckus, camouflaging itself to the prey. Just as the deer charged up it"s antlers, it jumped onto it"s back from the side. Forearm sized leg claws dug into the flesh as it"s head circled the body to bite right between it"s front legs. Two gigantic canines directly injected a good dose of paralytic venom near it"s heart, spreading it around the body quickly until the deer was left on the floor twitching, tears running down from it"s eyes.
This one was just as big as the rest, except it had two ma.s.sive canines that continuously dripped the heinous fluid. The large yellow scale which was on the head of the younger leader became a full comb sitting prominently on it"s head. As it was sure it"s prey was down, it walked towards it"s injured teammate and put a foot on top of it"s body. It"s toe with the crescent claw tapped a few times on the heaving body before piercing into the chest, straight to the heart. The other members looked at it in fear and reverence.
Just as they were about to dig into the now still deer, a loud crashing sound came from their left. Bewildered, the pack looked towards their leader who wasn"t worried and asked one of it"s underlings to look around.
They started to bite into the poor animal who didn"t even have enough control to scream.
After a few minutes pa.s.sed the leader felt something was wrong as usually it"s greedy members would quickly come back to get in on the meal. It howled at both it"s members to go and check for any danger.
On the other hand, it"s one underling was chasing a rabbit in the forest. This was one of the smaller ones, probably a runt in the pack. When it was ent to check, it saw a rabbit which appeared conspicuously in it"s vision.
It thought that it usually got the smaller pieces anyway and decided that the rabbit would help it fulfill it"s stomach. Chasing it, it felt like the distance in between was getting smaller and smaller until only a meter was left in between.
Suddenly from a high speed the rabbit instantly stopped and pivoted till it was face to face with the towering reptile. The creature thinking maybe it knew it couldn"t escape and decided to deliver itself to it.
Just as it thought this, the rabbit made a dash and vanished between it"s legs under it.
Confused, it lowered it"s head to look between it"s legs where the rabbit had gone. The rabbit was standing right behind it unmoving. It"s mouth opened to snap it up, but a spike made from bone flew from behind the rabbit, gliding just next to it"s horn before entering the reptile"s open mouth and exiting it"s throat, pining it to a nearby tree.