Kaizer woke with sunlight brushing the tops of the trees. It took a moment for his thoughts to settle, as if something in him was still winding down from dreams he could not remember. “When did I even fall asleep,” he muttered.
He rubbed his eyes and opened his status before he even stood. It appeared as smoothly as breathing now.
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STATUS WINDOW
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Name: Kaizer Harth
Race: Human (Beast Touched)
Class: Bestial Fighter (Rare)
Level: 2
Core Rank: Initiate
Essence Capacity: Rank F
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ATTRIBUTES
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Strength: 8
Endurance: 7
Agility: 7
Perception: 8
Mind: 5
Instinct: 11
Free Points: 4
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TRAITS
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Divine Blessing of Silver
Instinctive Regeneration
Feral Insight
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SKILLS
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Beast Claw (Inferior)
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Kaizer rolled his tongue along his teeth as he studied the panel. He felt different. Taller, no. Stronger, yes. He was far more aware of his surrounding but something inside him felt restless. He closed the main window, but curiosity gnawed at him. Pulling the window back up, he focused his perception on his class. A subtle shift in his awareness brought forth further information he had not noticed before.
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Class: Bestial Fighter (Rare)
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You have been touched by beastkind. A fighter who embraces the instincts of predator and prey, you exert your strength at close range. Steel and fang are equal tools in your hands.
Stat Growth per Level:
8 total (4 automatic, 4 manual)
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Kaizer stared at the concise panel. “That’s it? This is all I get?” He dragged a hand through his hair and groaned. “So I could have known I was getting eight stat points per level, and where some of them were going. That would have been… helpful…” He closed the panel with a sigh. “Stupid system.”
Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Kaizer stretched his shoulders. The joints moved with smooth clicks, not painful but stronger. It was almost like he could feel the free stat points rolling in his mind, like a lingering pressure pushing down on him.
“Fuck it,” Kaizer exclaimed as he allocated all of his points to instinct.
Instinct: 11 --> 15
As soon as he did so, the world snapped into clarity. Scents rushed toward him in overlapping layers. Moist earth. River water. Old blood. Leaves decaying under the weight of dew. He could feel the presence of a squirrel somewhere overhead. A faint musk of something large in the distance. The feelings were too sharp. A headache pulsed behind his eyes as his body adjusted.
“May have taken that too far,” he muttered.
He stood and rolled his shoulders yet again. Feeling alive, senses burning. His breath settled into a steady rhythm. It was time to move. He walked through the forest, feet landing soundlessly without conscious effort. Every branch, every shift of air felt mapped in his mind before he even stepped. He had not trained for this. His body simply adapted.
Minutes blurred. His nose twitched. A sharp, jittery smell reached him. He turned his head before he realised why. A mutated hare knelt near a patch of moss, nibbling at the roots of a fern. It was dog sized, hind legs bulging with unnatural muscle. Its red eyes flicked around in frantic arcs.
Kaizer lowered his stance. He did not remember choosing to. The hare’s ears twitched. Kaizer lunged. The hare shot forward with explosive speed. Kaizer followed, weaving through brush and branches, his feet exactly where they needed to be. The world tuned itself to movement. The hare zigged. He zagged. It leaped left and his body cut it off before he had even processed thought.
His hand closed around the creature’s hind leg. He slammed it against a tree. A loud crack sounded. The hare spasmed in his grip and went limp. Kaizer stared at it. His heart thundered. Pounded so loudly he couldn’t think. A bead of the hare’s blood slid along his finger. Without thinking, he raised it to his lips. The metallic taste hit him, sharp and electric.
Kaizer froze. “What the hell am I doing…”
He dropped the dead hare and stepped back, breath shaking. The headache behind his eyes pulsed further. Had the blood tasted… good?
He washed toe blood from his hands in a nearby stream. The cold water helped, but not enough. He looked at his reflection. His pupils were slightly too large. His breathing slightly too slow. Kaizer took a long breath and continued forward. His senses reached far ahead. They caught things he did not want to smell. Blood. Smoke. Rot.
Another scent cut through the mix, close, feline. Two panthers emerged from the brush. Larger than any he had ever heard of. Their fur shimmered faintly with blue essence. Their movements were coordinated. One circled left. The other right.
Kaizer felt something rise inside him. A fierce, hot anticipation. His lips curled upward before he could stop them. He lowered his stance. The left panther lunged first. Kaizer dodged by pure instinct, the paw slicing the air where his neck had been. He countered, but the beast twisted away. The second panther leaped at his back Kaizer rolled under it but felt claws rake across his shoulder. Pain flared, hot and immediate. His blood dripped down his arm. They circled again, growling. Their eyes locked onto him with cold hunger.
Kaizer breathed slowly. “Alright,” he whispered. “Come on then.” Kaizer let out a taunt, lifting his arm in a come at me sign. The panthers attacked together. One high. One low. Kaizer stepped forward, his right hand clenched. Pain ripped through his fingernails before he had even mouthed the words. Realising he didn’t need to, blood sprayed from his fingers as the claws pushed through even as he slashed his arm upward. The pain wouldn’t stop him this time, adrenaline kept him going, his slash flowed true, tearing into the leaping panthers belly.
Hot blood drenched his arm. The creature collapsed and yowled. The second panther slammed into him. Its jaws clamped onto his shoulder. Kaizer roared in pain, stars in his eyes as he smash his elbow into its skull. Once. Twice. Three times. On the fourth, bone cracked. The panther staggered, dazed but so did Kaizer, his left elbow had also suffered tremendous damage. Kaizer lunged forward and drove his claws into its throat. His fingers tore flesh. The beast spasmed and fell silent. Both panthers lay still.
Kaizer stood over them, chest heaving. His arm dripped with their blood. When a deep warmth entered his core, Kaizer collapsed with a laugh, so deep, his shoulder continued to ache.
[Essence absorbed]
[Level Up]
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STATUS UPDATE
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Level: 3
Strength: 9
Endurance: 7
Agility: 8
Perception: 8
Mind: 5
Instinct: 17
Free Points: 4
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Kaizer laughed again. Seeing the blood dripping from his shoulder, he could physically feel as the wound slowly began to close, much faster then a regular human. The wound was already slowly starting to scab over. Without really thinking, Kaizer once again allocated all four points into Instinct.
Instinct: 17 --> 21
Kaizer left the panther corpses behind and walked deeper into the forest, for he had no tools to do anything with them. As he did so, the air immediately shifted around him. Smoke. Blood. Fear. It was human fear. Kaizer’s heart thudded once, hard. He moved quickly now, guided by scent and scattered signs.
He spotted a torn piece of shirt. Footprints smeared with blood. Branches clearly broken in a frantic struggle. Scorched trees came into view, shell casings from a gun on the ground. Drag trails in the dirt where someone had clearly been forced to move. Kaizer noticed a broken short spear shaft lying at the base of a tree. The wood was splintered. Dried blood coated the grain. The tip was missing entirely. He turned haft in his hand slowly. Humans had been here. Signs of a struggle. It didn’t look like a beast was involved though. Humans fighting other humans already?
He moved further into the forest, following the dark trail. The trees pressed in, the light fell away, and the smell thickened. Wet earth. Blood. Rot. Something feeding. Kaizer slowed, dropping into near silence. He slipped between two trees and froze.
A tall, gaunt creature crouched over a human corpse. Its limbs were elongated, joints angled wrong. Gray skin stretched tight across a ribcage that moved with slow, deliberate breath. A deer-like skull fused to its head twitched as it tore strips of meat from bone. Blue essence veins pulsed beneath its skin. It was humanoid but not human. Not anymore.
One long ear flicked. The creature’s head lifted. Golden eyes met his through the dark. Kaizer focused as the creature rose to its full height, towering over him on two legs.
[Wendigo]
[Level ??]
A deep, guttural growl rolled from its chest as it took a slow step toward Kaizer. Kaizers instincts surged like lightning. The short fur on his arm stood on end with something dangerously close to fear.
“Here we go, I guess,” he whispered.
The Wendigo charged.
