Chapter 180

◈ Chapter 180:

Rain stepped clear of his cage, footpads coming back down onto sand, and of course, freedom.

He hadn't liked being caged, cages were the antithesis of being a predator, because a caged predator was no longer a predator, they were prey. Just leaving such a place made his mind settle, and determination fill him, the urge to hunt making his claws twitch.

The sound of feet slapping on metal came from the side and then hands clapping onto bars. He turned his head to see the goblin girl clutching at her cage and staring up at him.

"Hey, hey, we had an agreement right? Do the same thing you just did to my cage! Let me out!"

Rain stared at her, a pair of luminous yellow eyes in the dark, his black fur hiding him in the gloom. It would be so easy to just reach out and pull her through… and into his teeth.

"Are you listening to m-me? H-hey…"

The goblin's voice petered off as the wolf didn't react, remaining silent and unmoving. The way that thing was looking at her, like she was fresh prey dangling before its snout ready to be snapped up.

Feeling like something was wrong she snatched her hands from the bars and quickly backed up, taking steps away from the bars.

The harpy snorted behind her.

"You didn't notice? That one is far worse than the chimaera… You're welcome to go off with it, just leave me out of it."

The goblin licked her lips.

"I uh, changed my mind, I'll just be here, hanging out, in prison… safely."

The wolf took a step toward the cage and the goblin flinched back, her face paling, glancing at the bars and realising that the slim things would hold up about as well as paper beneath this monster. Even the harpy shifted behind her, pressing herself against the back of the cage.

Rain almost went for them anyway, but then he had other options and really they were quite small and of course Opal wouldn't like it very much. They were… sapient, she would probably say, but then a panthara was sapient too and he sure as hell wasn't going to pity one of those things. Monster speech was what mattered then? Whatever the case he knew she wouldn't appreciate him eating the fanged goblin, even while she would happily feed him the harpy.

He had far bigger prey to satisfy his needs so it wasn't a dilemma he needed to get stuck on. He turned and paced into the dark, leaving the goblin and harpy behind. The dramatic breath of relief they let out as he passed them by was a little amusing.

There was time between now and the night's event. In that time he would take all these caged monsters out of the equation, eating them from under the levelers and preventing them from using them to level up.

He approached the first large cage, a two storey tall thing with a great winged lion inside, its wings like that of a hawk, the brown and cream pattern a match for its fur. Some kind of halfbreed perhaps, or evolution? He couldn't tell. He didn't have the knowledge as a leveler, or some kind of Skill that would tell him.

He lifted a paw and pushed it through the bars. In moments a huge cloud of black exploded from his fur and sucked into the shape of a great pair of wolf teeth. They lunged forward eagerly, the lion rearing up in surprise. Of course Rain had been waiting for that and flicked his paw, the teeth changing direction abruptly, whipping up and biting into the massive winged lion's exposed throat, then twisting and ripping the entire thing out in a spray of gore.

The lion opened its mouth to roar but its voice disappeared in a wet gurgle as it lost its windpipe. It staggered backwards in a panic, head thrashing and paws batting at the teeth still coming on only to disintegrate as they struck the predation.

In moments the lion monster was dead and slumped on the metal floor.

Rain watched as his level ticked up from seven to eight and then nine. This had been a pretty powerful monster apparently, worth at least as much as the fifty or so spine covered bear like monsters he killed in the forest before reaching the town of silvara.

Okay, just killing it through the bars was a little bit like cheating. Like a monster buffet for him to pick and choose from. He paused as a thought occurred to him, something that the drake had said. 'Killing a monster pinned down for levels wasn't as good as fighting a monster for levels.' He had been vaguely aware of that from his past life… but did the cage count as being pinned? He wasn't sure. Maybe? He frowned and wondered if he could have been level ten right now if he had gotten in the cage with it and fought the thing properly.

"Damn it. I never learned about this kind of thing," he growled unhappily. What was he supposed to do? He worried at the problem and glanced over the body of the great lion. Maybe a snack would help.

Fortunately the lion was so large that Rain was still able to reach it through the bars. He grabbed hold of its mangled front paw, a paw larger than his own and hauled on the body. With a little trouble he pulled the limb through and bit into it, blood pouring around his maw as his teeth sliced through flesh and bone like a guillotine. He bit, tasted, then swallowed. "Not good," he mumbled around another mouthful. The muscle was stringy and the flavour poor, like all the worst aspects of feline and bird.

Still, his hunger was up and he ate his way through the limb, and then began pulling the rest of the lion through, using his predation to cut up the torso so it could fit and devouring it on the other side. It was a messy operation to say the least, and the cage floor and surrounding sands became awash with blood.

A few minutes was all it took and he was done, letting the coming growth bank up for later. Surprisingly little time was needed to eat the entire giant lion. Well, maybe not that surprising considering he barely needed to chew. He idly used one of the lion's claws as a toothpick and turned away, already looking for the next cage to plunder.

He paused as he saw the small cage, the one with the goblin and harpy. They were both now standing with their backs pressed against the far wall, faces pale as ghosts, staring at him in utter horror.

Ah.

Maybe he should have been a bit more discreet about that. Seeing a monster casually eat another monster twice its own body size like it was nothing wasn't exactly a normal thing to see.

He opened his mouth to speak, but thought better of it as the two girls flinched, staring at his blood covered maw, gore and blood drizzling from his lips and teeth. The goblin looked on the verge of pissing herself in fright, eyes as wide as saucers.

He slowly closed his mouth. Okay, maybe there wasn't anything he could do to calm them down, better if he just moved away for now, probably.

He felt more than heard them slump in relief as he turned toward the next of the larger cages in view, nestled between the crumbling walls of the ruins.

This one contained some kind of cave bear, probably an evolution judging by its incredible size, far bigger than the winged lion, a huge black mountain of fur and muscle that was well over twice Rain's height with beady little red eyes that stared down at him from above.

He lifted a paw, a wisp of predation slipping free… But then he hesitated.

"Goddammit." he muttered under his breath letting the wisp return to his fur. He didn't know how much of an effect this monster being caged would have on his ability to level. It sounded almost like walking through a warehouse full of caged goblins with a knife and from what the drake has said that was not very efficient. Where was Lyra to poke for answers when he needed her!

He needed to make use of this opportunity, his chance to luck into a Class and acquire actually useful skills… that and killing monsters in cages didn't exactly appeal to his predatory side.

With a sigh he slipped his paws between the bars and set his feet and legs, leaning into the cage as he heaved, muscles bulging, spreading his paws apart as the immensely thick metal slowly began to bend, letting out a low metallic groan under the strain.

It seemed it was no more difficult to spread the bars than in his own cage, and he looked between them pleased with the progress he was making. Then slightly less pleased as a paw so large that it engulfed his forearm latched onto him. A very very large bear paw.

"Wait, hold—" Too late the bear roared and hauled him into the cage, ripping him into the air and whipping him around.

He found himself crashing so hard against the rear bars that the entire cage tilted back on one corner before slamming back down with a boom. He came back with it, the mountainous cave bear whipping him back across like a toy.

He was the one that was supposed to do the throwing around of others!

This time he was ready however and reached out his other arm and latched onto the bars as the bear struck him against them. When the bear tried to pull back it found its toy stuck to the cage wall, and no matter how the bear pulled it would not come away.

Then the toy bit its paw.

Hard.

The bear roared and snatched its paw back only to find the toy came with it, leaping at its chest. Rain clung to its fur and then lifted one paw back. Long four foot scythes extended from his knuckles and then he twisted inward, driving with his whole body as he punched into its chest, driving the claw scythes through ribs and flesh and directly into its heart.

It made a surprisingly mouse-like squeak and then collapsed like a puppet with its strings cut, hitting the ground with a heavy boom, dead as a doornail… directly on top of Rain.

The mountainous corpse remained still in the dark. Only the anxious panted breathing of the goblin and harpy breaking the pin drop silence of the ruinous gloom.

But then the back of the bear began to move, its flesh pushing out, bulging until it split apart, a hulking black wolf thing bursting free covered in gore and entrails its eyes glittering in the dark before it dived back down with a hunger that defied all reason, taking great scooping bites of bear.

"Delicious!" cried Rain as he dove back in.

The horror the two monster girls were feeling somehow cranked up a notch to a whole new previously unknown level on hearing this.

Ten minutes later and there was no bear left, just a lake of blood and a few patches of fur, a wolf sat cross legged in the centre gnawing on the last of a thigh bone before crunching his way through it and swallowing.

Okay that had certainly been better than the lion, albeit unbelievably more messy. He was now soaked to the skin in blood, his entire body glossy with wet and gore, darkening his fur further in the ruin's gloom.

Rain paused as he stepped from the cage. Maybe it would be a good idea not to make things too obvious. He grabbed hold of the spread bars and with some exertion managed to bend them back as they had been.

He didn't even bother looking in the harpy and goblins direction. As he was now he was uncertain if they would survive his gaze, having simultaneous heart attacks out of fear. That would be difficult to explain to Opal. Oh yes I spared them, but then they died because I was too scary looking.

He quickly moved onto the next cage, moving out of sight from the girls. This time what he found gave him pause.

There was a panthara in the cage, and its glowing blue eyes were giving him a steady look, a sneer on its lips, as if to say. 'Come inside, come inside with me, let us fight like you fought the bear.'

Rain considered this. Okay, fuck that. He wanted levels but he wasn't crazy, knowing how insidious Panthara's could be he felt it almost a certainty the thing would have some kind of horrible cruel trap he couldn't have predicted ready to spring on him the moment he entered.

He summoned dark predation and sent it surging through the bars to the panthara's outrage, clearly having expected him to fight. It didn't stand a chance in the confined space, a storm of teeth shredded the thing, ripping it limb from limb.

Rain could admit he didn't feel comfortable taking chances around the damned things, every moment he spent near a panthara felt like it was part of some malicious plan the panthara had intended for him all along.

Because of that he made sure it was very very dead before pulling its parts through the bars and devouring them.