Chapter 55: Hunt successful
Zephyr crouched high in the cradle of a towering tree, one knee balanced on a thick branch veined with moss, the other foot braced against the rough bark. His body was still, breath controlled, even as his muscles trembled slightly from the effort of holding position. The canopy stretched around him like a cathedral of emerald, light filtering through in dappled fragments. Thick vines dangled like serpents from branch to branch, and glowing fungi nestled in the bark cast a faint bioluminescent hue across the forest’s underbelly. The air here was humid, soaked with the scent of wet wood and old roots.
Beneath him, in the forest clearing mottled with shafts of light, moved the creature he had been tracking for the better part of an hour—a lone raindeer riftsprawn. It looked like something pulled from a half-finished myth. Easily twice the size of any natural deer, its hide shimmered with a sheen of translucent gray-blue fur that flickered like oil on water. Long, branching antlers glowed faintly with pale green runes— it’s birthmark, pulsing in rhythm with the creature’s slow breath. Its hooves left no mark in the soft moss
Zephyr exhaled slowly, crouched on the branch like a predator sculpted from shadows and intent. The raindeer riftsprawn moved through the clearing beneath him, each step nearly soundless, its muscles rippling beneath that strange, opalescent hide. The air around it shimmered faintly, a tell tale sign of the Aether running through its blood, the remnants of the rift that birthed it pulsing with every breath it took.
This one was smaller than the last few he’d hunted—leaner, younger perhaps—but still powerful. And still elusive. Zephyr’s jaw tightened at the memory of the last three he had let slip through his fingers. Failed ambushes, wasted energy, and mounting frustration.
’Not this time’.
His grip tightened around the handle of his scythe as the deer moved directly under him.
And with a sharp exhale, he dropped.
Branches rushed past in a blur as gravity hurled him downward, cloak flaring behind him like torn wings. The scythe curved in his hands, wicked and hungry, aimed for the base of the riftsprawn’s neck. One clean strike—that was the plan.
But the creature moved.