Chapter 16: Whispers in the Woods
On the fifteenth day, after successfully hunting a particularly tough Armoured Boar, Rhys was resting by a stream, cleaning his dagger.
’Clang.’
His head snapped towards the west, from where the clash of metal drifted through the trees. It was distant, but his enhanced senses picked it up clearly.
"Which fool is fighting so brazenly in the woods?" he muttered, face-palming, already sensing movements in the surroundings being directed towards that position.
Sure, they were in the outer rings of the Whisperwood. The outer ring didn’t have monsters above Stage 1, but that didn’t mean they couldn’t come here after hearing the commotion.
That’s why despite knowing his Spark Fist could easily kill a Shadowcat in one strike, Rhys chose to fight with his dagger skill.
Unless he reached a high stage in the Body Tempering realm, he wasn’t going to risk attracting a Stage 2 monster.
Curiosity piqued, he stored his gear and moved towards the sound. Finding a tall tree in the vicinity, he climbed it.
It gave him a perfect vantage point over a small clearing below. What he saw made him pause.
A group of three young cultivators, no older than himself, were locked in a desperate battle with a single, scrawny-looking Shadowcat.
It was one of the few that must have escaped his earlier, thorough cleansing of the area.
Two of the youths were male, dressed in dark, practical leather armour with the emblem of the Thorne family.