Hours after facing the Shardback Ravager, Ethan encountered a second Elite Beast, only this one didn't burst from the ground...
It stalked him.
He only realised when a shadow detached itself from a rock formation.
Ethan leapt back and turned around to face the beast.
It was a sleek, low-profile predator with dark, stone-like hide and elongated limbs built for leaping. With its mouth split wide, it revealed needle-like teeth that threatened to pierce him.
{Elite Beast Status}
{Race: Dunestride Reaver
Growth Stage: Prime
Beast Rank: E
Strength: 14
Speed: 23
Stamina: 20
MP: 5/5}
Unlike the Ravager, this one was fast, very fast.
It wasn't on the level of the Skyrend Hawk, but seeing it move on land was frightening. To make it worse, when it moved, its body shimmered faintly...
'Where's it gone?!'
It vanished, or so it seemed.
Ethan realised what had happened quickly.
'That's not invisibility... It's camouflage!'
The Dunestride Reaver burned MP to blend almost perfectly into the rocky terrain.
"Now that's fucking annoying."
Ethan didn't hesitate, and this time assimilated with Wolfy.
Though Talon's eyes might see through its camouflage, to spot a creature that fooled one's eyes, it was the other senses that were more important.
He received an even enhancement of his stats and was overcome by instincts.
His posture lowered automatically, and his breathing slowed, as he summoned Talon overhead.
"Attack from the skies, I got this creepy thing on the ground," he called out before the Reaver struck suddenly.
There was a blur from behind him, but Wolfy's instincts flared.
He twisted mid-step and blocked with his forearm as claws raked across it.
Pain shot up his arm, but he gritted his teeth.
"Found you."
The Skyrend Hawk dived from above, talons scraping across the Reaver's back, disrupting its camouflage.
Its shimmering flickered, and Ethan saw it - every time it used its concealment skill, its body rippled unnaturally.
'That's its tell.'
The beast circled him, but so did he, as he awaited its next attack.
When it lunged again, Ethan met it head-on.
It was a predator through and through and aimed for his neck. It opened its maw, revealing its razor-sharp teeth that would easily puncture through his skin.
But Ethan reacted swiftly, swinging his head back as hard as he could.
The beast's teeth raked across his upper chest instead, narrowly missing Ethan's throat.
'That was close.'
Wolfy's assimilation made him more balanced and grounded.
After avoiding the attack by leaning as far back as he could, he burst back like a spring. Ethan grabbed both the beast's slender forelimbs as he did and slammed his forehead into its snout.
Headbutting a beast was nuts, but Ethan wasn't exactly the most sane person.
It recoiled, dazed by the unexpected counterattack, and before it could camouflage again, Talon struck again from above. The Reaver tried to disengage, burning MP to fade, but the Skyrend Hawk's aerial pressure didn't allow it to fully reset.
Ethan then tackled it against a rock formation.
Claws and teeth tore into his flesh, but he ignored the pain and smashed a nearby rock onto the beast's head. He then wrapped an arm around its neck. Then, with all the strength he could muster, he drove its head into the ground repeatedly until it went limp.
Each smash sprayed black, disturbing blood onto his face, but he didn't stop until he heard it...
{Beast Eliminated!}
He lay there for a moment, chest heaving.
'Now that's a better matchup.'
As stealthy and fast as the beast was, its physicality wasn't anything overwhelming. It also wasn't as fortified as the other beasts he had faced, making it easier to deal damage to it.
Though if he hadn't been alert and noticed its presence initially, it would have killed him before he could even react.
With that thought in mind, Ethan couldn't help but feel like he had acquired the wrong beast.
'Maybe I should've waited and seen what my options were first.'
Both the other Elite Beasts had MP and interesting skill sets, but there was no changing it now, and Talon's speed had saved his ass more times than he could count.
As such, he didn't dwell on it and fed the beast to his summons before continuing on his way...
-
Time blurred again.
The cycle was simple: hunt, fight, feed beasts, recover MP, repeat.
It became a rhythm, a brutal, exhausting one that Ethan fell into without even realising it.
One battle bled into the next.
He would hunt a beast, collapse beside a rock to recover MP, feed Wolfy and Talon whatever meat remained, then stand back up and start searching again.
Over, and over, and over again.
At some point, his limbs began trembling, his throat started burning like he had swallowed sand, and the yellow sky began swimming slightly in his vision.
But Ethan barely noticed.
Because even within the Tower, he was a madman with a single goal: to get stronger.
"Come on…" he muttered hoarsely, dragging himself over another rocky ridge. "Just one more…"
The Rocky Plains stretched endlessly.
There was no night or natural signal of time passing, just that relentless heat and blinding yellow sky.
Ethan completely lost track of how long he had been in the Tower, and he only realised it when there was a faint chime.
A soft ding echoed in his mind as text appeared across his vision.
{Congratulations on completing the Objective: Survive a total of 24 hours on Floor One}
Ethan blinked.
"…Huh?"
Then another line appeared.
{Reward: Beast Link (D)}
His eyes widened.
"A skill?!"
His exhaustion vanished for a moment as adrenaline surged through him.
He hurriedly pulled up the system interface, and three more lines appeared beneath the message.
{Remaining Objectives:}
{Objective 2: Kill 100 E Rank Beasts}
{Objective 3: Evolve one Beast to D Rank}
"Still working on those…" Ethan muttered.
He still recalled those objectives and had quite a way to go.
But that wasn't what happened right now; he had received a new skill. So far, both the skills he obtained have been incredibly useful.
The only problem was…
"Beast Link…"
He frowned.
His first two skills had been self-explanatory: Beast Assimilation and Beast Summoning.
You could practically guess how they worked from the names alone.
But this one?
Not so much.
"Guess there's only one way to find out."