- - - - -
Race: Greymantle Elk
Tier: Uncommon
Level: 25
Description: Massive, pale-coated elks standing well above head height. Their antler crowns are enormous –bone-white, branching wide, scraping the canopy when they move. They don't acknowledge threats immediately. They look first, measure, then decide. Once they decide, they don't stop.
Traits:
[Crown of the Grove – antler strikes carry enormous destructive force]
[Unbroken Pride – never retreats regardless of injury or odds]
[Prideful Air – lesser beasts resist attacking or might even be submissive]
- - - - -
'Hmm? I'm supposed to resist attacking you. But why am I feeling vexed by your damn prideful look instead?'
Cohen smiled darkly at the beast, the Null Aura around his dagger being slightly enhanced more than anything.
The Elk slowly rolled its neck as if waking up from a rest. It stood up at its own pace.
Amidst its rise, Cohen, who had jumped up, descended on it like a clawed beast.
The Elk didn't bother cocking its antlers back. It took Cohen's strike with effortless ease.
It threw Cohen all the way back, wanting to face the human properly.
Cohen landed twenty feet away, sliding across the pale ground.
His daggers, imbued with the Null Aura, had struck the Elk's shoulder and flank.
They had left only shallow, bleeding scratches in the thick, calcified hide—wounds the massive creature barely acknowledged.
The Greymantle Elk turned its head, its enormous, bone-white antlers following Cohen's movements with indifferent, slow deliberation.
Cohen charged again—not to kill, but to survive at close range.
He stayed close, moving in tight, unpredictable patterns beneath the shadow of the massive antlers.
This forced the Elk to use short, contained movements, preventing it from unleashing the full, destructive force of its antlers.
He took hits–a quick, glancing blow from a hoof to his already bruised side, a blunt scrape from an antler tip across his shoulder.
The Null Aura absorbed the worst of it, turning fatal blows into severe contusions, but the pain was a constant, sharp reminder of the power disparity.
The Elk raised its head, letting out a snort. It tilted its head as though saying, "You are barely fazed? Why?"
Cohen sensed its thought, a mocking smile crossing its features.
'Hehe. That must have ruined its pride.'
The next second, Cohen saw a crown of antler zoom in on his face.
Null Aura flared, prioritizing enhancing his physical capabilities. His daggers rose, clashing with the pale antlers at the last moment.
With a spark from the clash, Cohen felt the weight of the Elk on its shoulders.
The impact reverberated up his arms, bones rattling under the sheer force.
The Elk put on more and more weight, causing Cohen to almost go to his kneels.
At that moment a rift appeared tearing open a black-and-yellow rift in space, spewing an arrow aimed at the Elk.
The Elk shifted its horns a bit, trying to lessen the speed of the arrow as it was too late to block.
This gave Cohen the opportunity to step back.
'Thanks, Bobby!'
Cohen focused his attention on the battle once more.
The Elk also faced him with intense attention. But one interesting thing was that it wasn't aiming to kill Cohen, instead it seemed interested in suppressing the human.
This odd situation was interesting to Cohen. More importantly, it did him well by extending the battle.
The Elk fought with its crown, hooves and body.
Cohen used his speed to dodge, taking scrapes of damage most times. When he couldn't, he had to directly block the attack, making his body quake under the immense weight.
If not for Null Aura switching between prioritizing enhancing his physical capabilities and his defence, Cohen wouldn't even last this long.
'I can't do this for long. I also need to tire it out!'
On his next pass, Cohen drove his left dagger low, aiming for the soft area where the spine met the shoulder.
The strike landed with a sharp crack that wasn't the bone of the Elk, but the sound of stressed steel.
The common dagger, already weakened, splintered violently as it failed to penetrate the Elk's hide.
Cohen instinctively withdrew the handle, leaving the broken blade shard embedded uselessly in the Uncommon monster's body.
The pain from the glancing antler hits was starting to blur his vision.
His Mana reserves, halfway burnt, were draining rapidly as the Null Aura worked overtime to shield him from the Level 25 beast.
- - - - -
Bobby had changed tactics after interfering with Cohen's fight.
Its capabilities were not enough to stop the Level 24 Elk within the period it had.
And the small ram was going beyond its limit, its body battered and its mana exhausted from multiple charges used to escape.
It was time to end it.
Bobby decided to meticulously open and close rifts around the Level 24 Elk.
The Elk, wounded and exhausted by the relentless, unpredictable onslaught, tried to track the gates, its reactions slowing with every narrow escape.
The violet slime, now running low on mana, opened a single, large spatial tear—almost a foot wide—right behind the Elk's neck.
This time, it didn't use an arrow.
The slime launched a dense, heavy stone, compacted with the full force of its Level 19 Epic-Tier might.
The projectile emerged from the gate and struck the base of the Elk's skull with a deafening crack that finally pierced the sound-absorbing silence of the grove.
The sheer force snapped the Elk's neck, sending the massive Uncommon beast tumbling into a lifeless heap.
The spatial gate dissolved, leaving only the sound of heavy breathing in its wake, the Elk's immense body now still in the pale white grass of the grove.
The small ram, battered but now safe, let out a feeble, relieved bleat as the system confirmed the kill.
The grove fell momentarily quieter, as if even the battlefield acknowledged the shift in momentum.
Bobby immediately collapsed slightly, its pseudopods shrinking as it rested on the ram's back.
The Rift Split Slime had pushed its control and reserves past their breaking point, but the cost was a swift, decisive victory against a much higher-leveled opponent.
Yet it didn't stop.
A mana potion popped out of its body, recovering its ounce of mana.
It immediately moved to support Nox against another elk, leaving the small ram behind.
- - - - -
Nox immediately followed through on Cohen's backup plan.
Switching with Bobby for a second, it used Null Step to cross the void.
In its mouth was a mana potion that Bobby had shot at it at the moment of swap.
Nox appeared on the hill, very close to Cohen and the Elk.
From its legs, a large circular shadow expanded, forming a field.
The Null Shadow that looked like a starry night began draining mana from the Elk.
It immediately vanished into the Void, returning to Bobby to conquer the Elk.
- - - - -
Cohen and the Elk stood at stalemate.
The Elk looked down at the shadow, feeling the passive decrease in stamina and mana.
Cohen smiled. "You won't retreat, will you? Not with that pride."
The Elk let out a low snort, confirming his words.
'This particular plan might work out better than I thought.'