THE BLOOD INK OF THE VALERIUS BLOODLINE

Chapter 3: The Law of the Jungle and Empty Fists

Dawn in Whisperwood Forest brought no warmth from the morning sun. Instead, a thick, pale-green fog crept across the land, carrying the scent of wet moss and copper.

Billy huddled beneath the hollow of a massive root, shivering from the cold. He had spent the last three hours since the terror of those claw marks the previous night without daring to close his eyes for even a second. Every time a branch cracked in the distance, he held his breath as carefully as possible.

But as the dawn fog began creeping across the ground, a savage hunger started tearing at the walls of his stomach, far more agonizing than the throbbing pain in his broken ribs.

"Damn it..." Billy whispered, pressing a hand against his loudly growling stomach. "I'm gonna die like an idiot if I don't eat."

He slowly peeked out from behind the root.

Ten meters ahead, a narrow stream cut through slick black stones. At the water's edge, a strange creature about the size of a wildcat was lapping at the water.

It looked like a long-legged rabbit, but two small curved horns protruded from its forehead, and its silvery fur shimmered beneath the dim light of dawn.

"Antlered rat?" Billy muttered, narrowing his hungry eyes. "What the hell are you, a rabbit or something? But your meat looks edible."

Billy felt along his tattered parachute jacket.

His fingers found the drawstring from the hood, which was still intact.

With slow, careful movements, he fashioned a simple snare, an old skill the orphanage kids had taught one another when they hunted wild pigeons on the rooftops of rundown shop houses.

"Okay, Bil. Focus," Billy whispered to himself, controlling his trembling breaths. "Breathe in... let it out slowly. You've caught wild chickens at the Sunday market. This is just a slow-ass horned rat. Easy."

Billy crawled forward, masking the movement of his feet against the wet moss.

"Don't make a sound... one step... hold..."

The horned creature suddenly raised its long ears and stopped drinking.

Billy froze, holding his breath until his chest hurt.

"Stay right there, sweetheart. Don't move."

But the rabbit's attention was not on Billy.

SRAAAK!

The bushes across the stream suddenly exploded.

A gray shadow shot forward like an arrow, snatching the horned rabbit before the poor creature could even leap away.

KREEK!

The crisp sound of crushing bone rang through the forest.

"Holy shit!" Billy gasped, instinctively backing behind a large rock.

Blood splattered across the clear surface of the stream.

Standing atop a flat rock on the opposite bank was a four-legged predator roughly the size of a full-grown wolf.

Its snout was long and flat, resembling that of a weasel, but its entire back was not covered in ordinary fur. Instead, it was protected by layers of hard, horned scales, dark gray and dull as rusted iron.

Its left eye was blind and scarred.

Its right eye, a murky yellow, stared greedily at the rabbit carcass beneath its claws.

A Blight-Weasel.

"Jesus... what the hell kind of weasel is that? It's as big as a damn scooter!" Billy whispered, his eyes widening in panic. "This isn't some ordinary wildlife sanctuary, is it?!"

The monster tore through its prey's neck in two savage bites.

But as it swallowed the bloody chunk of flesh, its wet nose sniffed the air.

Its head shifted stiffly.

Then its yellow eye rolled toward the gap between the rocks where Billy was hiding.

The scent of blood from Billy's stab wound had betrayed him.

GGRRRRRR...

A low, raspy growl vibrated from the scaled weasel's throat.

Thick saliva dripped between its jagged yellow fangs, hissing softly when it touched the moss-covered stone.

"Whoa, whoa... easy, bro," Billy said nervously, slowly forcing himself to stand on violently trembling knees. "Your food's already right there. Can't we split it in half? Don't be greedy."

The monster ignored him.

It stepped across the shallow stream, its black, sharply curved claws scraping against the river stones.

Its eyes stared at Billy like he was nothing more than a soft carcass waiting to be swallowed.

"Fine. You wanna fight?" Billy gritted his teeth.

The fear that had frozen his blood was suddenly pushed aside by a burst of adrenaline, the kind born from being cornered on the streets.

For years in Jakarta's narrow alleys, Billy had survived not by begging for mercy, but by striking first before someone could beat him to death.

He pulled his snare cord tight, wrapping it around the knuckles of his right hand as padding.

His body settled into a street-fighting stance.

Chin tucked in.

Left hand protecting his wounded abdomen.

Right fist raised in front of his jaw.

"Come on, you scaly sewer mutt!" Billy shouted, his voice shattering the silence of the jungle. "You think you're the only one who's hungry?! Come get me!"

As though it understood the challenge, the Blight-Weasel lowered its body.

Then it launched forward!

Its speed was horrifying.

In the blink of an eye, that gaping, fang-filled maw was already half a meter from Billy's chest.

Billy did not retreat.

His reflexes took over automatically.

The memory of hundreds of fights on the streets took control.

He shifted half a step to the right, avoiding the monster's front claw, then twisted his waist and unleashed a full-power right straight directly at the creature's snout.

THUD-CRACK!

"AAAGH! FUCK!"

A shrill scream tore from Billy's throat.

An unbearable pain exploded from his wrist all the way to his elbow.

It was not the monster's snout that had broken.

It was Billy's fist.

The scales covering the weasel's face were not ordinary skin. They were bony keratin plates as hard as poured concrete.

His fist shattered against them. His knuckles split open, and the bones felt as though they had shifted out of their joints.

"Jesus! Is your snout made of concrete?!" Billy roared in pain, staggering backward while clutching his right hand, which had instantly gone numb and swollen blue.

His punch had done absolutely nothing to the monster.

The creature merely jerked sideways for a fraction of a second, shook its dazed head, then stared at Billy with a far more vicious expression.

"Damn it... damn it... my punch didn't do shit," Billy muttered in panic, breathing rapidly as his feet stumbled backward into a tree root. "What the hell is that skin made of?! What kind of human can kill something like this with his bare hands?!"

His modern-world naivety shattered in that single moment.

In his original world, a solid punch to the snout of a stray dog would have sent it running.

But here, the food chain did not care about the logic of humans from Earth.

Without a sharp weapon, without armor, his body was nothing more than a weak lump of flesh waiting to be torn apart.

HRAAAW!

The scaled monster roared furiously and leaped, its front claws spread wide.

"Get away from me!" Billy shouted desperately.

Instead of punching, Billy drove his right leg straight into the monster's chest in midair.

His kick connected, successfully knocking the predator off course.

But one of the monster's hind claws still managed to catch Billy's pant leg, tearing through his jeans and slicing into the flesh beneath.

"That fucking hurts!"

Billy crashed into the muddy ground.

Before he could even crawl back up, the monster had already twisted around with agility that should have been impossible for something of its size.

It slammed both front legs onto Billy's chest.

The weight of dozens of kilograms pressed directly onto his broken ribs.

CRACK.

"H-hoek!"

Billy spat out foamy saliva mixed with blood.

The pressure crushed his chest, locking his lungs and forcing the air from them.

The stench of rotten carcass and sulfur blasted directly into his face as the monster opened its jaws as wide as possible, preparing to rip Billy's throat out in a single killing bite.

"Get off me... bastard," Billy hissed with what little breath remained.

His functioning left hand desperately pushed against the monster's lower jaw, preventing its fangs from plunging into his throat.

The sharp teeth were only five centimeters from his Adam's apple.

Hot, slimy drool dripped onto his cheek, burning his skin with a strange stinging sensation.

"Get off me, you bastard! You think... I wanna die... eaten by some damn weasel... like garbage?!" Billy roared, his eyes widening wildly as desperation transformed into blind fury. "I don't wanna die here, you son of a bitch!"

His broken, numb right hand blindly groped through the mud beside his head.

His bloody fingers brushed against slick stones before closing around a sharp broken branch, a hard piece of wood left behind by a storm and buried beneath the moss.

"Die, you demon!"

With a hoarse roar that tore at his vocal cords, Billy drove the pointed branch upward with every last ounce of strength in his body.

Not into the monster's stone-hard neck scales.

Straight into its murky yellow right eye.

CRUUUSSH!

"SKREEEEEEEEK!"

A piercing, ear-splitting shriek exploded from the monster's jaws.

The wooden branch drove ten centimeters deep, piercing through the eyeball and into the creature's brain tissue.

Thick black fluid mixed with rotten blood sprayed across Billy's face and jacket.

The monster convulsed violently, clawing at the air and ground without direction as unbearable pain consumed it.

Its thrashing body dragged Billy along as he continued gripping the wooden branch tightly.

"Feel that! Feel it!" Billy screamed hysterically, forcing the branch deeper even as the monster's claws tore into his ribs and shoulder.

In the chaos and blind frenzy, the two rolled across the thick moss and out over the edge of the gentle riverbank.

Billy did not realize that the ground beneath them had suddenly disappeared.

It was not an ordinary patch of bushes.

It was the edge of a steep ravine, concealed beneath thick fog and hanging moss.

Gravity seized them both instantly.

"Shit..."

The word was cut short as Billy and the still-convulsing monster plummeted through open air, tumbling down a muddy, rocky slope more than a dozen meters high.

They slammed from one rocky outcrop to another before finally being swallowed by the cold darkness of the ravine below.