An excruciating pain went through his guts and a large chunk of his health bar vanished in an instant. The rhino withdrew its horn, the rough glide of it out of his flesh creating a sucking noise that was as sickening as the sensation itself.
His mind consumed by the need to get away, Dominic limped as quickly as he could to put some distance between him and the murderous rhinos. Each step burned like fire, the rhino’s horn having pierced some of his core muscles as well as spearing through his insides. Fortunately, his heart and lungs had escaped the blow, but he didn’t want to think of what hadn’t.
The rhino didn’t seem too keen to let him go that easily, though. Its horn stained red with his blood, it pawed at the ground and fixed its small, piggy eyes on him. To make matters worse, the one he’d been attacking was in the process of pushing itself to its feet. Its throat was bleeding heavily, but that only seemed to have a moderate effect on its health bar. It still had a chunk remaining, and with how things appeared now, he wasn’t going to be able to do much to whittle it down further.
He would be too concerned with his own survival.
‘Any suggestions?’ he asked Leo tersely, his head swinging around, looking for an option open to him.
‘Watch out!’ Leo responded urgently as the rhino came charging at them. Dominic had seen it this time, though. Seeing it wasn’t the same thing as being able to avoid it, but Dominic knew that being hit another time would knock him down below half health, and probably spell his end – even Regeneration wouldn’t be able to save his behind if that happened..
Choosing the least bad option out of the two, he leapt away from the charging rhino, clearing out of its way a fraction of a second before it would have impacted him. His gut wound burned like fire as his movement exacerbated it, another sliver of health leaving his bar.
His health was yo-yoing, blood-loss dropping it down a point and then Regeneration bringing it back up. With only a little attention to spare to watching it, he was unable to see which was winning out. Hopefully Regeneration.
But what to do? There were a few trees around, but none that were big and strong enough for him to consider a decent escape route from the armoured tanks he’d irritated.
‘We need to take at least one of the rhinos down,’ Leo told Dominic grimly.
‘But we’re having so little impact, and we’re getting low on stamina,’ objected Dominic.
‘I know,’ Leo agreed, ‘but what other choice do we have? We can’t run – not with this wound. We need to heal it; the only way to do that is to Consume a carcass. We don’t have our health potion anymore.’
‘I know….’ Dominic eyed the two rhinos. The one which had charged him was slowing itself; it wouldn’t be long before it turned to try to gore him again. The other was now on its feet. It was moving towards him, slower than its companion, but probably twice as angry considering its injuries.
He wouldn’t survive long with two rhinos attacking him, not without the ability to leap out of their way.
Leo’s suggestion was the only possible option. And there was only one way of carrying it out.
‘I won’t be able to use any Abilities,’ he told his companion. ‘If I do, I won’t have enough stamina to hold on.’
‘Our bite is powerful enough. If we can just outlast the rhino….’
‘If,’ Dominic agreed grimly. But he had to. Or else.
Gathering himself, he ran towards the injured rhino. He tried his best to ignore the agony in his midsection, and the way each step removed a little of his health bar.
The rhino saw his approach and lowered its head, preparing to face him with its most powerful weapon. As if Dominic was likely to run himself straight onto it.
Instead, he dodged to the side just as he got within a couple of body-lengths of the rhino. Then, gritting his teeth, he used his powerful muscles to propel him once more to the top of the armoured herbivore.
It hurt even worse than he was expecting, a significant chunk of his healthpool being torn away from him due to the physical stress of the movement. But he succeeded in getting to the top of the rhino’s back.
There, he scrambled over to the wound he’d made before. Setting his teeth back into it, he started chewing and tearing once more, this time with a frantic edge. While he did set his claws into the scrapes he’d made before, he didn’t try to tear at the flesh – that had proven itself not worth the effort. Nor would his injury permit it.
Instead, he concentrated all his strength on trying to reach the rhino’s spine while not putting more strain on the damage the rhino had done than absolutely necessary.
[You have dealt 100 damage to Black African Rhino (34+10 Crushing damage, 27+5 Tearing damage, 19+5 Piercing damage)]
His shoulders taking most of the strain of keeping him on the rhino’s back, his hindquarters still needed to get involved when the rhino started once more bucking and twisting.
A second passed. Dominic just bit harder and deeper.
[You have dealt 90 damage to Black African Rhino (31+10 Crushing damage, 24+5 Tearing damage, 15+5 Piercing damage)]
Then another.
[You have dealt 82 damage to Black African Rhino (24+10 Crushing damage, 21+5 Tearing damage, 17+5 Piercing damage)]
‘Why is the damage dropping each time?’ Dominic demanded in frustration.
‘I don’t know,’ Leo replied tensely.
[You have dealt 74 damage to Black African Rhino (20+10 Crushing damage, 22+5 Tearing damage, 12+5 Piercing damage)]
This is ridiculous! What’s going on?
Dominic dared to release his bite and look at the rhino’s health bar. It was low, down to perhaps the last sixth, maybe less. But it wasn’t low enough. Die, already! he mentally yelled at it.
Redoubling his efforts, he dived back into the bloody wound, biting as hard as he could, then using his shoulders to offer leverage as he tried to almost tear his way through the rhino’s body.
His teeth hit bone…and there they stopped.
[You have dealt 75 damage to Black African Rhino (22+10 Crushing damage, 19+5 Tearing damage, 14+5 Piercing damage)]
Dominic growled as he felt the rhino lower itself once more. It was going to repeat the rolling technique! While that would be good if he’d been able to take advantage of its vulnerable throat, it was much less helpful to him now he would be vulnerable himself to the second rhino.
He bit at the spine beneath his teeth, but it was strong bone and didn’t yield to his teeth. The lack of effect of his attack was reflected in the damage notification that flashed up.
[You have dealt 23 damage to Black African Rhino (6+10 Crushing damage, 2+5 Piercing damage)]
Throwing caution to the wind, Dominic dumped in half his remaining stamina points to dial Crushing Bite up to 40% and then bit hard.
Under his jaws, the bone held…and then cracked.
The rhino let out an oddly high-pitched bellow of pain, and then its back half stopped moving.
[You have dealt 94 damage to Black African Rhino (42+16+10 Crushing damage, 21+5 Piercing damage)]
Dominic would have grinned mentally if he’d been any less in pain, and if this had been the blow that finished the herbivore off.
But it wasn’t. The rhino was now scrabbling at the ground with its front legs, bellowing and moaning in a way that almost made Dominic feel guilty – he was the one who had attacked these creatures, after all. But there was no room for guilt, not if he wanted to live, anyway.
The rhino was half paralysed, but it was still alive – that meant Dominic couldn’t absorb its body yet. Worse, he was now closer to the ground – and would have to get closer yet. That in turn opened him up for attacks from the second rhino.
It had been unable to reach him, up on the injured tank’s back as he had been. Now though…he could see in its piggy eyes the animal understanding that if he wanted to do anything, he’d have to come within its range. It was just waiting for him to do so.
How to do this? Dominic wondered to himself. Could he just keep digging into the top of the rhino here, whittle down its health pool like that? But then, he’d been having diminishing returns on his attacks before he broke through the rhino’s spine – was that because, while his injuries were hurting it, they weren’t actually doing a huge amount of damage to the rhino as a whole?
But the only vulnerable spot available to him was…the rhino’s throat.
‘I’m going to have to go down there, aren’t I?’ he moaned to Leo.
‘Stop whining,’ his companion growled at him. ‘We need to think of a way to do that without incurring more injuries.’
He was right. Dominic shook himself gently, trying not to lose even more health. What do I have available to me? His health was below half, his stamina was into its final sixth. He could activate Second Wind, but that always had drawbacks and he was far enough away from his next level up that he doubted he’d be able to use that to heal up in time. Not when he knew he had another rhino to kill or escape from even if he killed the first within the next few minutes.
Too risky, he decided.
So what else? He considered his storage space. Gold coins wouldn’t be much use unless he could use them as a distraction or to choke his opponents. His tail armour could offer more damage, but he doubted that it would have much impact on the armoured skin of these tough herbivores.
Then he spotted something else which gave him an idea. Praying to anyone who might listen that his supposition was true, he summoned something he’d had in there ever since the dungeon: one of the darts which had flown at him from the traps.
He’d been concerned that they were poisoned before; now he hoped he’d been right as he focussed on letting the dart fall to pierce the damaged flesh before him.
For a long, anxious moment, nothing happened. The dart was buried in the rhino’s bloody wound, almost completely covered by the blood bubbling out of it. Dominic kept watching the rhino’s health bar. Come on, come on, come on, he urged it.
Then, at first such a small movement that he thought he’d imagined it, he saw a little bit of red fall from his target’s health bar.
As if that first point was a drop through a hole in a dam, more followed, then more, the red in the bar falling away before Dominic’s eager eyes even as a green droplet faded into view above the bar.
Reducing down to the barest sliver, Dominic was fearful that the poison in the dart would fail before the end. But it turned out Lady Luck was on his side that day – the last point in the health bar took the longest to be consumed, but finally, it vanished. I’m sure glad I didn’t get hit by any of those, he thought fervently to himself – if it had had this effect on a rhino with its defensive bonuses and health pool, what would it have done to him?
The rhino let out a soft sound and then went still. The other one was louder, letting out a bellow which was full of loss. Dominic once more felt a pit of guilt open in his stomach, but again pushed it away – not the time to consider it.
[You have killed African Black Rhino (Half-Step Evolved level 6)]
[You have earned 32 PP]
Really not worth it, Dominic thought in disgust at the pitiful amount of Prey Points. 32 for a fight like that? He’d rather take on the vetens again.
Triggering Consume, he dropped down heavily to the ground as the body he was standing on disappeared into golden dust. Hoping that the swirling of it was enough to prevent the other rhino from seeing him, he made his way through the cloud to where the Core was likely to drop.
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An excruciating pain went through his guts and a large chunk of his health bar vanished in an instant. The rhino withdrew its horn, the rough glide of it out of his flesh creating a sucking noise that was as sickening as the sensation itself.
His mind consumed by the need to get away, Dominic limped as quickly as he could to put some distance between him and the murderous rhinos. Each step burned like fire, the rhino’s horn having pierced some of his core muscles as well as spearing through his insides. Fortunately, his heart and lungs had escaped the blow, but he didn’t want to think of what hadn’t.
The rhino didn’t seem too keen to let him go that easily, though. Its horn stained red with his blood, it pawed at the ground and fixed its small, piggy eyes on him. To make matters worse, the one he’d been attacking was in the process of pushing itself to its feet. Its throat was bleeding heavily, but that only seemed to have a moderate effect on its health bar. It still had a chunk remaining, and with how things appeared now, he wasn’t going to be able to do much to whittle it down further.
He would be too concerned with his own survival.
‘Any suggestions?’ he asked Leo tersely, his head swinging around, looking for an option open to him.
‘Watch out!’ Leo responded urgently as the rhino came charging at them. Dominic had seen it this time, though. Seeing it wasn’t the same thing as being able to avoid it, but Dominic knew that being hit another time would knock him down below half health, and probably spell his end – even Regeneration wouldn’t be able to save his behind if that happened..
Choosing the least bad option out of the two, he leapt away from the charging rhino, clearing out of its way a fraction of a second before it would have impacted him. His gut wound burned like fire as his movement exacerbated it, another sliver of health leaving his bar.
His health was yo-yoing, blood-loss dropping it down a point and then Regeneration bringing it back up. With only a little attention to spare to watching it, he was unable to see which was winning out. Hopefully Regeneration.
But what to do? There were a few trees around, but none that were big and strong enough for him to consider a decent escape route from the armoured tanks he’d irritated.
‘We need to take at least one of the rhinos down,’ Leo told Dominic grimly.
‘But we’re having so little impact, and we’re getting low on stamina,’ objected Dominic.
‘I know,’ Leo agreed, ‘but what other choice do we have? We can’t run – not with this wound. We need to heal it; the only way to do that is to Consume a carcass. We don’t have our health potion anymore.’
‘I know….’ Dominic eyed the two rhinos. The one which had charged him was slowing itself; it wouldn’t be long before it turned to try to gore him again. The other was now on its feet. It was moving towards him, slower than its companion, but probably twice as angry considering its injuries.
He wouldn’t survive long with two rhinos attacking him, not without the ability to leap out of their way.
Leo’s suggestion was the only possible option. And there was only one way of carrying it out.
‘I won’t be able to use any Abilities,’ he told his companion. ‘If I do, I won’t have enough stamina to hold on.’
‘Our bite is powerful enough. If we can just outlast the rhino….’
‘If,’ Dominic agreed grimly. But he had to. Or else.
Gathering himself, he ran towards the injured rhino. He tried his best to ignore the agony in his midsection, and the way each step removed a little of his health bar.
The rhino saw his approach and lowered its head, preparing to face him with its most powerful weapon. As if Dominic was likely to run himself straight onto it.
Instead, he dodged to the side just as he got within a couple of body-lengths of the rhino. Then, gritting his teeth, he used his powerful muscles to propel him once more to the top of the armoured herbivore.
It hurt even worse than he was expecting, a significant chunk of his healthpool being torn away from him due to the physical stress of the movement. But he succeeded in getting to the top of the rhino’s back.
There, he scrambled over to the wound he’d made before. Setting his teeth back into it, he started chewing and tearing once more, this time with a frantic edge. While he did set his claws into the scrapes he’d made before, he didn’t try to tear at the flesh – that had proven itself not worth the effort. Nor would his injury permit it.
Instead, he concentrated all his strength on trying to reach the rhino’s spine while not putting more strain on the damage the rhino had done than absolutely necessary.
[You have dealt 100 damage to Black African Rhino (34+10 Crushing damage, 27+5 Tearing damage, 19+5 Piercing damage)]
His shoulders taking most of the strain of keeping him on the rhino’s back, his hindquarters still needed to get involved when the rhino started once more bucking and twisting.
A second passed. Dominic just bit harder and deeper.
[You have dealt 90 damage to Black African Rhino (31+10 Crushing damage, 24+5 Tearing damage, 15+5 Piercing damage)]
Then another.
[You have dealt 82 damage to Black African Rhino (24+10 Crushing damage, 21+5 Tearing damage, 17+5 Piercing damage)]
‘Why is the damage dropping each time?’ Dominic demanded in frustration.
‘I don’t know,’ Leo replied tensely.
[You have dealt 74 damage to Black African Rhino (20+10 Crushing damage, 22+5 Tearing damage, 12+5 Piercing damage)]
This is ridiculous! What’s going on?
Dominic dared to release his bite and look at the rhino’s health bar. It was low, down to perhaps the last sixth, maybe less. But it wasn’t low enough. Die, already! he mentally yelled at it.
Redoubling his efforts, he dived back into the bloody wound, biting as hard as he could, then using his shoulders to offer leverage as he tried to almost tear his way through the rhino’s body.
His teeth hit bone…and there they stopped.
[You have dealt 75 damage to Black African Rhino (22+10 Crushing damage, 19+5 Tearing damage, 14+5 Piercing damage)]
Dominic growled as he felt the rhino lower itself once more. It was going to repeat the rolling technique! While that would be good if he’d been able to take advantage of its vulnerable throat, it was much less helpful to him now he would be vulnerable himself to the second rhino.
He bit at the spine beneath his teeth, but it was strong bone and didn’t yield to his teeth. The lack of effect of his attack was reflected in the damage notification that flashed up.
[You have dealt 23 damage to Black African Rhino (6+10 Crushing damage, 2+5 Piercing damage)]
Throwing caution to the wind, Dominic dumped in half his remaining stamina points to dial Crushing Bite up to 40% and then bit hard.
Under his jaws, the bone held…and then cracked.
The rhino let out an oddly high-pitched bellow of pain, and then its back half stopped moving.
[You have dealt 94 damage to Black African Rhino (42+16+10 Crushing damage, 21+5 Piercing damage)]
Dominic would have grinned mentally if he’d been any less in pain, and if this had been the blow that finished the herbivore off.
But it wasn’t. The rhino was now scrabbling at the ground with its front legs, bellowing and moaning in a way that almost made Dominic feel guilty – he was the one who had attacked these creatures, after all. But there was no room for guilt, not if he wanted to live, anyway.
The rhino was half paralysed, but it was still alive – that meant Dominic couldn’t absorb its body yet. Worse, he was now closer to the ground – and would have to get closer yet. That in turn opened him up for attacks from the second rhino.
It had been unable to reach him, up on the injured tank’s back as he had been. Now though…he could see in its piggy eyes the animal understanding that if he wanted to do anything, he’d have to come within its range. It was just waiting for him to do so.
How to do this? Dominic wondered to himself. Could he just keep digging into the top of the rhino here, whittle down its health pool like that? But then, he’d been having diminishing returns on his attacks before he broke through the rhino’s spine – was that because, while his injuries were hurting it, they weren’t actually doing a huge amount of damage to the rhino as a whole?
But the only vulnerable spot available to him was…the rhino’s throat.
‘I’m going to have to go down there, aren’t I?’ he moaned to Leo.
‘Stop whining,’ his companion growled at him. ‘We need to think of a way to do that without incurring more injuries.’
He was right. Dominic shook himself gently, trying not to lose even more health. What do I have available to me? His health was below half, his stamina was into its final sixth. He could activate Second Wind, but that always had drawbacks and he was far enough away from his next level up that he doubted he’d be able to use that to heal up in time. Not when he knew he had another rhino to kill or escape from even if he killed the first within the next few minutes.
Too risky, he decided.
So what else? He considered his storage space. Gold coins wouldn’t be much use unless he could use them as a distraction or to choke his opponents. His tail armour could offer more damage, but he doubted that it would have much impact on the armoured skin of these tough herbivores.
Then he spotted something else which gave him an idea. Praying to anyone who might listen that his supposition was true, he summoned something he’d had in there ever since the dungeon: one of the darts which had flown at him from the traps.
He’d been concerned that they were poisoned before; now he hoped he’d been right as he focussed on letting the dart fall to pierce the damaged flesh before him.
For a long, anxious moment, nothing happened. The dart was buried in the rhino’s bloody wound, almost completely covered by the blood bubbling out of it. Dominic kept watching the rhino’s health bar. Come on, come on, come on, he urged it.
Then, at first such a small movement that he thought he’d imagined it, he saw a little bit of red fall from his target’s health bar.
As if that first point was a drop through a hole in a dam, more followed, then more, the red in the bar falling away before Dominic’s eager eyes even as a green droplet faded into view above the bar.
Reducing down to the barest sliver, Dominic was fearful that the poison in the dart would fail before the end. But it turned out Lady Luck was on his side that day – the last point in the health bar took the longest to be consumed, but finally, it vanished. I’m sure glad I didn’t get hit by any of those, he thought fervently to himself – if it had had this effect on a rhino with its defensive bonuses and health pool, what would it have done to him?
The rhino let out a soft sound and then went still. The other one was louder, letting out a bellow which was full of loss. Dominic once more felt a pit of guilt open in his stomach, but again pushed it away – not the time to consider it.
[You have killed African Black Rhino (Half-Step Evolved level 6)]
[You have earned 32 PP]
Really not worth it, Dominic thought in disgust at the pitiful amount of Prey Points. 32 for a fight like that? He’d rather take on the vetens again.
Triggering Consume, he dropped down heavily to the ground as the body he was standing on disappeared into golden dust. Hoping that the swirling of it was enough to prevent the other rhino from seeing him, he made his way through the cloud to where the Core was likely to drop.
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