Chapter 123: I Found My Next Upgrade… It Almost Ran Me Over

They didn’t find bodies.

They found tracks.

The first appeared the next day near a dry riverbed.

Raven dismounted and crouched beside the impression. The hoofprint was almost twice the size of a normal horseshoe, with an additional mark toward the front where the weight of the horn and chest shifted the animal’s posture while running.

Roland crouched beside him.

"How much does something have to weigh to leave that?"

Valeria answered before Raven could.

"More than I want hitting me."

Raven ran his fingers along the edge of the print.

"Fresh. Less than six hours."

Roland looked toward the empty horizon.

"I don’t see anything."

"They’re behind the hills."

Valeria studied the surrounding tracks.

"How do you know it’s a herd?"

Raven pointed around them. More than a dozen separate trails crossed the dry earth, some significantly smaller than the others, all moving in the same direction.

"Different sizes. Same route."

"Then Bram was right."

"So far."

They continued for another hour and found increasingly obvious signs: warm droppings, clipped grass, strands of coarse hair, and horn marks gouged into a slab of exposed rock.

Predation reacted to the biological residue. It couldn’t extract a Trait from tracks and loose hair, but that didn’t stop it from analyzing what remained.

[Stormhorn Courser Biological Trace Confirmed.]

[Multiple Individuals Detected.]

[Estimated Herd Size: 24–37.]

[Several Signatures Exceed Awakened Threshold.]

Raven mounted again.

Valeria looked at him.

"How many?"

"Between twenty-four and thirty-seven."

"Elite?"

"Several, probably."

Roland exhaled behind them.

"We’re still talking about hunting one, right?"

Raven looked toward the next hill.

"That remains the plan."

"It’s reassuring to hear a complete sentence."

Valeria laughed.

Raven glanced over his shoulder.

"Do you want to keep carrying the supplies, or would you rather carry my answers too?"

"I’m good with the supplies."

They found the herd at sunset.

Raven reached the crest of a low hill first and stopped, not because he needed to hide, but because he wanted time to observe before changing anything.

Below them, the plain sloped into a broad valley covered in yellow grass. A shallow stream cut through the landscape from north to south, and the Stormhorn Coursers were scattered along both banks.

They didn’t really look like horses.

From a distance, the resemblance was convincing enough: four long legs, a powerful neck, dark mane, and a body built for speed. Up close, the proportions became wrong.

The adults stood around two meters at the shoulder, with broad chests and dense muscle beneath blue-gray skin. Natural plates grew around the sternum and forward ribs like overlapping layers of polished bone, while a single horn curved forward from the forehead. The adults carried nearly meter-long horns; the young had much shorter ones.

Pale lines ran beneath the skin along their legs and torsos.

Mana channels.

Inactive for now.

The herd grazed, drank, and rested with no interest in attacking anything nearby. They weren’t monsters driven to kill whatever moved. They were animals—large, magical animals probably capable of turning Raven into something that required a shovel to collect, but animals nonetheless.

That mattered.

Raven counted thirty-one in total: six foals, nine juveniles, and sixteen adults.

Predation began identifying the closest specimens.

Level Fourteen.

Level Seventeen.

Level Twenty.

Level Twenty-Two.

Awakened.

Then one of the adults raised its head.

It was larger than most of the others, though not the bulkiest. Its frame was more compact, scar tissue marked one flank, and its nearly meter-long horn was darker than the rest. Mineral lines ran through the natural armor over its chest.

Predation reacted.

FORGE followed immediately.

[Stormhorn Courser — Level 27 — ELITE.]

[Mature Pulse Core Detected.]

[Core Development: EXCELLENT.]

[Estimated Prototype Rifle Compatibility: 94–97%.]

[Warning: Target Physical Acceleration Greatly Exceeds Host Baseline.]

Valeria reached his side.

"You found one."

Raven kept watching the animal.

"Level Twenty-Seven. Elite. Mature Core."

She studied it.

"It’s smaller than the Blackmaw."

"Also much faster."

Roland crouched behind them.

"How do we separate it?"

Raven didn’t answer immediately.

He wanted another piece of information first.

The Stormhorn raised its head again.

This time, Raven knew it had detected him.

Maybe scent.

Maybe mana.

Its dark eyes locked directly onto the hill while the rest of the herd continued grazing.

Only that one reacted.

Raven took a step forward.

Valeria immediately looked at him.

"What are you doing?"

"I want a measurement."

"That sentence usually comes immediately before something hurts you."

"I’m not going too close."

"Your definition of too close needs revision."

Raven descended partway down the slope while the Stormhorn tracked him.

One hundred meters.

Then ninety.

He stopped.

The animal snorted, but didn’t move. The foals remained behind the adults.

Good.

It wasn’t going to charge merely because he existed nearby.

Raven activated Burst Step.

Mana surged through his legs and spine, carrying him several meters forward in an instant.

The Stormhorn’s head snapped up.

The pale lines beneath its legs ignited.

Predation reacted.

["Kinetic Pulse" Activation Detected.]

The Courser took three ordinary strides.

On the fourth, the movement changed.

A sharp detonation struck the earth as compressed force discharged through its body. Dust exploded behind its hind legs, and the animal crossed almost thirty meters before Raven finished resetting his stance.

It wasn’t charging him.

It had moved laterally.

A display.

A warning.

Raven watched the entire sequence closely.

Interesting.

He triggered Burst Step again, this time moving sideways.

The Stormhorn reacted immediately. Its neck turned first, then the shoulders and hips aligned behind it as the lines beneath its skin brightened again.

Kinetic Pulse discharged.

The animal vanished behind a wall of dust and reappeared forty meters away before Raven could fully track its path.

It still wasn’t moving at maximum speed.

Valeria shouted from the hill.

"You have your measurement!"

Raven raised one hand without looking back.

The Courser continued watching him.

Then it pawed the ground.

Raven saw the shift in posture.

This time, the warning was over.

"Ah."

That hadn’t been part of the plan.

The Stormhorn started forward at a gallop and quickly built into a charge. The pale channels along its legs brightened from white to blue as stored force accumulated with every stride.

Raven waited.

Seventy meters.

Fifty.

Predator’s Instinct began screaming long before his conscious mind finished calculating the timing.

At thirty meters, Raven triggered Burst Step to the left.

The Courser released Kinetic Pulse.

The air hit like an explosion.

Raven cleared the direct path by less than a second as the Stormhorn tore through the space where he had been standing. Even without contact, the pressure from its passage struck him hard enough to throw him off balance.

He hit the ground, rolled through the grass, and came back to his feet immediately.

The Stormhorn was already nearly a hundred meters away.

It turned its head toward him.

Raven checked his arm.

No fracture.

Nothing serious.

Valeria and Roland were already descending the hill.

Valeria did not look impressed.

"You said you weren’t going too close."

Raven brushed dirt from his coat.

"Technically, it came closer."

"Do not use technicalities after deliberately provoking a charge."

"I needed to know how it reacted to Burst Step."

"And now you know it runs faster."

Raven looked toward the Courser.

The animal still watched him from a distance.

"Much faster."

Valeria crossed her arms.

"I’m glad the experiment produced such an advanced conclusion."

Roland arrived slightly out of breath.

"Can we add a part to the plan where we don’t try to chase that?"

Raven watched the blue glow beneath the Stormhorn’s skin slowly fade.

FORGE updated its analysis.

[Observed "Kinetic Pulse" Output Exceeds Preliminary Estimate.]

[Directional Acceleration: EXTREME.]

[Mature Core Value Confirmed.]

[Projectile Acceleration Component Priority: HIGH.]

Raven closed the interface and studied the valley again.

Open ground stretched in every direction. The herd occupied the center, the stream cut through the low point, and the surrounding hills were too gentle to function as meaningful barriers. There were no trees, cliffs, or natural corridors capable of stopping the Stormhorn once it committed to a direction.

Not yet.

Valeria followed his gaze.

"You’re already planning something else."

"Chasing it won’t work."

"I could have told you that before it nearly ran over you."

"Hearing it isn’t the same as measuring it."

"Sometimes it absolutely should be."

Raven pointed toward the valley.

"I don’t need to be faster."

Valeria studied him.

"That sounds dangerously optimistic."

"I only need to stop it from choosing where it runs."

Her expression changed as she understood.

"So you’re not going to chase it."

"No."

Raven watched the Level Twenty-Seven Stormhorn return toward the herd.

"I’m going to make it come exactly where I want."

In the distance, the Courser released another pulse. Dust erupted behind it, and less than three seconds later it had crossed to the opposite side of the valley.

Raven tracked the movement with his eyes.

"That is going to be annoying."