Chapter 125: I Couldn’t Catch the Stormhorn… So I Started Controlling the Battlefield

They waited until after noon before approaching, not because Raven had decided to attack, but because he wanted to force the Courser to reveal more.

Roland remained on the hill with his bow while Valeria descended with Raven, though she kept farther back.

"Tell me you’re not going to repeat exactly what you did yesterday."

"I’m not going to repeat exactly what I did yesterday."

"I don’t like the way you emphasized ’exactly.’"

Raven studied the terrain. The herd had spread out farther than before, and the Level Twenty-Seven Courser had separated roughly two hundred meters to the west.

Perfect.

"I’m going to chase it."

Valeria closed her eyes.

"Naturally."

"Only for a few seconds."

"Yesterday you said you only wanted a measurement."

"I got it."

"And today you want another one."

"I need to know how long it takes to recover Pulse after a full discharge and how much it can correct its trajectory."

Valeria pointed toward the Courser.

"You could watch."

"Watching won’t tell me how it reacts to sustained pressure."

She went quiet.

Raven knew her well enough by now to recognize that she was searching for a better argument.

"I’m not planning to catch it."

"That, I believe."

"How encouraging."

"It wasn’t a compliment."

Raven started walking, and Valeria followed for several steps.

"If it breaks something, I am not listening to another explanation about how technically you gained useful information."

"Then don’t ask."

"Raven."

He looked at her.

There was real concern beneath the irritation now. It wasn’t difficult to recognize anymore.

Raven adjusted the knife at his belt.

"I won’t push it if it turns back toward the herd or if I can’t read the discharge."

Valeria studied him for a moment.

"That was almost reasonably reassuring."

"I can be reasonable."

"Under extremely specific circumstances."

"Stay here."

"And there you are again."

Raven continued forward.

The Courser detected him at roughly one hundred and twenty meters.

This time, it didn’t charge. It simply watched while Raven closed another ten steps, its ears rotating toward him without any other visible reaction.

"Come on," Raven murmured.

He activated Burst Step and appeared several meters closer.

The Courser reacted immediately.

It took three strides as blue lines brightened beneath its skin, then released Kinetic Pulse with a sharp detonation.

BOOM.

The animal shot sideways.

Raven followed with a second Burst Step.

[Mana: 27 → 24.]

The Courser remained ahead of him, but not because Raven was faster. The animal simply hadn’t decided to flee at full speed yet.

Good.

Raven ran normally for several seconds and watched the Courser slow in response.

That confirmed another behavior.

It adjusted its pace according to the threat and didn’t waste Kinetic Pulse unless the situation required it.

Raven triggered Burst Step again.

This time, he gained ground.

The Courser glanced back, and the lines beneath its skin brightened more intensely than before.

A deeper charge.

A stronger buildup.

Then it released.

Not straight ahead.

Its left shoulder dipped just before the discharge, and the blast of dust erupted diagonally behind it. The Courser changed direction by almost forty degrees without noticeably losing speed.

Raven had to brake.

"Interesting."

He followed again.

Another Burst Step forced the animal to correct in the opposite direction.

Raven tried to anticipate the change.

He failed.

The Courser appeared capable of altering its vector at the last instant before releasing the stored momentum. It didn’t commit early enough for Raven to read the turn with confidence.

That made simple linear traps far less useful.

Raven increased his physical pace.

He couldn’t maintain the animal’s speed, but he didn’t need to. His goal was to force repeated Pulse activations and observe the recovery cycle.

The first discharge came quickly.

Then a second.

Then a third.

The Courser recovered each time. The releases weakened slightly, but not nearly enough to suggest rapid exhaustion.

Raven used another Burst Step and closed five more meters.

The animal turned its head.

Raven caught its eye.

There was no fear in it.

Only irritation.

"Yeah. I’m not enjoying this that much either."

The Stormhorn lowered its horn slightly.

Bad sign.

Raven expected another forward burst.

He got one.

But this time, the Courser released Kinetic Pulse halfway through a turn.

The directional change was absurd.

It didn’t brake or visibly bleed momentum. The stored force simply redirected with the body.

Raven tried to correct with Burst Step.

Too late.

He appeared where the Courser would have been if it had obeyed reasonable physics.

It wasn’t there.

Raven landed near the edge of a slope, and his right foot struck loose soil.

He slipped.

The remaining momentum threw him downhill hard enough that he rolled twice before trying to activate Stonehide over his shoulder.

The Skill came too late.

He hit the ground, tore through grass and dirt, rolled again, then slid several meters on his side before finally stopping in a cloud of yellow dust.

For a moment, Raven stayed on his back and looked at the sky.

White clouds drifted above him.

Surprisingly pleasant.

Hoofbeats faded into the distance.

The Stormhorn wasn’t coming back.

Of course not.

Raven sat up and checked himself.

His side hurt, but the shoulder was intact and nothing felt broken.

His pride was irrelevant.

Valeria’s voice came from above.

"Did you win?"

Raven looked up.

She was walking down the hill rather than running, which meant she had already confirmed that he was alive.

He got to his feet and brushed dirt from his coat.

"I collected information."

Valeria reached him and examined the dust covering him from boots to shoulders.

"So no."

"It means I now know it can alter the vector of its impulse after beginning the discharge."

"So you lost educationally."

Raven looked at her.

"Exactly."

Valeria tried to keep a straight face.

She failed.

"You have grass all over you."

Raven pulled a blade from his shoulder.

"That seems repairable."

"There’s dirt in your hair too."

"I’ll survive."

Valeria raised one hand.

Raven expected her to point out something else, but instead she reached toward his temple and removed a small piece of grass caught in his hair.

Her fingers brushed against him.

"There."

Raven watched her.

Valeria seemed to realize how natural the gesture had been only after she had already done it. She withdrew her hand.

"Don’t make that expression."

"I’m not doing anything."

"I know you well enough to recognize when you’re thinking something."

"That sounds like an invasion of privacy."

"We’ve been traveling together for weeks. I entered your room while your heart was failing, and we pretended to be engaged. I think privacy already had several opportunities to defend itself."

Raven almost smiled.

"Good argument."

Valeria blinked.

"Did you just admit I was right?"

"Don’t get used to it."

She smiled.

"Too late."

Raven didn’t chase the Courser again.

He didn’t need to.

The animal had already given him enough information.

It could alter its vector during discharge. Kinetic Pulse became more effective while continuous movement was maintained, could be used repeatedly without immediate exhaustion, and wasn’t wasted unless the threat justified it.

Most importantly, there was no realistic way to catch the Courser in open terrain simply by forcing it to run in a straight line.

That eliminated several strategies.

It also made others more promising.

Raven spent the rest of the afternoon walking around the valley, not following the animal but studying the terrain around it. He measured depressions, slopes, patches where the grass grew shorter, muddy ground, exposed stone, and changes in elevation.

Valeria joined him after about an hour.

"What are you looking for now?"

"Limits."

"Of the Courser?"

"Of the terrain."

Raven pointed toward a patch of ground covered in small black stones.

"It loses traction here if it turns too sharply."

"But it can use Kinetic Pulse to correct."

"Yes. Which is why that alone isn’t enough."

They continued farther until Raven found a narrow depression between two hills. It was still too broad to function as a true corridor, but compared with the open valley, it offered far more control.

"The herd doesn’t normally enter here," Raven said.

Valeria looked around.

"There’s no grass."

"Exactly."

"Then the target has no reason to come here either."

Raven studied the depression, the slopes, and the possible approaches.

"Not yet."

They kept walking.