Tear A Path 37 Seeing Eye To Eye

The days pa.s.sed by very quickly and the day for the confrontation had come. Zhao Wei had slept in his gear as he needed the early light to finish his setup from the days before. Today unlike his usual light hide armor, he was sporting a cloak that covered his body from his head to his knees with only slits where his eyes could be seen. Panda as well unlike their other hunts had boots covering her legs, this was simply to make sure that if she ever stepped into a pile of clay while moving she'd just remove it and jump away.

They walked side by side calmly. The air was crisp and sunlight filtered through the trees to warm all it touched, if it was any other day this scene would be something nice to idle by. Zhao Wei's one hand was lazily holding one of his spears, twirling it around once in a while like a gentleman with a cane.

Just the night before he felt quite frantic about this day, both went to bed early thinking to get a clean 8 hours of sleep. But his nerves kept him and Panda up until they finally slept the usual 4 hours.

Now however, he was almost nonchalant about the situation. Somehow he knew he'd end up feeling this way, it was a habit of his even in school. Before the exam he'd be quite panicked in his preparation, but when the moment came he'd be the odd one out from his friends waiting outside the exam venue. It's not that he looked down on it, it's more that he knew the level of preparations he made, good or bad. Regardless of the outcome, panicking at the very last moment wouldn't do him good.

So he walked until he reached the place he knew they'd step into today and waited. It didn't take too long before the trees shook from side to side and the ground rumbled. After another 10 minutes, the first of the beasts reared it's head from the jungle staring at him dead on.

It's head and neck was lowered to Zhao Wei's level, this somehow made the mountain on it's back look even bigger now. This ones head alone hovered at the level of a two story house when it stood normally, the mountain on it's back gave it at-least the luxury of another floor. From 20 meters away Zhao Wei could feel it breathe, with every inhale it would bring dust billowing towards itself while it's exhale would bring it's putrid breathe along with it. Saliva dripped down it's mangled teeth which looked like it should belong to nightmares instead of a living breathing creature.

Seeing the much smaller being standing in front of it with no intention to run away from it probably confused the beast as it stopped in it's tracks. It's partner had popped up to it's left wondering why they didn't advance until it saw what the other one was looking at. This one was about the same size, if compared the difference in length could be covered by adding a single human head on top.

A few seconds pa.s.s and neither side made a move. The one in the front reared it's gigantic head and inhaled deeply before sending out a booming roar barreling towards Zhao Wei, dust and spittle mixed in the air and flew in all directions from it's source, from that distance even Zhao Wei's cloak fluttered in the wind. Zhao Wei himself stood as still as a rock.

He'd known that no matter what, the altercation would fall into close distance anyway. He had nothing to damage it from long range so he might as well step into the light and face it.

On the other hand, the Clay Eaters seemed to be perturbed by this scene as they began to ooze their clay from their spouts to do a preemptive attack on Zhao Wei, seeing this scene he still didn't move an inch from the spot as if his feet had grown roots under it.

Even as it's tail reached beside it and swept up some of the clay and swung it side to side to prepare their throw, their eyes stared at him to make sure there was still not a reaction from it. This was not a usual occurrence in the jungle, there was neither a reaction of flight or flight. Even as beasts of their caliber and abilities, no animal had ever presented themselves so willingly at their door-step, they'd always needed to hunt and fight to earn their meals, the concept of food on a plate bewildered them like no other.

Their tails whipped out, two lumps of clay flew in a perfect parabola. Somehow it seemed as if the Clay eaters were more nervous in this exchange than the much smaller man was. One lump landed right on top of him, while the other to his left just in case he dodged. Still nothing happened, there was no struggle, no cry, just a standing figure now covered in clay.

They were always confident in their clay, they hadn't faced a beast yet that were able to detach themselves from it once they were stuck, but somehow their instincts told them something was wrong. without giving it much thought they moved towards the prey.

They sorely needed this prey. For some reason, in the past 4-5 days they hadn't met a single prey to sustain themselves yet, with this shot they had at most less then one more in them as they'd reused their clay continuously to keep moving forward.

Stepping forward one foot at a time, they didn't meet any traps or ambushes. Even as the first came and sniffed the prey in the clay, it couldn't find anything wrong. But why did this feeling that something bad was going to happen not leave them.

The first one bolstered itself, deciding to take a bite. Whether or not they wanted to, they needed to resupply. Maybe it was just luck that they found a possibly brain dead animal.

It's ma.s.sive teeth sunk into the clay without effort and closed halfway through the whole height of it's prey. As it chewed several snaps were heard and it opened it's mouth in astonishment and spit some branches and an empty dried animal hide mixed with chunks of clay. In it's mouth a peculiar odor was spreading through it's taste buds.