The newly assembled monster hunters have gathered a small herd of old sheep in a pen; the one which was attacked before. It was close by the forest and was one of the first ones to be hit by the Herd Eater.

The mages hid in piles of dried grass, not too far from the pen. Hiding the Guardian was a tad bit harder. He rubbed himself in replant masking his scent, the stuff made his nose run and he wanted to sneeze but he had to bear with it. He was hiding in a hastily built wooden shelter.

They were there for a couple of hours and it was already dawn, sun rays basked the pen. He was beginning to think that the monster will not show itself here today.

But then, the sheep started to stir and run around in panic. He saw a monster many times bigger than a dire wolf. It was three times bigger than himself and vaguely resembled a wolf. Most of its body was cowered in black skin, only its back and head had black long fur. Its legs were long and muscular, build for speed and agility. It had a long maw full of sharp dagger-like teeth. Its torso had peculiar slits in odd places, all of which oozed faint columns of steam.

The beast sniffed the air a couple times suspiciously, probably suspecting something. Then it looked at the sheep and licked its lips, a thick string of saliva dripped from its mouth. It slowly stepped inside the pen forcing the sheep into a corner. The monster opened its jaw and bit one unlucky sheep, raising it in the air. Sheep was too big to swallow whole so it bit the sheep in half.

Guardian knew this was the time and he jumped out of his hiding spot. He was running towards the monster while clutching a massive metal stick with a sharp tip and a hook on its end, the other end of it had a rope attached to it.

The monster noticed him and threw the bleeding sheep’s corpse to the side. The monster disliked to be challenged, this was its territory. Herd Eater ran towards Guardian in a mad sprint.

A monster was about to sink its jaws on his prey but it was pushed to the side. The force of magic projectiles the mages shot did that. Guardian jumped to the opposite side avoiding the monster completely and jabbed the spear to its side, spear’s hook wedged in deep into the flesh.

A Monster turned around to be met with another barrage of magic projectiles. Its hide sizzled and was blackened from the magic, bits of flesh were exposed. But the wounds were shrinking and visibly healing.

It changed its target and turned towards the scattered mages. Picking the one at random it crouched to ready its body for a sprint. As it was about to launch itself to attack the monster’s balance was thrown off by a forceful pull.

Guardian pulled the rope preventing the monster from attacking the mages. The hook was embedded deeply in its muscles and monster’s healing ability helped to keep it in place.

“Over here!” Guardian pulled the rope again getting the monster’s attention.

As it turned it was blasted with another barrage of magical projectiles. The monster ignored the pain and the mages, it had to take the one preventing it from moving first.

Monsters head moved to bite at the Guardian but he was able to dodge it. Guardian wrapped the rope around his left arm. With his right, he gapped a javelin from a quiver on his side. He swung it towards the oversized beast embedding it in its torso.

The monster roared in displeasure biting again. This time a flask smashed into its maw spraying obnoxious substance inside. Monster sneezed and tried to spit it out. It received another javelin to its side and a few more blasts from mages.

Herd Eater shook its head spiting the offending liquid and swiped with its clawed forelimb at Guardian. It made a contact sending the large man fumbling to the side. It tried to bite him again while he was on a ground. Monster’s dagger-like teeth sunk in flesh piercing the shoulder. However, the teeth did not go as deep as the monster expected, the challenger’s hide was many times tougher than sheep’s it so much liked to devour.

The guardian did not wail or trash in pain. Instead, he jammed javelin in the nose of the monster. It sunk deep piercing in through the side and coming at the end.

The monster gasped in pain letting the shoulder go. Mages were still firing at it with projectiles. Its body was getting damaged but the process was too slow, it would take hours to slay the beast at this rate, it was regenerating too quickly.

The beast turned towards the mages again and ran. Guardian was being dragged on the ground. He positioned himself better and sunk his legs in the earth slowing the oversized wolf. Mages scattered further away. Beastmen threw their javelins to distract the monster, their duty was to protect the mages.

Guardian reached for his last javelin and managed to throw it at the Monster's thigh, temporarily disabling it. The monster stopped and spun its body while standing on its remaining three legs.

The guardian could not bear the force and the rope slipped from its arm. Sending him flying away from the monster. His belly hit the grass and he slid turning in circles. As soon as he stopped sliding he launched himself back towards his quarry who was gaining on the mages.

The monster opened its jaw and was ready to clamp it on one of the beastmen, but it got unpleasantly pulled again. It knew what to do this time and was ready to spin its body. When the monster was half way to its spin, Guardian released the tightened rope and tackled the monster. He used the javelins to get a grip and held tightly. His left arm had recovered slightly and he was able to use it again. The monster stopped spinning and bent its neck to bite him just to be kicked to its injured nose.

The mages reformed their line and fired at the herd Eater again. The monster tried to shake Guardian from its side while he clawed at its wound. The beast men did not idle either. One of them braved to approach the monster and jabbed a hooked spear to its side. Then the remaining three pulled the rope attached to it toppling the wolf.

The guardian let go of the javelins and grabbed his rope too. The monster was trying to stand up so Guardian rand quickly behind it binding its rear leg in a loop using his rope and pulled it. The monster toppled again. The guardian let go of it and jumped on the monster’s back seizing the opportunity while the beast was still low. Guardian was holding on the strands of monster’s hair while the monster stood up and spun again, tugging the rope off the beastmen's hands.

When it stopped spinning Guardian took a dagger from his side and started to stab it in the back. The dagger pierced the thick hide in couple of blows and now he was sending sprays of blood with each stab. The monster tried to bite at the guardian but it could not bend enough to reach him. Instead, it planted its legs on the ground and launched a stream of wet fog from the slits on its sides cloaking its body. The mages did not know where to hit anymore.

The wolf rolled trying to crush the one on its back. Guardian sensing the movement jumped off its back and ran out of the cloud of mist towards the mages.

“It will either flee or attack one of us.”

“The plan did not work. We need to change it.” One of the mages stated the obvious.

“Agreed.” Guardian said motioning one of the beastmen to bring his stuff. He took a belt full of barbed stakes.

The mages ran towards each other ordering themselves. They could no longer remain scattered. As soon as they made their new formation the monster emerged from the mist. Its sides were spewing hot steam now and then. It ran towards the formation.

Beastmen stood in line, armed with spears ready to brace the impact. As the monster approached they parted slightly letting Guardian jump towards the sprinting monster. It opened its jaws to bite at him but couldn’t because guardians torso slammed to its head. It could not open its jaws wide enough to bite at him like that, it needed to bite at an angle.

The dagger sunk deep inside the monster’s eye. It spun its head throwing Guardian away and leaving the dagger embedded. As it kept sprinting the beastmen avoided its charge and stabbed at its sides, mages shot their projectiles. This slowed down the monster and it started to cloak itself in the mist again. Monster’s attacks did not work and it decided that it was time to flee.

When the monster was ready to run away something slammed to its side. A stake sunk into its flesh. It tried to ignore it and fled anyway. Guardian did not want to let the beast flee, he held on a spear embedded in monster's body. The monster tried to throw him unsuccessfully the Guardian thrust another stake at its side. The stakes had a rope kneaded at their looped ends.

Just like with a serpent, Guardian held on and pushed the stakes in one by one. The monster stopped running and bent its neck trying to get rid of him. Guardian used this chance to push a spike in monsters leg, hindering its movements. He then ran around to bind the rears legs. After this was done, he pulled the rope forcing the oversized wolf to a sit. Then he jumped on its back and proceeded to push the spikes in its flesh again. The monster did not like that and rolled. As before Guardian jumped off, but this time he had a rope wrapped around the monster. He ran to the front trying to get rear legs to entangle as well.

The beast was bound more or less, but this was temporary. Guardian jumped on monsters shoulders, his arms enveloped its neck. He pushed his arms together trying to strangle the monster but the neck was too thick. However, his body weight and ropes were enough to prevent the monster from standing up again.

“Are you there?” The mages caught up to him, but they were too cautious to go into the mist.

“Yes, I have the monster pinned with ropes.”

“What shall we do?”

“Light it up!”

The mages fired at the general direction of the voice. The projectiles hit the wolf, but one of them singed the guardians back.

“Uhhh! I am in the line of fire. Angle it a bit and try again.”

The mages circled to the side of the fog and fired again.

“Now?”

“Better.” The mages kept firing, some of it missed some of it hit. The parts which were hit were not healing anymore.

“This is odd. It stopped healing.”

“Good we will keep firing.”

The monster kept getting injured more and more, it even was bleeding now. It stopped spewing fog from its sides and the view cleared again. However, the wounds started to shrink again.

“It is healing again.”

“This must be the reason why it did not use the fog from the beginning.”

The mages kept firing regardless. It was not just the monster which got damaged. The rope bounding it received the blasts too. Bindings were weakened and eventually it snapped in multiple places letting the monster to stand again.

“Oh no, you don’t.” Guardian clutched its neck while it stood. The monster tried to shake him off its head.

Guardian held tight with one hand and stuck the other inside the monster’s ear canal. He took a moment to concentrate and collect the magic which pulsed from his core towards his arm. More and more of it was collected and then he barely could hold it in he let it go with a blast. Magic shockwave blasted through the ear canal popping the eardrum and sending a spurt of blood.

The monsters brain shook inside its skull and the Herd Eater dropped and remained motionless. The guardian did not let its head go, just in case it was able to regenerate even this sort of damage.

“Hey, what did you do?” the mage asked in surprise.

“Why did it drop so suddenly?” asked another.

“Do not just stand there, you two come here and make sure it stays dead.”

The beastmen ran towards the monster clutching their weapons. They jabbed their spears through the monster's neck.

“I think it is dead for good.” The beastman said.

The Guardian reluctantly let the neck go. He took the dagger from the monster eye and proceeded to cut Herd Eater’s belly.

“Hey what are you doing? We will get a Master Hunter to skin it and harvest the organs.”

“The core. I am looking for the core.” He said halfway inside the monster’s carcass.

“Yes, Lucas mentioned that.”

“You are lucky to get the core. It is the most valuable part of the monster.” One of the mages was obviously jealous about it.

“At first, I thought that it is unfair for you to get an entire core. But then I saw you and how you deal with it. Without you, we couldn’t even take this monster down. You deserve it.” said another mage.

“We were ill-prepared for this. I still don’t know how we did it.” The fifth mage talked.

“Found it!” Guardian took out a core which was a size of a melon.

“I have never seen the core so big!” a mage exclaimed in awe.

“Thank you for your help I will be going. Tell Lucas to send his thanks back to my place. I won’t be waiting for him here.”

“Well, I guess there is no point for you of hanging around. The monster is dead after all. Thank you.”

The guardian waved to the men and stomped through the fields back home.

Some of the men gathered around the corpse and took some time to reflect.

“This was amazing. I did not think we could do it.”

“Thanks to him we could. He fought like a monster himself.”

“We all saw him getting bitten and trashed by the Eater. After receiving a beating like that he didn’t look injured.”

“It is almost like that traveller himself is a monster.”

“He definitely looks like one. I have never seen a beastman so big.”

“Guardian fought like one too.”

“I do not think you should even compare him with regular beastman.”

“He might even get offended.” Added one of the beastmen.

“Thinking about it. I do not know his race. Did any of you hear about people like him?”

“No” they answered or shook their head one by one to say that they did not.

“He is an enigma.”

“Well, he helped us, and the farmers. Enough of this chatter you guys go get master hunter and tell the farmers and Lucas that the Herd Eater is dead.”

“It is time to claim our reward.”