Hyde breathed heavily as he tore through the undergrowth. Behind him, a monstrously large Shrike was barreling through the forest. Each thunderous step it took would flatten 10s of metres of trees.

By now, Hyde was used to running away from the Shrikes. Since he was the fastest, he would always end up being the bait. As a result, he had grown to understand the attack patterns of the Shrike.

That was why, he was able to dodge, duck or jump out of the way before the Shrike even struck out at him.

He was running so fast through the forest that his feet became a blur and his blonde hair was swept back by the wind.

When he had resolved to find the biggest Shrike possible... he might have bitten off more than he could chew. While walking through the forest, he had stumbled across a general ranked Shrike. Towering at an enormous 50m tall It was twice as large as anything they had killed so far.

The bark of the general rank Shrike was blackened and wrinkled by age. Each pointed branch was covered in red vines and decorated by the corpses of various unfortunate animals... and people.

Hyde was making a beeline for where Fike was waiting, ready to spring his trap. He ducked under low hanging branches and lept over enormous mushrooms that blocked his way.

The sounds of trees and plants being crushed behind him were growing louder and louder with each passing second. Although Shrikes didn't have a mouth, he could practically feel this one breathing down his neck.

The whole time he was running, he was grinning. 'I can't wait to see the look on Fike's face when he has to try and deal with this enormous bastard. Serves him right for always making me be bait.' he thought wickedly.

Up ahead, three sturdy trees came into view. Spurred on by the sight of his finishing point, Hyde put on another burst of speed. Behind him, the chasing Shrike followed suit. Now that it had gotten out of the forest and into a clearing it was far easier for it to move its bulky body.

In a final desperate burst of speed, Hyde managed to dodge an outstretched branch and slid into the clearing between the three trees after taking a sharp turn and throwing off the Shrike.

The Shrike was sent skidding by the sudden change of momentum, but quickly righted itself and renewed its chase. It thundered into the clearing between the trees where Hyde had gone.

Above the Shrike, on a thick branch that had been reinforced with vines, Fike waited patiently. His facial expressions were serene and his breathing was composed. He looked exactly like he was patiently waiting for a fish to bite on his hook.

Fike began counting down in a hushed tone, "Three..." The Shrike was rushing into the clearing, "Two..." The Shrike was directly below him, "One..." The Shrike had just moved out from under the branch he was standing on.

"Go!" He shouted. In a flash of metallic light, His harpoon fired out from his elbow, its wickedly sharp tip gleamed in the light of the sun. Like a bolt of heavenly lightning, it streaked down towards the unsuspecting Shrike, ready to deliver judgment.

With a thunk, The harpoon was buried in the trunk of the Shrike. At the same time the harpoon landed in the trunk, Fike jumped off the other side of the branch. "Now this is where things get tricky" He muttered.

Hidden behind one of the other trees, Hyde watched on intently, waiting for his chance to strike. From their many battles with the Shrike, they had learned that it was much harder to kill them when their roots were still connected to the ground.

This particular plan was born from their desire to separate the Shrike from the ground. And right now, Fike was putting it into action.

As Fike jumped from the branch that was at least 100 metres off the ground, he held tightly to the rope he had woven from many vines of the fallen Shrike. On the other end of the rope was his harpoon that was currently lodged into the Shrike. He looked like he was absailing down the side of the tree.

Fike landed heavily on the ground but made sure not to let go of the rope. Once that happened he would be screwed. That was what had gone wrong last time. The impact from hitting the ground had knocked the rope from his hands

Thankfully, this time he managed to keep a tight grip on it. Thus, the second he hit the ground, Fike burst into a full sprint.

At the other end of the rope, the Shrike, who had been pierced by Fike's harpoon saw him land on the ground and tried to run towards him.

But, it had only taken a single lumbering step when the rope went taught. Fike, who was on the other end of the rope was yanked back by the suddenly taught rope, but he managed to keep his hand on the rope.

All he could do now was pray that the rope and the branch could bear the weight of the Shrike.

It was right then, as the huge Shrike was yanked back by the rope that Hyde dashed out of his hiding place. In a blur of claws and flame, he was on top of the Shrike, shredding it with his claws and lighting the parts he cut on fire.

After doing enough damage, Hyde dashed back behind one of the other trees. Enraged, the Shrike tried to retaliate but was kept in place by the rope. It was unable to move.

In the chaos, Hyde yelled out to Fike, "Don't you dare let go of that rope or our friendship is over!"

Fike, whose face was beetroot red from the strain of keeping the enormous Shrike replied through gritted teeth, "I never lose something once it's caught on my line."

"So you did want to fish!"

"Shut up and kill it already. I'll be able to pull it out of the ground if you can cut off half its roots."

Hyde dashed back out of cover and began breathing fire onto the twisted roots of the shrike. Bathed in flame, the Shrike flailed its spear-like branches in protest. One of them ended up catching Hyde and ripping the clothes at his chest, leaving a bloody gash underneath.

Luckily, it wasn't deep and although it was painful, Hyde managed to ignore it. Growling at the pain, Hyde directed the energy from his core into his claws. Instead of projecting it outwards, he focused it into his metallic claws, trapping it within.

His claws began to glow as the energy within heated them up. At first, it was a fiery red, but the colour eventually grew brighter and brighter. He took these glowing hot claws to the unsuspecting roots of the Shrike.

Each swipe severed a portion of the Shrike's roots while cauterising the remaining stumps. It was as easy as a hot knife assign through butter.

When around half the remaining roots had been cauterised, Fike pulled on the rope once again. With a sickening ripping sound, the rest of the roots began stretching and tearing under the strain of being pulled from the ground.

Flailing in agony, the Shrike desperately pulled the rest of its root from the ground and wound them together to form a longer and stronger root. With this root, it struck out at Fike who was pulling on the other end of the rope. If it could get rid of him it would be free.

Hyde yelled out to Fike desperately, "Watch out!" But the attack was too fast, in a second it was upon him.

Just as the root was about to flatten Fike, It paused in midair a few inches from him. completely frozen in place. Like someone had hit the pause button on the Shrike.

Instantly, Fike's face was drenched in sweat and he desperately ran backwards with the rope in hand.

The Shrike was only frozen for half a second, but that was all FIke needed. Once it had completely removed its roots that were anchoring it from the ground, he was able to dodge the attack and pull it up into the sky.

Flailing in the air, the Shrike searched for traction but found nothing. It was right then, that Hyde, who had been waiting patiently, Struck.

He ran beneath the stranded Shrike and opened his mouth wide. From it, a deep red flame gushed out in waves, washing over the remaining roots of the Shrike.

The roots began shrivelling up under the intense heat and soon, the Shrike stopped moving. Fike let go of the top and the charred monster crashed to the ground, it was still smoking and small fires were burning all across its body.

Hyde ran up to its destroyed roots and found the centre of its trunk. He reached in with his glowing claws and easily shredded its core to pieces.

They could tell the Shrike was truly dead because two black orbs floated up from its charred corpse and flew towards the pair. These black orbs were much larger than any they had seen before.

"I love this part," Exclaimed Hyde.

The two glowing orbs of black light found their way to Hyde and FIke and sunk into the chests right above their hearts.

Within their hearts, the crystal core that was beginning to form eagerly absorbed the black light and began to glow and release waves of energy within their bodies.

This energy baptised them and strengthened their skin and muscles immensely. Far more than any of the previous souls they had absorbed. This was the difference between a general ranked Shrik and a warrior.

If you were to look at the leaderboard right now, you would find that Hyde and Fikes's points had gone up to 60 and they had jumped up to 500th place.

In the nearby forest, sounds of crashing could be heard as more Shrikes made their way here. They had sensed the massive commotion this fight had caused.

Hastily, Fike ran up to the charred corpse and retrieved his harpoon and rope. Then both Hyde and Fike climbed back up to the branch he had used as a pulley earlier.

When they had reached this vantage point and were looking down at the scorched forest floor below, they were able to fully appreciate just how big these Shrikes were. The general ranked one they had just killed, was at least 50ms tall and had branches that spread out 10s of metres in each direction.

In the distance, trails of destruction were being created by more approaching Shrike. However, the disturbance these Shrikes created in the first was much less than that of the general ranked one. The rest that were approaching were mostly around the warrior and worker ranks.

Atop the branch, Hyde looked at Fike, "Do you want to go fishing?"

Fike thought about it for a second and replied, "Aye, if we work together, we should be able to pull them up here one by one. As long as none of them are as big as that Shrike we just killed anyway."

Hyde grinned, he was still itching for a fight. Not only that, he felt discomfort in his chest. His heart was itching annoyingly, the agitation was coming from the crystal core within his heart. It was on the verge of being fully formed, He would just need to kill all of the approaching Shrikes to complete it.

Fike was feeling something similar within his own chest. The difference was that his feeling was even stronger. The reason for this was that, technically, he had just fished that general rank Shrike and he was growing closer to reaching the next milestone in his [Path].

All he needed to do was catch the rest of the approaching Shrike and he would have completed the initial stages of his [Path] and his core.

He would be graduating from fisherman to Spearfisherman. The first step to continue down your [Path] was to add your own intent to it. Effectively, what you have to do is specialise in something. And Fike was currently about to do that. He would soon become a spearfisher.