"What's happening? Hasn't he died yet? Ray took a few steps back, still clutching his weapon.

When Thea opened her eyes, the first thing she noticed was the huge carcass of the gsarkh. Fear returned to the girl’s heart, and without getting up from the ground, she moved away a little, but, belatedly noticing that he was not moving, she looked around.

Several dozen foresters stood and stared dumbfounded at the body of the animal. Nobody uttered a sound. The atmosphere immediately became oppressive, the air seemed to become heavier, but silence continued to hang over the clearing in front of the gate.

The smell of blood filled her nose. Glancing in that direction, she noticed several bodies. No, not like that, Thea saw only scraps, only pieces of shapeless meat. Just a moment ago, they were her brothers, as alive as she is now, and now they were only separate limbs and a puddle of still warm blood that had melted the snow. The girl, although she helped in the hospital, still experienced the urge to vomit from such a sight.

Thea looked away and emerald eyes ran into the figure of Ray, who was standing a couple of steps away from the beast. Blood was still dripping from his daggers, splattering against the snow with a dull hiss.

At that moment, a scream came from behind the gate, but the girl’s clouded mind did not understand what exactly the words she heard meant, but Rei immediately turned his head towards the city.

- ... her! Thea! - finally, also looking in the right direction, the girl noticed her brother, who seemed not to touch the ground, with such speed he ran in her direction, clutching his daggers in his hands. His entire silhouette shone with a vague green light.

The girl herself did not understand why she began to cry, but the tears rolled down her cheeks one by one until she was in the strong arms of Arvus.

Looking around the clearing in front of the gate, he frowned heavily and, without letting go of his sister, asked a question, turning to Ray:

- What's happened!?

“He wasn't dead. – the guy’s answer was calm, as if he wasn’t standing in a pool of blood at all.

– What kind of nonsense!? I killed this creature with my own hands!

“I don’t understand either… You couldn’t help but notice, even if you wanted to.” In addition, he was dragged all day on the ground ...

Hearing the guy's measured answer, Arvus calmed down a bit and began to remember exactly how the hunt went. After a few seconds, he answered again, but now more calmly:

- It's impossible. I have no doubt that we killed him in the woods.

Ray just shrugged.

- You can see everything...

While they were talking, more and more people began to gather in the square, Arvus asked the following question:

Is he really dead this time?

“I pierced his skull,” Ray continued, raising his dagger hand, “but I'm not sure about his death.

Leaving Thea to the approaching hunters, the man went up to the carcass of the beast and put his hand on it, which he removed after a moment. After examining his head, he once again spoke to the student:

“The blood in his body does not move, his heart also stops, and there is not much left of his head ... Why do you think that he has not died yet?”

Hearing this question, Rey hesitated for a moment, not knowing how to answer, he could not say that it was the soul of the gsarkh that had not yet appeared.

– I thought the same when they dragged him, but he got up. Though I'm willing to swear my heart wasn't beating back then either.

Looking at the guy with a thoughtful look, Arvus left without answering. Ray no longer noticed the strange, very angry light that lit up in the eyes of his teacher.

Lying on his bed in his house, Rei thought about what had happened today.

It was decided that what happened was not the fault of the hunters or anyone else. The three dead were mourned, and the gsarkh was burned, recognizing as cursed, because something like this had never happened before.

The guy was only worried about why this beast did not have a soul. All the creatures he killed during his stay in this world had a soul, regardless of size or strength. Even very small worms had a soul, however, it melted before it even left the body, but nevertheless ...

“Maybe it’s about strength? Maybe I'm still too weak to see the soul of such a beast?

“Or is it because he was different from the rest of the Gsarchs?”

All ideas seemed reasonable, but the loss of this soul did not bother Ray much. Yes, such a strong appearance would undoubtedly be useful, but what happened, happened.

It was already night outside and the guy was just about to go hunting. He was given a set of equipment as a reward for killing the creature, so now he decided that it was not worth hiding when he left the city. He could explain his nightly absence by saying that he couldn't sleep and was just killing time that way, but now he would have to carry several carcasses with him when he returned. A little inconvenient, but nothing more.

Over the past night, Rey has not been able to level up any of the specializations, although he finished off about twenty beasts.

In addition, he faced a few more interesting moments. Firstly, in the guise of a forest, he could also absorb souls, walking before that he believed that this could only be done in the form of a person. Speaking of her... The human soul still continued to absorb souls and that was a problem. After all, the more souls he fed her, the more space she, respectively, occupied. But the volume of its internal space was not so great ...

Watching this, Ray noticed something else. It seems that not all the energy that was in the soul remained after he broke it. After all, in addition to those that he spent on nourishing his body, 12 souls of different animals now remained in his inner space. The soul of a man has already absorbed more than twenty souls, but the place has not become much less.

If before that, he could store about 25 average souls of animals, now this number has dropped to twenty, and given that he strengthened not only the soul of a person, but also a forest one, then the energy drain was really huge.

“It turns out that only a fifth of the energy is absorbed, the rest simply disappears…”

“Though it may not be true, because I still don’t know much about this ability.”

After finishing putting on his gear, Rei left the house, still deep in thought. But thoughtfulness did not prevent him from noticing that someone was standing near the front door. Turning his head, the boy saw his teacher wearing gray armor, which looked quite menacing due to the strange design. Looking around Arvus, Rey realized that he was not only in armor, but also with daggers and a bow.

- Are you going somewhere? he asked, looking at the student.

The guy was a little surprised by the appearance of a man, this had not happened before, and Rey was inevitably wary.

Yes, hunting.

- Here's how. I just wanted to call you there too ... Let's go.

Without saying anything else, Arvus followed south - straight to the gates of the city. Rei was used to his teacher's taciturn behavior, so he didn't say anything. He wondered why he decided to go hunting with him, because before that they had communicated quite a bit.

“Looks like Thea told him I saved her. Maybe this is his weird way of saying thank you?

In less than five minutes, the two hunters left the walls of the city, heading towards the forest. The night was foggy and not very suitable for hunting, but this did not stop them.