Quietly, but with a wide grin on my face, I made my way towards the dozing cows. Some were likely awake enough to keep watch for their sleeping brethren, but it didn’t really matter, we didn’t plan to kill them all. Waste not, want not, and all that.

No, the plan was far simpler, to play on the innate responses of all prey animals. Fight or flight, it was ingrained in every animal, though the degree varied with the beast’s intelligence. These cows would likely either try to gore whatever disturbed their rest or flee if they found themselves unable to gore. Playing on that would hopefully be simple, with me merely having to induce a flight response in one or two of the guarding cows, before they started to flee, drawing all the others into their reflexive flight. Once they were running, Silva and Lia would come from the flanks, take down a cow each and we’d all be able to have some nice steak.

A simple plan, but the best were.

Lia had the most difficult approach, her task was to bypass the cows entirely and come from the other side. We had made the initial approach together, keeping low and ducking into the ditch along the road as much as possible, before I decided that the position I was in was suitable. From there, I had to wait and estimate, for even I was unable to track Lia at a distance, not if she wanted to move about unseen. About thirty metres in open terrain was the maximum distance I could track her in the dark, despite my ever-increasing ability to see in the dark as my Firn Elf heritage was emerging. A testament to her growing skill, even if it occasionally left me a little annoyed.

I’d have to look into regaining my scrying abilities and especially find out whether or not my constructs would be obstructed by the curse on me. If not, I could simply use the constructs to scout during the day, even if there were some difficulties with that as well. Even conjured shadows didn’t hold up too well under the light of day, but there were always shadows around, one only had to look for them.

But that was something to explore later, now, I felt I had waited long enough to give Lia the time to get into position.

Staring at one of the cows furthest from me, I focused on the darkness between us, on the ever-present shadows that were really just one shadow. One shadow, and through that shadow I could reach. It took an inordinate amount of focus to channel magic through the shadows, leaving no trace in the outside world, but it could be done, luckily without reducing the efficiency of my magic all that much.

Whispering to myself, I tried to evoke images of fear, flight and unseen predators.

“Run, right behind you, there, in the dark, flee, blood, pain, prey, behind you,” the words weren’t overly important, I was fairly certain cows didn’t speak enough English to understand me anyway, but they allowed me to draw on certain images, certain concepts and a certain state of mind as I pushed my Mind Magic against the cow’s presence. Images of stalking predators, of unseen hunters in the night, projected directly into the beast’s mind, where instincts immediately took over.

A loud mooing broke the nightly silence, and while that alone hadn’t been enough to spook the entire herd, the one cow had started to move, trying to get away from me.

Focusing on a second cow, I repeated the process and it took even less time and power to make it work. Merely a small push, instead of the previous shove to get the beast moving.

With two cows starting to move, both quite far apart and both moving with a certain urgency, I targeted a third cow. Here, I merely needed to make contact with its mind and project the barest whisper to have the beast flee.

It was that third cow that broke the herd, they sleeping cows had been awoken by that first, loud moo and now, with multiple cows starting to flee, they all started to flee. Instinct and the drive of a herd to stay together, even if no cow could actually see the predator they were fleeing from.

It was a sobering thing, to feel a slight shaking transmitted through the earth, as the three dozen cows started to lumber away, quickly gaining speed in their flight. The herd had a physical presence beyond any system-granted attributes, a weight that was intimidating simply due to the amount of sheer mass and momentum. Any instinct I had told me to never be in the way of that force, or I would simply get overrun and trampled.

Luckily, the direction the cows were fleeing in was exactly as I had hoped and planned, away from the ditch I was hidden in, across the open fields.

Knowing that Lia was on the herd’s right flank, I focused over there, launching a hailstone at the last cow to make its escape over there. It would most likely be that cow Lia was going to target but I wasn’t certain whether or not she was strong enough to bring the cow down. With my hailstone smashing into the cow's hind leg, its speed was lowered enough to allow Lia an easy time pouncing on it, and even the cow’s balance was interrupted to the point that she could bring the beast down, before sinking her claws into its flesh and ripping the life right out of it.

On the other flank, Silva, along with a few of the strongest dogs, had managed a similar feat, without my help.

Despite knowing that our hunt had worked just as planned, I kept watch on the cows. It just wouldn’t do for them to realise that the fearsome predators they had fled from were actually far smaller than they likely thought, that it would be a lot easier to simply trample over dog and vampire alike, stomp them into the ground until they stopped twitching.

But no, from the looks of it, the herd was gripped in the panic I had deliberately instilled, drawing on the primal of the dark and unknown, until they were simply fleeing, running until the threat was no longer present.

It took some five minutes, but by that time, I was confident that the cows had well and truly fled. Whistling softly, I gave Silva the agreed-upon signal, which she relayed with a bark, calling the rest of the dogs onto the field. While they were approaching, I moved over to Lia, simply to make sure there was no trouble.

“Well done,” I quietly complimented her, having to hide my smile at the adorably proud expression on her face. She had fought quite a lot, but mostly Shattered or smaller beasts in the city, nothing the size of a cow. And despite this being a world of levels and attributes, physique and mass had their own impact, as had bringing down a beast of the cow’s size.

“Did the runes work well?” I prodded, stopping myself from inspecting the inscribed claws she had manifested. She had used them before, but, obviously, not on anything this big.

“They did, though no matter what I do, I seem to gain far more if I drink from you, Mistress,” she admitted, looking at me pleadingly.

“Not surprising,” I nodded, “I have far more Astral Power than you can hold, and I control it myself. When I feed you, I deliberately enrich the blood, before letting you have it,” I explained until I felt my ear twitch.

Looking into the direction I had heard the noise from, I could see almost two dozen dogs come bounding out of the darkness. It was a little eerie, to have that many dogs come running towards you, especially with many of their muzzles covered in blood.

However, they actually were just as adorable as Lia, clustering around me and staring at the cow Lia had brought down with hungry eyes.

“It’s Lia’s kill, she gets the first bite,” I told the dogs and their interest immediately shifted to Lia. Lia, in turn, simply reached down, sinking her claws into the cow’s shoulder and ripping out a bloody chunk of flesh, before starting to chow down. It wasn’t something I was about to participate in, I preferred my meat medium, certainly not still warm after being ripped from the beast’s body, but to each their own.

Stepping back, I simply kept watch as both Lia and the dogs started to tear into the cow’s carcass. It was incredibly gory, making me quite glad that all food I had with me was vegetarian, simply because I had gone for non-perishable stuff. Otherwise, their display might have put me off my feed, but no matter how bloody their feeding was, I would happily eat my oatmeal, nuts and berries.