Chapter 32

The Panthara’s head came over the edge of the cliff and you would be forgiven for thinking that there was a satisfied sneer on the creature’s leopardine face. Standing at its full height Rain was made painfully aware of just how large the creature was. He himself was by no means short at an intimidating eight feet but this creature’s ear tips were nearly twelve foot up from the ground! The sheer mass of its body must have put its weight at several tons, which was worrying as it said a lot about the strength of the monster to haul its entire bulk up a cliff with such ease and speed.

It looked down on Rain and Opal with contempt then, shockingly fast, it lunged forward, open taloned hand reaching for Opal. Rain saw it coming however and he grabbed Opal by the shoulder and yanked her backwards sending her sprawling. His other arm came up to block and the monster’s hand came down on his forearm like a vice.

The Panthara’s eyes widened slightly then focused on Rain. Its grip tightened further and it tried to pull Rain toward it, Rain buckled down, dug his feet in, and resisted. To his surprise the monster managed to shift him, slowly dragging him across the ground despite his strength. However, the Panthara seemed even more shocked than Rain that he was able to resist it at all and had not been pulled off his feet.

It snarled in frustration and its barbels trembled, twisting and coiling in the air. Then it set all four of its lower legs and heaved forward, pushing into Rain as though to bowl him over. Unfortunately for the Panthara this pushed the scaled hand wrapped around Rain’s forearm toward his mouth. His maw snapped open and came down like a steel trap on one of the Panthara’s fingers. The scales were tougher than anything that Rain had tried to bite before with the possible exception of the Inquisitor’s steel armour, however he was stronger now than at that time. The scale resisted but it could not stop the inevitable, his teeth sunk into the Panthara’s flesh.

The Panthara roared and flinched back as it realised what was happening, tearing free its hand as Rain’s canines met bone. Blood sprayed and scales came loose as it freed itself, only its ridiculous strength allowing it to escape from the press of Rain’s teeth.

Red spattered the grass and moss.

The Panthara paused and examined the damage to its hand. It then eyed Rain warily, its long lizard like tail lashing the air as it began to circle Rain looking for an opportunity to attack.

Rain cricked his paws and neck, shrugging his shoulders up and down a few times and limbering up.

He spread his arms wide and grinned confidently at the monster, showing all his teeth, freshly reddened with the Panthara’s blood.

“Did you think it would be that easy? I’m not a Goblin you stupid fuck.”

The bridge of the Panthara’s nose wrinkled up as it let loose a snarling-roar, it’s whiskers twitching madly.

“Come at me.”

The Panthara charged, dirt and moss exploding up behind it as its gigantic feet tore into the ground, using all the advantages of being quadrupedal to put on explosive acceleration. The monster erupted forward, the talons of its hands and front legs up and spread ready to lacerate Rain and rip and tear and shred.

Rain ducked down and put on his own burst of speed but at the same time dove to the ground and rolled between the monster’s legs, he came up sliding and his eyes locked onto the back legs of the monster, he opened his jaws wide ready to bite into and take its leg. Abruptly the Panthara’s front legs came down and it snapped its back legs up, retracting them into the air as it used its upper body as counter weight to instantly lever itself away from Rain’s grasp and avoid his best weapon, his teeth. Rain could only watch in frustration as he slid out from underneath the monster.

Unfortunately the Panthara seemed to have supernatural prescient awareness and its massive lizard tail came down like a bullcrack whip, it hit Rain across the chest and with a bone cracking crunch and Rain was sent tumbling and rolling across the ground until he crashed up against a tree in a heap.

He drew in a painful shaky breath. Cracked rib, maybe more than one. Rain could only compare being hit by that muscular tail to being hit by a landslide of solid stone. He coughed, breathing roughly and trying his best to ride out the pain. He looked up expecting to see the Panthara charging toward him aiming to attack him when he was down, he expected a shadow to fall over him at any moment. Instead, the Panthara simply stood where it was and watched him silently. Rain took the moment to gather himself and using the tree he hauled himself up onto his feet. One paw clutched at his chest, each breath was pain. He was furious with himself for underestimating how aware of its environment the thing was.

He watched as the Panthara eyed him, a disturbingly intelligent expression crossed its face. This was definitely not some simple minded monster, no, its cunning was on par with any leveler or tribal monster.

Its eyes narrowed and slid off Rain until they came to rest on Opal who was hiding behind a nearby tree, poking her head around to watch the fight. Opal froze seeing it look at her and then with a yelp of fright dashed away.