Chapter 183: Chapter 166 – Chasing Down a Wounded Prey

"Beware cornered prey, doubly so when they're wounded. Such animals often do the unexpected." - Old hunter saying

After a quick moment in which the girls helped sort out the wreckage from the battle - including the two mercenary survivors - and dragged the dead bodies aside, Dan went and healed Ying Xiao's wounds, closing the lacerations and the holes punctured by the spikes in a minute of work or so. Once he was done, the girls set out in pursuit of the drake, with Cal, Kino, and Dan following close behind.

 

None of the girls had special training in tracking prey, though Elaina and Sidonie, by virtue of having lived in the Great Emerald Forest for most of their lives, knew quite a bit about the field. In the end, it proved irrelevant anyway, as the drake's trail was beyond easy to follow.

 

The last glob of lava Leila had tossed at the beast had clung to it, and dripped off the creature while it was on flight, the molten rock causing small fires where it landed, which laid an easy trail for the group to follow, Leila snuffing out the fires as she passed to prevent them from going out of control.

 

A good hour, maybe two, passed as she followed the trail, the drake having flown over forested areas and making the trail slightly harder to follow. Even so, before they exited the forest they found a place where many trees were broken, with a couple uprooted by a brutal impact.

 

Apparently the injuries had proven too much for the drake to fly on and it had crashed there. Some of the broken trees had pierced its wounds, judging from the blood that coated them, and they switched to following the trail of blood instead, as by then the molten lava had either solidified or fell off the beast.

 

As they followed after game trails and cut their way through undergrowth when they had to, the girls eventually tracked the drake to its lair, a large cave at the side of a small hill, probably a good four hours away from the ranch.

 

All four girls looked at one another, knowing that this was their test to take. Cal was there to intervene should it become too dangerous, but the girls wanted to finish the mission on their own if they could. After a short discussion, they went inside the cave in a wedge formation, Ying Xiao in front, Elaina and Sidonie at the sides, and Leila in the middle.

 

The entrance to the cave was narrow enough that the drake must have skulked through to fit, yet it was still large enough for Ying Xiao to wield her halberd comfortably. They walked further inside, until the cave widened into a larger chamber, one where they found the drake curled up and resting, as it nursed its wounds.

 

As soon as they stepped into the larger cavern, the drake raised its head and roared, the bulky beast rising to its full height and charging at the intruders to its lair.

 

Its charge was met by lightning-charged javelins and bolts of glowing, molten lava that burned it. The beast was slow to react, and one of the glowing boots splashed right on its left eye, boiling the organ in its socket even as the beast wailed in pain.

 

Ying Xiao naturally didn't miss the blind spot, and circled to the drake's left, striking the back of the drake's leg with her halberd, attempting to sever the tendons and this impair the creature's mobility.

 

The dance continued for what felt like hours to the girls, but in reality were mere minutes, as Ying Xiao baited and hobbled the drake with her strikes, while the rest of the girls barraged it from afar. Each strike whittled down on the beast's stamina, each injury added on to what it had already suffered.

 

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When the beast finally fell, it was because the tendons of its legs had been sliced through by Ying Xiao, and its right arm was rendered useless, after a couple javelins struck right inside a wound on the right shoulder of the beast. Unable to support itself any longer, the beast crashed to the ground, as Ying Xiao darted in to finish it off.

 

She had grown too confident, it turned out, as the beast unexpectedly lashed out with its left arm instead of trying to use it to support itself. It was the arm itself instead of the claws that struck her, and the force of the blow was enough to send her flying towards the wall of the cave, where a small crater formed on the impact.

 

Leila and Elaina redoubled their efforts to finish off the beast as soon as possible, while Sidonie went to where Ying Xiao crumpled down. The girl was trying to get herself back on her feet, but failing, the strike clearly having damaged her greatly.

 

Before Sidonie could get to Ying Xiao, Cal was there. She picked up the young girl and carried her over her shoulder as she walked back to Dan, gesturing to Sidonie to take care of the drake as she did so.

 

"Let that be a lesson for you, now," Cal said as she laid the girl down and allowed Dan to work on her. The strike from the drake combined with the impact against the stone wall had pulverized some of her organs, and broke her spine in several places, which was why the girl had trouble even standing back then. "A cornered beast will strike back when it could. Be it man or beast, that moment when you feel that you have them at your mercy is always the most dangerous one."

 

"Yes… shīfù," stammered Ying Xiao as Dan worked to heal her extensive injuries. Behind them, the other three girls kept their distance and just kept striking the drake from afar as they waited for it to expire. "That was hasty of me."

 

"You also got to work on your body control. I guess I neglected to have you train with damage to the spine before. We will fix that before you're headed back to Al-Shan," muttered Cal as she thought about her student's performance. "So be ready for that."

 

"Understood, shīfù," replied Ying Xiao with a nod, Dan had worked on her spine first and already she could control her body better.

 

At that time, the drake had expired, and the other girls had circled around it, giving the beast's corpse a wide berth just in case, as they walked towards the nest it had laid on.

 

It was then that an exclamation of joy from Leila cut through the silence of the cave.

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