He counted the seconds that passed as the beast tore through the tall blades of grass and dying them red. He hid behind the tree and waited patiently, his body grew so still that he stopped breathing.
As the red eyed hyena grew closer to the tree it's trajectory slowly changed in a wide arc as it darted in another direction, heading away from the tree. This did not come as a shock to Leo who had anticipated that it would use would pick up his scent with its keen sense of smell when it got close enough.
But it had already closed the distance considerably well for him to attack, plus the fact that it had lost a lot of momentum from the moment it changed course.
Leo jumped out of his hiding spot and sprinted for the awakened beast as it started to run away, his legs carried him with more power than they had ever done in his seventeen years alive.
The moment he closed the gap he jumped unto the back of the awakened beast and dug his claws into its neck and slashed it open. A thick stream of black blood gushed out of the neck of the beast as it raised its head and roared in pain.
Leo had suspected that such an attack would not be sufficient enough to kill it, since he was currently on the beast's back his weight would slow it down for a second attack.
He continued to dig his claws repeatedly into its neck in violent slashed, feeling his hands dig into soft tissue and warm sticky blood. Somehow it felt soothing to take the life of another beast, the usual fear he had whenever he went hunting alone in the wilds was gone.
A few seconds later the awakened beast fell to the ground and let out one last growl, in its final moment Leo could see his reflection in the things eyes and was horrified by what he saw. Staring right back at him was the image of a young man with bright purple eyes, a hairy face , sharp fangs and sharp pointed ears. He looked more like a beast than a man, he focused on his sister's smile once more and watched the image revert to that of a human.
"What the hell have I become?" He asked his reflection and waited for an answer.
Then came the familiar chime sound.
[You have slain an awakened beast]
[You have received two soul fragment]
Leo shook back to reality as he picked up the voice of the group of hunters coming in his direction, he proceeded to cut open the beast's chest and dig out the beast's core.
Since he did not have any tools he made used of his claws and tore through the flesh in a savage manner, he tried remember how he used to do this before. Then he had a rusty knife and always felt nauseating doing this but now seeing the blood and intestines of other living things filled him with a strange sense of joy.
He eventually removed the two small silver coloured spherical balls in its chest, awakened beast were known to have two beast cores while dormant beasts had one core. Mutated beasts which were higher had three beast cores. The rarer the beast the more nutritious the cores.
Back when he was still a dormant human with only slightly advanced capabilities he had only consumed a handful of dormant beast cores but barely felt anything from it. Thinking that people would actively consume something harvested from other creatures made him want to regurgitate.
He turned to leave before the party of hunters would arrive when he heard another chime. A second chime took him by surprise since he had already gotten rewarded for killing the beast so he wondered what it would be.
[You have received an artifact]
Leo's face almost exploded from joy, "An artifact?"
Artifacts were always a possibility for any awakened or hunter in Hellscape since they were vital for survival. When one killed another beast there was always the chance of one getting a material from the beast, this material could either be a weapon or a support type tool. They were called artifacts and they were stored in the sphere of the hunter to be called at anytime.
Since Leo had never gotten one in his life he was of course elated to be getting his very first artifact, he had always wondered what it felt to summon one and have it materialise before one's finger tips.
The sound of the coming party caused him to leave the scene as quickly as he could. He managed to go around the entire clearing unnoticed till he got back to the tree where he had left his bag and walks into the forest.
The only thing he regretted however was not taking a piece of meat from the awakened beast to roast over the fire when night came. He was of course a big fan of the fabled boiled tasteless potato that was well known but a bit of meat every now and then would be a treat. Besides maybe having some roasted meat would make him stop fantasizing over having raw succulent flesh in his mouth.
But he had also made a big win that day, he had acquired his very first artifact.