TJ couldn't help but ask as he slithered forward, "So you can talk, wendigo?"
"Yes, little divine whelp." It breathed deeply through its gaping nostrils. "Or perhaps I call you snakeling, descendant of the Feathered Serpent. Your blood reeks of plundering the strength of my kind."
"I wasn't given much of a choice." TJ offered, looking down at his Divine Transformation timer. He'd only spent 54 minutes, so he had over half an hour remaining. Plenty of time to try to talk his way out of this, and for if that didn't work, he was condensing an attack on his tongue. "I didn't want to be eaten, after all."
"It is your place to be predator or prey." The wendigo's wheezing, dry voice was cold. "We wendigos do not need to make the choice. We are predator. And predator of predator."
"Any way we can walk away from this without any more death?" TJ offered.
The only response the wendigo gave was a bone-chilling laughter. TJ didn't wait for its response, nor did the rest of the surviving hunters. Stanton's gun fired again and again and pukwudgies fell as they charged forward. The returning volley of spears was stopped by Sarah's spectral shield once again, though she was left wheezing with the effort. Her MP was nearly out with her efforts, but with her physical shield and hatchet at the ready, the Zealot tore into the front ranks of the dozens of pukwudgies. The armor that'd been fashioned for her combined with her Toughness stopped any blows from striking too deeply.
Beside Sarah, Connor roared a challenge as he too leapt into battle, his war pick piercing easily through his foes, though each strike he made opened him up to twice as many counterattacks. He didn't care, lashing out to deal crippling or even killing blows in exchange for taking a series of stabs from the goblins. The man bled, but with his Tortoise Shell Skill active, he tanked through them. Stanton and Rebekkah supported from behind as best as they could, though Stanton was conserving bullets and hurling the few knives he had prepared for just this task. Rebekkah had a crudely prepared bow she shot whenever she was confident there wouldn't be any friendly fire. TJ couldn't look at them for any longer, needing to focus on the wendigo and slowing it down.
As TJ rushed to close in with the wendigo, Charlie made himself known. The large stones he'd used before were thrown with unerring accuracy at the wendigo. One was dodged while the other smashed against claws that seemed unphased by the attack they'd sustained. Replacing the rocks was the felling axe Charlie had used against the last wendigo they'd fought together, and he swung it heavily to ward off the wendigo's initial attack. TJ lunged forward to tie up the monstrosity, but he was too slow and too late.
The skeletal creature dodged back from the range of the axe's swing and jumped into melee combat with Charlie faster than he could recover. Its claws cut through his flesh and the muscles of the Neophyte's chest. Frost crackled in two inches in either direction as Charlie's blood froze where it leaked out. He grunted in pain as the Frostbite affliction slowed him. TJ continued condensing his MP, pumping well over 200 MP into the Skill while he tried to tangle the monster.
"You. An unfamiliar god's blood. It is sweet." The wendigo spoke as it dodged back again out of their range. "Your flesh will feed me well."
The wendigo pressed the attack once more, claws flashing and the ambient temperature dropping. TJ missed that first wendigo he'd fought, so reckless and wasteful with its MP. This one, beyond having passed the level 10 threshold, used its MP sparingly, and only when it landed hits on the two Neophytes. Which happened often.
TJ's sides were patterned with deep frozen slashes, and he'd nearly lost an eye to a sudden bite that instead tore a large part of his mane of feathers from his neck. His Frostbite affliction had already grown to the moderate tier, and as he'd been slowed, more and more attacks struck home. Charlie looked no better, his axe literally frozen into his grip while chilled muscles struggled to move at all. Now that they were slowed, the wendigo pressed its advantage, claws tearing ceaselessly into their bodies. Both men were haggard, and TJ was tempted to use the prepared Wind Manipulation attack, but with the wendigo still so uninhibited, it would quite possibly evade the attack entirely.
The Elite monster remained patient, tearing chunks of flesh free and devouring them while dodging away from their strongest attacks. Charlie only landed two solid blows on the beast, and as it continued to devour their flesh, it recovered. TJ himself had managed to seize one of its ankles but was forced back when its descending claws nearly ripped his head apart. They were only distracting the creature for now, and both men were close to being in real mortal danger.
The sounds of battle slowed and quieted behind them, but TJ couldn't spare the time to look to see how his companions fared. Stanton made himself known, though, when he fired two shots in quick succession. The pistol, looking much the same but now a .45 caliber instead of .22, managed to punch into the wendigo's flesh. It grunted in pain but laughed once again.
"You will receive my attention." It rushed towards the back line and the slowed Charlie and TJ turned as quickly as they could. They couldn't stop the creature as it rushed past, but Connor and Sarah rushed to. The two Zealots were covered in blood, both their own and that of the pukwudgies that had desperately fought to get to Stanton and Rebekkah behind them. Most of those pukwudgies lay dead on the ground, their blood making the soil dark with crimson. A scant four continued to fight, patterned with wounds, but the wendigo's approach was more than threatening enough to the wounded and exhausted Zealots.
Connor roared wordlessly as he activated his Tortoise Shell Skill again, his body toughening and his shield gaining a honed edge. The wendigo didn't care, its claws shearing through the shield with little apparent effort. Frost covered the tool while Connor's war pick swept towards the monster's head.
"You'd use my brother's body as a weapon?" The wendigo shrieked as the pick struck deep into its ribs. The calm it had displayed until then burned away as it sent a wave of frost knives towards Connor. He held his shield aloft and several of the weapons shattered against the raised protection. Two of them, however, speared through and into his gut. Connor grunted in pain as frost crawled all around his torso from the attack. The wendigo closed in, claws ready to tear into the partially incapacitated defender. One hand's claws sliced deep into his right shoulder, nearly amputating the limb while the other sought his heart.
It wasn't prepared for the other aspect of Tortoise Shell, the enhanced attack. Now that it couldn't escape, Connor's shield smashed into the approaching hand. The powerful edge audibly snapped the wrist bones of the wendigo's right hand and made the claws only strike a glancing blow along Connor's hip.
His Skill exhausted, the man slumped and fell off the monster's claws. Before the wendigo could finish him off, Sarah closed in, no Skills enhancing her movement but still ready to stand and fight. She chopped with her hatchet, the movements quick with her huge Strength and Agility. The fending blows slowed the wendigo enough that TJ and Charlie caught up to the wendigo. Now surrounded for the first time, the beast screamed in rage. Even with its hand broken, its MP showed no signs of flagging. The creature threw knives of ice while slashing with deadly speed and precision in every direction.
TJ could see Stanton raising his gun and squeezing several shots off again and again, though his aim was nowhere near the fight. There was no time to focus on that, though. His speed was severely hampered by the affliction, yet he still needed to fight. TJ had held the roiling weapon on his tongue this entire time, still unable to guarantee its success. Then, when the wendigo committed to a heavy overhand blow on Sarah and she bashed it back, the opportunity arose.
The wendigo countered with an underhanded blow, the claws piercing all the way through Sarah and poking out her back. TJ lunged forward, his jaws fully encircling the wendigo's torso. Its skeletal frame fit in his jaws, and TJ ground his teeth in while the monstrosity roared. Then, while Charlie swung his axe at the monster's head, TJ flicked his tongue back and forth and tried to saw through the wendigo's spine. Bone crunched as it screamed but TJ didn't stop until nearly 300 MP was spent and the wendigo's spine was in fragments. Its legs went limp and it fell to the ground while thrashing wildly.
"No!" the wendigo screamed. "I will take revenge!"
TJ, Sarah, and Charlie relaxed as Sarah pulled Connor out of the wendigo's range. It couldn't reliably move now, so they could take their time to dispatch it–
"Oh shit!" Stanton shouted. The others jumped back in fear, but it was the perfectly wrong thing to do at that moment. A pukwudgie cultist with a gaping wound in its chest sprang to its feet and into the wendigo's reach. The hunters tried to interpose themselves, but it was too late. The wendigo's jaws opened wide and bit through the cultist's head in one massive bite. The Zealots and Neophytes tried to press the attack, but the wendigo's body burst with a fog filled with shards of ice. The explosion of frost pushed them back long enough that the wendigo took two more tearing bites of the corpse.
The consumption of flesh restored some level of mobility to the wendigo, and it crawled away on all fours as fast as it could manage. TJ tried to rip into it, to keep it from escaping, but it picked up speed as it dragged him along. Stanton shouted out, "Pull back."
TJ didn't argue but sent a quick spear of wind into the healing wendigo's spine before he turned away. The blow didn't do much of anything except to hurry it along, and TJ roared his frustration to the escaping wendigo. To add insult to injury, the winds carried the wendigo's words back to him.
"I will eat your flesh and crack your bones. Just wait."
They'd killed dozens of pukwudgies in this hunt, but TJ still hadn't hit the level.
"We've gotta get out of here." TJ said as he whirled towards his companions. "Connor, you able to get up or do you need to be carried?"
"I can walk." The Zealot answered, his narrow eyes tightened in pain. "Can't fight much though."
"That's good enough for now." Stanton said. "If necessary, we can patch you up, but we should be able to get back to the safe zone pretty quick."
"Fast is good." Connor grunted.
TJ and Charlie took hold of two javelinas each, given the quality of the meat and materials from creatures that had passed the level 10 benchmark. The others kept their hands free in case there was another ambush. There were no more words spoken as they returned to Pine, though everyone paid special attention to whatever possible to be prepared for an ambush or other attack from pukwudgies or other monsters.
Nothing happened as they returned, though TJ wondered what the name was for the poor woman who'd been abducted or something else to serve as the bait for the trap. She deserved better treatment, but there wasn't anything they could do for her at the moment. Thus, as the hunting party returned to town and a dozen people waited with excited faces, TJ could only muster a disappointed shake of his head in response to their hope to celebrate. He was so close to that level that he was tempted to go out once more, but decided against it. Instead, he'd return to the forest in the morning and gain that last little bit of experience.
For now, he could only lick his wounds and allow himself to recover. The night, however, refused to give him that peace and quiet.