State of Chaos - Chapter 8：Sunset Mountain Range (2)

Danny was woken up by a rooster crow in the morning. Looking out the window he saw the sun rising over the horizon. He put on his cloths and grabbed his bag as he headed down stairs to grab some food at the Inn before he left towards the Mountain Range. When he opened the door he saw Henry walking down the stairs and ran to catch up to him.

“Why are you waking up early as well?” Danny asked perplexed. “How else am I supposed to get the free continental breakfast?” Henry replied, looking at his as if he was stupid “but I will not go with you into the Mountain Range, I am just hungry. I will walk you towards the entrance though.” “Alright” he said as he went towards the counter to get both of their breakfasts. “get me some extra jam while you are there!!” Henry hollered after him.

After they finished eating they walked out of the Inn and saw that many of the people already left the Inn earlier so they could enter the mountain range as soon as possible. “Did you pack your tent, and other supplies?” Henry asked with a straight face to not show his worry. “I got all the supplies that you gave me in your bag.” Danny said as he rolled his eyes.

“Good, you will be there for two weeks, and if you are not back by then, I will enter to go look for you. And if you are late because you met up with a girl or something I’m going to give you a new one got it?” Henry berated him with his finger pointed at Danny.

Danny rolled his eyes at Henry because of his nagging and just agreed to all the things Henry was saying so that he could enter the mountain range faster. Eventually Henry ran out of things to say to Danny, so he finally let Danny enter into the Sunset Mountain Range.

When he entered the mountain range there was already a path made due to all the people traveling in and out of the Mountain Range. From his back he heard Henry yell “Don’t forget that there are robbers also, they will kill you just for your prey!!”. Turning back he waved Henry away saying “I got it, I’ll see you again in two weeks old man”. Then he turned around and started running deeper into the mountain range to go look for some prey.

He decided to run for a whole day so he would get somewhat far into the mountain range, then he would sleep through the night and start hunting the very next day. He was quite excited because he has never hunter before, well he has never hunted fierce beasts at least. He remembered Henry’s warning about not going to the yellow mountain because the fierce beats there moved in packs and were all at least rank D and there were rumors of rank C’s.

The mountain had a lot of trees that were white in color with yellow leaves Danny did not know if the leaves were always yellow or it was due to the season. It was Spring time though, so he assumed they were always yellow. As he was running he suddenly felt that he was being watched from somewhere.

He stopped and looked around, but he could not find anyone near him. He thought it was a robber already on his tail to steal his supplies, but he couldn’t find them. He figured he was just imagining things because if someone was actually stalking him and they had the ability to escape his detection it would be a disgrace to the person. Only a high rank evolver or fierce beast would be able to stalk him without him finding out, and that would be beneath them. Or it could be someone with a special ability, but he couldn’t find them so he kept on running.

The feeling never went away, but Danny was never able to find the suspect so he assumed he was just of his rocker and ignored it for the rest of the run. Soon he felt blood lust directed towards him and shouted “AHA” he turned and saw a fire lion pouncing towards him. He quickly pulled a sword out of his sheath and prepared for battle. He pulled off his backpack with supplies and threw it off to the side, so he could have more moving room.

The fire lion jumped at him attempting to pin him to the floor and Danny rolled underneath it as it leaped over his head trying to end him with one strike, stopping on the floor he turned about and slashed towards the lions rear attempting to cut its heel to slow its movement. He slashed its butt missing its leg and the fire lion roared in pain. It turned around and started to spit fire towards Danny. However, Danny was already prepared and he quickly dodged to the side only getting his clothes singed.

He turned towards the lion and picked a rock up of the floor and chucked it as hard as he could. The fire lion dodged to the right and at the same time Danny followed up the rock and stabbed towards the fire lion’s heart. The lion cried out in pain and swatted Danny with his paw causing him to fly into a tree. Danny groaned in pain, but quickly got up so he wouldn’t get killed. He looked at the fire lion and saw it swaying as it hit the floor.

The swat it hit Danny with was it’s final strength. Danny went up to the lion and poked it one more time to make sure it was dead before he got down and started to skin it. “Looks like I found dinner” he said humming as he went about his work. Once he was done he went to get his bag only to find that it was opened and all the dry rations he had were taken out and eaten by something. “What the hell?” he said quizzically as he looked at his bag.

‘So it was that thing following me that ate my food?’ he thought to himself. ‘But I thought it was the fire lion following me the whole time. Well I guess I would have found it if it was hiding and it has trouble keeping its blood lust in check, so it wasn’t the fire lion following me. So what has been following me?’ He tried to think back to the fierce beast book he read, but couldn’t figure out what fierce beast it was. He picked up his bag as he was thinking about that and dragged his prey as he went deeper into the mountains to find a place to sleep during his stay here.