After watching the scrawny seeker he’d hired back in Dormaul carefully track down his target with his enhanced eyes, slowly but surely following their trail and bringing Asher to his mark, Asher was rather curious as to exactly how Rulfar was intending to track down the woman he was currently after. With a three-day head start on him, she had to have put a significant amount of distance between the two of them. Not only that, but Rulfar was now weaponless, and currently in the middle of a monster-infested hunting ground. Even if Asher and his team had cleared out most of the ones nearby, he had no doubt there’d still be a good number here and there along the edges.

  It turned out, the missing axe didn’t matter all that much. Rulfar wasn’t intending to do a whole lot of fighting.

  No, he was going to run.

  Despite his continued refusal to admit to what elements he held, Rulfar shrugged his shoulders and suddenly grew even larger. The already monster of a man slowly stretched upward and outward, and even more muscle began packing itself onto his dense frame as sharp claws erupted from his hands and a dense layer of fur sprouted all across his body. From how his face morphed into a partial snout, and the general look about him, Asher didn’t have a doubt in his mind that his guess about the Bear element had been spot on.

  Rulfar had been over seven feet tall before his partial transformation. But now that he was half-bear, half-man, he stood at a towering nine or ten feet tall, absolutely dwarfing the rest of them. Asher was pretty certain he was actually taller than the greater demons, which was shocking to think about. As Rulfar finished his transformation, Moxy whistled, eyeing up his muscles with a fire in her eyes.

  “Damn! See, that’s why I always wanted to try and get this guy to fight me!”

  “I don’t like needless violence,” Rulfar said, his voice marginally more rough and gravelly in his partial bear-form. “Keep up if you can. The hunt resumes.”

  With that, the bloodhound crashed down onto all fours, his nose twitching as he made a slight adjustment to the direction he was facing. Once he was satisfied, he leaned down, and took off.

  Asher had never really seen a bear run before, let alone a strange, half-bear like Rulfar’s current form. But one thing was made apparent incredibly quickly.

  Rulfar was fast.

  “By the realms!” Samantha gasped, staring at Rulfar’s distant form as he sprinted away at what felt like the speed of a car. Asher had barely enough time to drop his Spatial Lock to stop the bloodhound from smashing face first into it. “How is he so fast?!”

  “Synergy between elements,” Moxy said as she watched him run. “I wasn’t aware of what beast element he had until now, but word on the street was that he had a Strength element, along with some sort of endurance-based skill. Bear and Strength combined would make for some pretty rapid movement.”

  “Maybe instead of standing around talking, we should get a move on ourselves before he leaves us in the dust,” Asher pointed out, the distant form of Rulfar already almost too small to make out. Part of him wished he’d placed an Eternal Mark on the man while he was still unconscious, just to be safe, but Asher really didn’t have any marks to spare as it was. He really needed the skill to start leveling faster so that he had a bit more flexibility with what he marked.

  Nodding, Moxy grabbed his hand, letting herself be pulled into his Personal Rift. Cargo secured, Asher hopped onto Samantha’s back, who crouched down and blasted off into the air. Without having to worry about monsters, she took off after Rulfar, catching up with him fast enough.

  A rampaging bear with enhanced strength might be fast on the ground, but even Rulfar couldn’t match the power of flight.

  Rulfar seemed to realize this himself soon enough, as Asher saw the man glance up at them, shaking his head before going back to focusing on his run. Rather than carefully trying to avoid monsters or fight them as they appeared, Rulfar showed that monsters didn’t really matter all that much so long as one was built like a literal tank.

  Dash cats blitzed out of the surrounding grasses, launching themselves at him and even occasionally sinking teeth into his flank, only to find that they barely did any damage at all and got bucked off with impunity. Bursters got shoulder checked out of the way, getting sent flying like some sort of disgusting, fleshy beach balls from the sheer momentum Rulfar had. The acid that burst out at contact certainly seemed to be doing some actual damage, unlike the dash cats, but Rulfar merely kept his head down and powered through. Not even the corpse grabbers could do anything, the freaky centipede monsters erupting out of the ground and attempting to tangle up his legs, only to literally get torn apart as Rulfar’s strength proved too much for them to try and entangle.

  All that to say, Rulfar was this world’s closest thing Asher had ever seen to an unstoppable force. He was pretty certain a mogrant wouldn’t even dare to try tackling the man head on as he ran like this.

  “That’s a crazy way to travel!” Samantha called back as Rulfar sent another burster flying off to the side, the monster bouncing about as it tried to control its sudden speed. “Don’t you think that hurts?”

  “Rulfar strikes me as the type of guy with a shockingly high pain tolerance,” Asher said, curious what resistances the man must have taken. More than anything, he wanted to know what Rulfar’s third element was at this point, as well as where he stood in the process of elemental advancement. Rulfar was clearly a powerful warrior who had worked as a bloodhound for some time, but he was still relatively young as well. After meeting Gran, a three hundred plus year old woman who looked no older than twenty-five, Asher knew appearances could be quite deceiving when it came to pegging someone’s age. That said, he doubted Rulfar had any healing skills in the third tier, and the man looked to only be in his early thirties.

  Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  He and Samantha soared above the bloodhound, watching him batter away monsters as he ran back toward civilization. Asher had no idea where Rulfar’s target had fled, but seeing as they were running right for Furora, it seemed she must have figured Rulfar had died from her trap and returned to the city.

  She was in for one hell of a surprise.

  At their current speed, it wasn’t too long before they left the edge of the hunting grounds, but Rulfar maintained his mad sprint for a bit longer. It wasn’t until the edge of the city came into view that he gradually began to slow down. As he stood back up and began morphing back into his pure human form, Samantha landed beside him.

  “That’s one hell of a way to travel,” Asher said, pulling Moxy from his rift and getting a curious glance from Rulfar as the warrior appeared out of nowhere.

  “It has its downsides,” Rulfar said, a few acid burns revealing themselves on his shoulders as his fur withered away. “…You can store people as well as objects with that skill?”

  “Oh yeah, I forgot I shoved my daggers in there in front of you back when we first arrived at Loratta’s compound,” Asher said, laughing at the memory of Rulfar’s face the first time he’d seen his Personal Rift in action. “But yeah, after evolving the skill, it got a bit more versatile.”

  “It’s not exactly the more luxurious method of travel, but it has its perks,” Moxy shrugged, looking at Asher. “Honestly, it might not be a bad idea to toss a few nice chairs in there, or a mattress even. Some of these longer flights between cities take enough time that even I don’t want to train through the whole thing.”

  “Good idea, I’ll try and pick out some nice furniture once we’re back at the capital,” Asher said, falling in line behind Rulfar as they began walking. “So, your target’s back in Furora? Is finding her going to be tricky with the size of the city?”

  “Hardly. I have her scent. I could follow her to the ends of the realm,” Rulfar said, his eyes staring straight ahead as they walked. “If you don’t mind, I would like to finish this job in relative silence. I make no promises, but once it is complete, I will at least hear the three of you out.”

  “Hells yeah, we got our fourth teammate!” Moxy said, grinning as Rulfar sighed.

  “I just said I make no promises.”

  “Eh, we’ll see.”

  Shaking his head, Rulfar ignored them as they entered the city. The three of them followed behind him for a good hour as he wove his way through the various sectors of the city, going from twisting alleyways to straight farm plots as they walked. While he didn’t exactly power walk, Rulfar moved at a constant, steady pace toward his target. His gait was already quite wide due to his large frame, and Asher found it hilarious that the three of them had to jog a bit to keep up with him as they went further into the city.

  “So how do you guys think this is going to go down?” Moxy asked after they’d been walking for a good while. “He’s down his axe, which really lowers his whole threat factor at first glance.”

  “I mean, he’s still a seven-foot tall wall of muscle covered in mild acid burns,” Samantha pointed out, staring at Rulfar’s frame as he walked ever forward. “I think he’s got plenty of ‘threat factor’ left in my opinion.”

  “I’m just hoping we get a hint as to his third element,” Asher admitted. “We know Rulfar prides himself in being a professional and taking in his targets alive. Neither Strength nor Bear really sound like they would offer a lot of non-lethal skills, so I’m curious what he’s going to pull out to take this woman down.”

  “Maybe she’ll just surrender,” Samantha said. “We might not get a show at all.”

  “She’s not going to get the chance,” Moxy said, shaking her head. “And we’re probably not going to get much of a show, either. Don’t forget, I’ve done plenty of business with Rulfar back when he took the occasional job for Loratta’s gang. He’s pretty set in his routine. The first time he comes upon a target, he tries to talk to them. Gives them a chance to come quietly. If they resist and manage to escape, the second time he finds them is rather different. He doesn’t announce his presence, doesn’t try to talk them down again. He just knocks them out without warning and slings them over his shoulder. He’s not exactly the hardest person to escape from if one has the right skills, but he’s practically impossible to hide from. It’s how he earned his nickname in the first place.”

  “Rulfar the Hound indeed,” Asher muttered, watching the man turn down yet another alleyway seemingly entirely at random. The fact that he was tracking one specific person through what had to be tens of thousands of people and across dozens of miles was incredible. With his durability, power in combat, and skills as a seeker, there was no question about it.

  No matter what happened, they needed Rulfar to join their little team.

  Finally, Rulfar seemed to find what he was looking for. A random tavern tucked away on the corner of a street filled with rowdy folk who looked like the type Asher wouldn’t have wanted to find walking behind him late at night back on Earth. Though as expected, these guys took one look at Rulfar’s massive frame striding toward them and wisely made themselves scarce, scattering in different directions.

  “Crap, we’re going to miss it!” Moxy said, hurrying forward as Rulfar vanished into the tavern. Wanting to see what he’d do just as much as Moxy, Asher cheated with a tunnel of compressed space, darting past the warrior and entering into the tavern only a few seconds behind the bloodhound. Even so, he barely made it in time to witness what Rulfar did.

  Just like Moxy said, Rulfar didn’t announce his presence upon entering the tavern. He didn’t walk up and inform his target that he was taking her in. He didn’t suggest she come quietly or put her weapons away. He simply walked straight up to the bar, already knowing where his target was sitting before he’d even set foot in the establishment. The tavernkeep’s eyes barely even had a chance to widen before Rulfar was suddenly there, standing directly behind his target.

  Asher pushed through the tavern doors just in time to see Rulfar bring his hand down, grabbing the woman in dirty leather armor with a shortsword at her side by the back of the neck like she was a troublesome kitten. Immediately, she jerked and went for her sword, before suddenly going limp in Rulfar’s grasp, as though she’d fallen asleep. By the time Moxy entered behind him, it was already over.

  In barely three seconds, Rulfar had taken down his target.

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