Flow of Existence

After messing around for a while Nash and Kes got back on track, the hunt had been going pretty well so far.

They had faced off against two wolverines, both Kes and Nash had killed one.

They had killed four rabbits, Nash had killed three while Kes had only killed one.

And they had hunted a whole group of deer, most of them had gotten away but they had still killed a lot of them. Kes had killed four while Nash had killed a total of seven, an incredible amount.

The deer hadn't attempted to fight back but they had run for their lives making the fight against the deer a lot more complicated than that against the wolverines. Both Kes and Nash had to give all their effort towards strengthening their bodies with Flow to catch up to the fleeing deer.

They had harvested all their pelts and were confident in being able to win the competition.

They were now sitting together in a bush staring down a whole group of boars. There were ten of them, but none of them looked out of the ordinary.

Nash tapped Kes on his shoulder. "You see that boar over there." He was pointing at the largest looking one with menacing tusks. "That should be the leader. The plan is simple, we first kill the leader together. Then when the rest of the group is in chaos we kill them one by one on our own. Just try to kill as many of them as possible. Move out on my signal."

Kes nodded and got into position.

Getting the signal from Kes he jumped out of the bush and dashed towards the boar with massive tusks. The boar reacted instantly, swinging its head trying to hit the pesky humans with its tusks.

Kes saw the tusks getting closer to him, he twisted his body and barely got away with a scrape on his left leg. After getting hit he jumped away and rolled on the ground. Another boar, who was still panicking from the sudden attack, was waiting here and rushed over in a panic.

Kes quickly regained himself as he saw Nash slash open the bowel of the big tusked boar he had just distracted in the corner of his eyes. The rest of the boar group were all panicking and seemingly confused on what to do. The smartest two boars quickly shot into the forest, two others madly dashed towards Nash who had just slashed their leader. And a total of five boars were all dashing towards Kes.

'Shit, this might be bad.' Kes cursed inwardly as he realized their plan had failed and he was going to have to take most of the boars on alone. He just had to stall for a while and hope Nash would take down the leader, sending the boars into a real panic.

The boar closest to him ran forward trying to bash Kes with its snout. Kes swerved to the left, twisting his body as much as he could, barely avoiding the raging boar. He quickly rolled behind a tree. The boar, who had lost itself to rage dashed towards the tree. Kes climbed into the tree as fast as he could, then when the boar was below it he quickly dropped himself and pierced its skull.

That was one down, four more to go.

The other four were grouped up and dashing with even more rage than they had before. Kes closed his eyes and slowly exhaled, he focused all his attention on his body, he focused everything on strengthening it with his Flow. He felt the comforting feeling of his body becoming stronger than ever before and he felt his Flow reserves quickly draining. But that would be a problem for him later, all he had to do now was win, kill and survive. 

Kes opened his eyes again, he saw the boars quickly approaching him, the rage visible in their eyes. Kes could feel it too, the rage built up in their Flow, the overflowing amount of bloodlust these boars were emitting right now, to them the only thing that mattered was killing the enemy in front of them. It didn't matter if they had to sacrifice themselves to accomplish that feat.

'That's why they are wild beasts while I am not.' Kes thought.

Kes would never sacrifice his life in order to take his enemy down, there wouldn't be any point in the kill then. Revenge or benefits, it was all meaningless if one wasn't alive to reap it. 

Kes moved with unnatural focus, dodging the dash of the two boars running in the front. He quickly shifted his body and moved underneath the legs of the third madly dashing boar and clung to the boar's waist. The boar started madly shaking its body trying to get the pest off him. 

But Kes wasn't so easy to get rid of, while clinging to the boar's waist he quickly plunged his knife four times into the beast's side. The boar faltered but its comrades were still reluctant to approach, they couldn't hit Kes who clung to the boar for his dear life. 

But then, one of the boars made a decision. It suddenly dashed, ramming its massive boar snout into Kes who was holding onto the other boar, sending both of them flying into a tree. 

The boar had taken most of the damage but Kes wasn't feeling great either, bile rose up in his throat. He quickly swallowed it, shifted his body and finished off the now unconscious boar he was laying on with his knife. 

Two down three more to go.

He quickly climbed into the tree to catch his breath. But before he even had time to do so the boars were already bashing their snouts against the tree. Kes knew this fragile tree would not last very long, he had to come up with a strategy and fast. 

He threw a glance at Nash, his friend had managed to kill one of the two regular boars that came to attack him and was now fighting against the other one and the disemboweled tusked boar.

'Guess I can't count on him yet this tree won't hold out long enough for him to finish up there.' 

Kes took some bandage out of his robe and started patching up his side, which was hurting like hell, while holding onto the tree with his other hand. Due to the shaky tree it was poor work, but he had managed to patch it up a little.

The tree was really not going to hold any longer so Kes decided to slide down as fast as he could, hitting two boars in the head with his heels strengthened by Flow. Hopping off the boars heads Kes dived to avoid the third boar who was now jumping towards him. 

The boar's snout barely scraped him but it still hurt a whole lot. Kes really was in awful condition. But he didn't let that stop him, he had been prepared and threw a throwing knife straight in the right eye of the pouncing boar.

The boar wailed, but it was too late. Kes quickly moved to its blind spot and slashed into its right leg incapacitating the beast. The two others were coming so he had no time to finish it off and quickly rolled away.

Kes dashed behind another tree preparing to climb into it again, to buy himself more time. But before he could, one of the two boars blindsided him ramming into his side.

Kes rolled over the ground and threw up, he couldn't stop it this time. His vision was turning hazy but he knew it would be over if he gave up now. So he rolled to the side dodging the second boar who had come with a follow up attack, twisted his body and threw a throwing knife which scraped the boar's side.

The boar grunted seemingly unphased, but the beast made a massive mistake. It didn't wait for its comrade to attack together and immediately dashed towards the half dead Kes, who was laying on the ground. 

Kes pulled himself forward, and through sheer will managed to end up underneath the boar's throat. He plunged his knife as deep into it as he possibly could, the beast struggled but soon stopped breathing falling on top of the already battered Kes. 

Three dead, two to go.

But it all didn't matter now, he could feel the palpable bloodlust and rage of the last still moving boar approaching him. Kes was stuck, he wouldn't be able to escape from here. He felt the heavy weight of the boar corpse being lifted off him and saw the enraged boar through his hazy eyes. 

But suddenly the boar stopped moving, a knife was stuck deep in its skull while a teenage boy stood there, piercing it through as deeply as he could. It was Nash.

Kes hadn't taken this risk for nothing, he knew Nash would be able to save him in time. Though he hated relying on others, definitely when it was a matter of life and death, he had decided to trust his friend with his life this time. And the risk had paid off.

Kes grunted. "Took you long enough, what was holding you up so long."

"The tusked boar was stronger than I expected, it was way stronger than me even though we caught it off guard." Nash snorted. "Next time you should run away when faced off against this many boars."

Kes looked at his friend. "And leave you to die? No way, your father would kill me. And Cantor is a whole lot scarier than five measly boars."

The truth was, Kes would have run away if he knew the battle with the boars would end up like this, but he never expected the boar to ram into its own comrade. From then on he couldn't run away anymore, he was too hurt and wouldn't be able to outrun the boars. He had been too arrogant thinking he could take on five boars alone without any mishaps.

Nash offered his hand and helped him stand up. "We need to get you back to where the village chief and my father are, luckily it's almost time to return anyway. But you need medical attention and fast."

Kes got onto his feet. "That one boar should still be alive, let me finish it off."

Nash gave him a nod and looked at how his friend limped towards the disabled boar and drove his knife into its throat killing the last survivor of the boar group.

Kes gave him a nod. "Alright let's return after harvesting their pelts, we have a competition to win."

Nash was once again doing all the harvesting, but from the big boar he took part of its tusk instead of its pelt, it might result in more points.

With that Nash supported the limping Kes as they walked back to the meetup point together. Now they were really confident in winning the competition today.