Limits

Chapter 172

The Entrance No. 1, was located quite a distance away from the Vulture Cliffs. It was towards the north eastern direction. When I finally arrived in the vicinity of the Entrance No. 1, I could already see groups of Corpse Dogs running about. 'There are about 30 of them, next to the entrance. I don't know how many are inside but my guess is that, the amount will not be a small one' I thought.

I took out my bow and arrows. 'Long distance is the best way to figure out their forces. When I kill couple of them, more should show up. I can either grind them with arrows or I can take them on in close combat, depending on the numbers' I thought and started shooting.

I was about 300 metres away from the Entrance No. 1. With a few arrows shot, the Corpse Dogs started to die. I then heard some howls and more Corpse Dogs crawled out of the entrance. 'There are about 100 of them now. I can't deal with this number in close combat. I also don't know, if all those dogs are the same. Maybe there are some elites mixed in' I thought and shot more arrows.

The Corpse Dogs finally figured out where my position was and the whole group ran at me. I decided not to linger and simply run. 'There are still about 85 of them left, that is a large amount. I also have only 30 arrows left. This seems to be the best tactics but I will need more arrows' I thought, as I ran away at full speed. The Corpse Dogs had no way of catching up to me and I lost them after a while.

'I need more arrows. I wonder if those dead trees will be good enough to make shafts. I can use some rocks as arrowheads. I don't have enough ore, to waste it on arrowheads. The performance will be much worse but with my strength, I should be able to kill the Corpse Dogs anyway, even with makeshift arrows' I thought and took out a hatchet from my bag.

I didn't have to search for trees as those were everywhere. The only thing was that, they weren't densely packed. I also ran towards the direction of Dead Forest. This would allow me some cover in case the Corpse Dogs relentlessly chased after me. I swung the hatchet at the tree and got a bit surprised. 'This trees seem to be dying and rotting but it's actually quite hard. This will make very good arrow shafts!' I thought.

I cut down a few trees and started carving those arrow shafts. I needed a lot of them, if what that Avian said is correct, the Den would have around 1000 of those Corpse Dogs. I didn't want to create 1000 arrows at once but about 200 for the start, should be enough. I was also more experienced creating arrow shafts, due to the visit to my "home" village. Creating 200 shafts wouldn't take that long for me anymore. The problem was arrowheads.

'I will need sharp stones of a decent size. I will probably need to carve them as well and I don't know how long this will take. Although this land is reach in stones, not every stone will be suitable' I thought. This would take me a while but I had to finish the shafts first.

I spend the rest of the "day", carving the shafts. I made about 180 of them and decided it would be enough for now. I still needed arrowheads. I decided to rest first and then focus on that. Sleeping in the North was not that simple though. This place was potentially very dangerous and had very little protection. While I slept, I was vulnerable to all attacks. A Black Sludge could creep up on me and try to assimilate my body.

I came up with an idea of an early prevention mechanism. I set up ropes around the area I was camping at and tied that to myself. If a creature touches the rope, it would potentially wake me up. I didn't know if I could be woken up, when I was dreaming about the Dark Traveller but at least, it was something. This only work for creatures such as Corpse Dogs but for something like Black Sludge, it would have no effect.

The solution to that was medicine. I found out that besides fire, smell of medicine was also nemesis of the Black Sludge. I had loads of herbs and medical liquids, so spreading some around my camp was not a problem. What I found out, when experimenting with the bit that was left after the Black Sludge burned, as well as the one I retrieved from the sea of Black Sludges, was that the medicine worked on it like poison. On the other hand, poison was something of a medicine to it. I guessed that not all poisons would work that way but the weaker ones, would actually heal the Sludge, instead of harming it.

This was also apparent when I met the Crow guy. He ate the food without much of a worry. He knew that any poison I could potentially add into the food, would not affect him, or he was very naive. With that set up, I could now go to sleep at the top of a tree.

The next "day", I started collecting the stones. Not every stone was appropriate as an arrowhead but because there were so many of them around, I quickly gathered a pile of stones. 'Time to grind some stones, I guess' I thought and started carving.

This went on for another two "days", when I finally had enough arrowheads to create 180 arrows. Carving those stones, was not easy at all. I had to carve them to specific size that was one thing. The other thing was a ridge or a hole that would slip onto the arrow shaft. That was why, it took me so many hours just to create 180 arrows.

When all the arrowheads and shafts were attached, using some small strands of a rope that I sacrificed. I was ready to tackle the Entrance No. 1 again. I traveled back and arrived at the entrance to the Den.

There were again, around 30 or so Corpse Dogs running around it. I took out my bow and positioned myself. 'It's time to test my new arrows, I expect that their performance will be much worse compared to the arrows I already had but as long as I can kill Corpse Dogs, I don't care about anything else' I thought and aimed at the group.

"Swoosh!" "Swoosh!" "Swoosh!"

I shot 3 arrows, one after the other and fortunately, they managed to hit their targets. Although the arrowheads were made from stones, their speed covered for the substandard materials used to make them. The arrows pierced right through the Corpse Dogs, I targeted and all 3 died. 'Good, the arrows work. Now to grind them down' I thought and started to release arrows one after the other.

The Corpse Dogs were dying left and right when finally, reinforcements arrived. This time, the reinforcements numbered over 100, so the number altogether was around 150 of Corpse Dogs. I shot arrows like crazy at the pack or rather a herd of Corpse Dogs, that was getting closer. I stood up and ran. I didn't have the skills to run and shoot arrows at the same time but there was nothing stopping me from trying that out.

My aim was kind of all over the place but my accuracy was about 80%. It was all thanks to the size of the group that was chasing me. It was hard to miss it. I used up over 50 arrows and killed about the same amount of Corpse Dogs from that group.

With so many deaths, they chased me for quite some time. I decided to lose them first and then reorganise. I wanted to grind them down, not kill them all in one go. I lost them and hid my presence. I learned that these Corpse Dogs, although stupid, had very good sense of smell, probably even better than mine. There was an easy solution to this. Just smear some dirt onto myself. This would mask my smell quite well and adding in the distance, the Corpse Dogs would not be able to find me.

I managed to lose them but I didn't let go of that group so easily. I knew they would return to the Den but I wouldn't let that happen. I ate some food to restore my energy and went after them. The herd of Corpse Dogs running back to their Den, was the exact thing, I was searching for. I took out the bow and started shooting again. The Corpse Dogs turned towards me again and ran. I killed around 40 of them this time and only about 50 were left, from that whole herd.

I repeated the process one again and then, finished off whatever was left, by utilising the close combat. 'Around 150 Corpse Dogs died. There are potentially 6 times as many of them left. There could be more though. I need to collect back my arrows, I can't just make new ones every time' I thought and went around collecting arrows. Some arrows broke apart, while others managed to stay intact and would be still usable. I managed to retrieve around 80 arrows but that was not enough for another raid. I had to make more, so my grinding resumed.

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