"No one said anything about this" Rio muttered looking back at the thick mist ahead, his eyes squinting as invisibility slowly worsened.
Within the mist, Rio noticed that the number of red eyes had increased from two to four, meaning that there were now two Direhogs within it and then just as another pair of red eyes appeared, all the Direhogs growled and charged towards him.
Once again, despite the danger, Rio felt totally calm and gripping his axe he ran towards it, his speed in no way inferior that of his opponents.
Getting closer to them, Rio realized that the Direhogs were much bigger than the ones he had killed the previous day, but undeterred he put a break to his movement just as the first one got within range.
Stepping out of the way just as its claws swiped his previous location Rio burst forward and swung his axe across its right hind legs before it could turn to face him.
A loud growl of pain came from the Direhog as its leg collapsed unable to bear its weight and Rio not wasting a second, pivoted on his right foot and before the Direhog knew what was happening its head was cleanly sliced off its body.
With his momentum exhausted, the other two Direhogs saw this as an opportunity to end him and attacked.
The first leapt towards him just as his body came to stop and Rio rather than dodge this, narrowed his eyes, his heart thumping hard as he waited for the beast to get closer and then just before its claws could dig into him, his left hand shot out and grabbed it by the leg just above its claws, and swinging it around, he slammed into the other direhog which had chosen to ambush him from the back while his colleague distracted him at the front.
Putting his all into the swing, Rio's slam buried the other direhog into the ground and then Rio with a growl swung his axe down, the blade of his axe slicing into the direhog whose limb he still held and then into the other which was beneath it, both dead with a single swing.
Letting go of the dead creature with a brimming smile on his face, Rio looked back towards the portal.
"I can feel it" Rio said, able to hear the harder than normal thump of his heart and most importantly the warm energy that flowed within him.
"Just two of you" Rio said in a disappointed tone, his words meant for the two other red eyes that had appeared in the mist, but no sooner had he said this, several more eyes began appearing.
[You have been targeted by a pack of Direhogs. The system has a mission for you.
Iron mission: Survive for 20 minutes to gain a forged weapon.
Bronze mission: kill them all in 20 minutes to get the title "predator"]
"Huh system mission, but if my system is evolving and can't be accessed, then who is giving me this mission" Rio asked but his only response was the blue screen flashing out and not coming back no matter how much he called out to it.
"Targeted by a pack," Rio wondered, focusing back on the Direhogs who other than growling had chosen to just idly watch him."
"Perhaps I am now so much of a threat that they feel they need more numbers to properly handle me" Rio thought and he was not far from the truth.
Though he was not aware of it, excited at the prospect of battling, his aura had crossed the boundary of being just violent to something bloodthirsty.
To the Direhogs, there were small faint bloody tendrils jumping out of his figure and they dared not rashly attack him.
Rio was still wondering how long it would take before the Direhogs made their move when the system screen flashed before his eyes once more.
[Mission update
Gold mission: Kill the pack and its leader to get a mysterious reward.]
Just as the screen with the updated mission fizzled out, a pressure which had Rio's eyes narrowing appeared and he looked at the screen which popped back up.
[Level 4 Direhog (F)]