-my Hunting Adventure Time — Everkyun-

It was a Glimmer-Maw. A serpentine thing made of fractured light and obsidian scales, coiled around the largest tusk-boar I'd ever seen. The boar was frozen, its crystalline tusks chattering in terror. The Glimmer-Maw was feeding—not on flesh, but on its potential . The future memories of the boar, its dreams of rooting for truffles, its plans for the winter. The air shimmered as ribbons of silver smoke drifted from the boar's ears into the Maw's gaping, toothless mouth.

The air in the Whispering Woods had that sharp, electric taste that only came right before a total Myto Eclipse. Everkyun, my fluffy-eared, perpetually anxious hunting partner, tugged at the hem of my leather jerkin with a shivering paw. "Kyuuu," he whimpered, his large, opalescent eyes scanning the purple gloom of the overgrowth. "Bad hum. The sparkle-boars are hiding."

He weakly licked my chin. "Kyuuuu," he sighed, which I'm pretty sure translates to "I told you the hum was bad." -my hunting adventure time everkyun-

"Alright, Everk," I whispered. "Echo-locate."

The Glimmer-Maw's head, a featureless shard of obsidian, turned toward us. It had no eyes, but I felt its attention like a weight. It tasted our futures. It saw me missing the shot. It saw Everkyun running away. It saw us both as nothing. It was a Glimmer-Maw

It was ten feet away. Five. Everkyun leaped.

I knelt down, scratching the exact spot behind his left ear that made his back leg kick. "That's why we're here, buddy. No sparkle-boar tusks, no new engine for the Sky-Sled. And no Sky-Sled means no racing in the Lumina Falls Derby." The Glimmer-Maw was feeding—not on flesh, but on

We crept forward. The "bad hum" grew stronger, a low thrum that vibrated in my ribcage. Everkyun started to make his warning sound: a soft "brrrrrrr" like a motor about to seize.

"Kyun," he said, and this time it wasn't a whimper. It was a command. Stay back.

He closed his eyes, his long ears swiveling like fuzzy radar dishes. He let out a silent pulse—I could feel it in my molars—and then pointed a trembling claw toward a clump of pulsating Fungal Ferns. Two o'clock. Fifty paces.