The smile that had been full of mockery a moment ago was replaced by a cold humorless thin lipped smile that failed to reach D’Angelos still shaded eyes. Those dark eyes carefully picked away at Daxius, he was watching how the creature moved and noted the ease with which it spun during its forward rush and launch into a powerful back kick.

For someone like D’Angelo, a human without any magical abilities, fighting strange and weird creatures was often a gamble. He was forced to be on his A-game, to force them into overconfidence or make some other mistake with which he could capitalize. He thought that at this moment Daxius had made one by launching relatively blind attack and leaving his back exposed. 

The name of the game was energy conservation, he had no idea how much stamina Daxius had. He assumed that if it was in any way like a great hunting cat that it had far more than him, that included strength and land speed as well. He clicked his tongue against his teeth, he hated being physically out classed.

Still, there was more than one way to skin a cat and D’Angelo decided it was time to see which way it would be for the one before him. It became evident as Daxius spun that he would be trying to use his momentum to his advantage, so as he spun bringing his sword with him, D’Angelo stood up and back out of the kicks reach, pulling his short sword out of the ground as he did with his left hand. With his right he tilted the hand-cross bow up without ever taking it off his belt and fired all in one smooth moment, using the exact same time it took Daxius to spin and launch its kick as it did for D'Angelo to take a step back and fire.

The target was nothing lethal, actually it was aimed to do nothing more than injure the creatures pride for D’Angelo’s target was Daxius’s rump, aiming for the non-kicking side. Even if he missed he was sure that Daxius would see the dart skim by and plant itself somewhere ahead into the ground and know the mans intentions, still, if it hit than that would fuel D’Angelo’s plan even more.

“You picked the wrong human, freak.” He said in the same calm and controlled tone he had used before.