The flames of the campfire stirred, pushed by a gust of wind, but most coincidentally, it aligned perfectly to make it seemed like the fire was trying its hardest to get away from a tall shadow that passed right by, but the flames had nothing to fear just yet, the predator preferred to see his preys struggle with his own two eyes, so for now, the blaze was an involuntary accomplice in what was about to happen.
The baleful beast who scoured the woods and had already claimed the lives of many, and left many others fearful of their own reflections dragged the unconscious man up to a nearby tree, stuffing his mouth with snow, dirt and a stone before haphazardly tried a torn off piece of the man's own cloak around it, ensuring that no sound would be coming out of there before hoisting him up.
It was a shoddy job, the captive definitely had enough strength to free himself as the predator merely used one of the ropes from the trio's bags to tie him up against the tree, but that wasn't of much importance, with the injury inflicted to the back of his head, it was dubious if the man's brain would even function straight once he woke up.
Then, the hairy sasquatch turned his attention to the two, still slumbering, women, his movements were silent and swift after all, having taken measure to not even have his own shadow casted upon them whilst passing by the campfire, and as for the sound caused by the man falling over, it was all muffled by the snow.
Truly, even a light sleeper would have been none the wiser, and the vile beast had made sure not to direct any of his foul intents toward them just yet, it had once been nothing much, but in this world, it was a prized skill for anyone wishing to be stealthy or otherwise sneaky in any sense of the word.
Leaving the knocked out man where he was for now, the creature assessed the two sleeping beauties, they were indeed rather pretty, both average sized for the area, looking like native humans of this country, and taking into account their impressive stamina in comparison to their rather slender, and feeble-looking figures, both were without a doubt cultivator, which should also be the case for the man.
Now, comparing them to outer disciple, the trio definitely outclassed them, it would be more accurate to compare them to inner disciples perhaps, they gave off a similar vibe after having been observed for a while, but it would be more cautious to assume them to be more experienced than cultivator that still remained within the closed and safe walls of their sect.
If that place could even be called safe these days…
Both seemed comparable to one another in regards of danger level, but both were asleep a distance away from one another, it was a shame, but necessary steps had to be taken to ensure that they couldn't actually put up a fight, picking the same rock as before up, its point was slightly bloody and broken off from impacting their fellow's skull so hard.
He neared it the blonde's face first, the science of effectively knocking someone out was simple, one might say that you just needed to hit hard enough, and that wasn't wrong in of itself, but it was important to know that causing a sudden movement of the head helped a lot, be it vertically and horizontally, if you could get the brain to be flung around a bit inside of someone's skull, chances were higher that they would lose consciousness.
The man had had a pretty strong neck and had been rather tense despite not seeing the strike coming at all, but with sleeping people, even if on a comparable strength as him, it should work out well.
The blonde didn't even notice as a more than two meter tall, hairy beast got close to her, the abhorrent smell concealed for now, as actual sasquatches tended to only release it to either mark a territory in view of attracting a mate, or when they felt threatened, after all, few things enjoyed that sort of disgusting odour.
Basically right on top of the sleeping women, the strike was swift and sudden, throwing the girl's head to the side, her eyes flicked open, but she did not move, the beast was successful and proceeded to drag her out of her makeshift tent before moving on to the brunette.
Only to see movement as she slowly rose up, now, the creature did not panic, knowing how to react in that sort of situation, preying on unsuspecting campers, or slumbering victims was a well-developed part of his skill set, having always had a soft spot for doing this sort of activity in nature, away from civilisation.
He could tell that she didn't yet know what was going on and wasn't in any state to do some quick thinking right off the bat, the brunette was pretty perceptive to hear the sound of the rock hitting the blonde, but not quite sensitive enough to actually know immediately what it was that woke her up.
Before she could do anything or even properly open her eyes, the sasquatch stomped the ground hit her right the face with the rock, throwing the woman right onto her back like she had never even woken up, creating a most nasty sound as the cartilage of her nose was broken, still, the girl wasn't actually unconscious, still twitching a bit and merely dazed, though, that didn't matter much as she was seeing stars and couldn't comprehend what had just happened.
Getting slugged like that right after emerging from deep sleep was rather rough indeed.
He dragged her out of the tent without resistance, placing her next to the blonde and right in front of the tied-up man, the trio was at his mercy now, but just to make sure, he fetched more ropes from their stuff, leftovers from the barricade they had constructed in front of the cave's mouth, and bound their arms behind their backs.
Now, the excitement was starting to rush to the so-called reptilian brain, as blood also began to flow downward, causing the fur in between his legs to twitch a bit, as though a bird was going to come flying out of there.
However, the foul creature wasn't one to give in to his basest of desires so readily, he first added some kindling to the campfire, so that more light would be cast upon the stage that had been set, and then moved toward the bound man, grabbed both of his shoulders, and swiftly dislocated his two arms, just to be sure he wouldn't actually be able of intervening, that would put a dent in the fun.
The sudden pain caused him to wake up, and thrash around, seeing him fling his legs around, the sasquatch went ahead and dislocated his knees as well, just for good measure.
The man's muffled shouts were barely audible as the beast moved on the main course of today's meal, beginning by getting a hold of the dazed brunette.
This should be a fun time.