The Hunt

As Thirteen kept low to the ground, he spied on the two figures ahead of him, examining their appearances.

'Middle aged, male. By the tone of light grey, they are definitely cultivators.' Through constant practice of his abilities, Thirteen had improved and found new ways to use them.

For instance, he could now more accurately determine how much lifeforce a creature had, and then estimate their cultivation accordingly, as cultivators always had denser lifeforce.

'They're wearing armor!' Thirteen realised in shock. 'And its not hardened leather that they may get away with silently, its actually chain mail? What hunter could or would ever buy such a thing?'

Slowly retreating, Thirteen kept as quiet as he could. 'Whoever they are, they're definitely not hunters. I need to regroup with the others.'

Slinking away in the darkness, Thirteen found the patrolling brothers on his way back to the camp. "Hey, sshhh, come with me" he whispered as he led them back to the camp.

As soon as he returned to the small campfire and tents, he crouched down next to Nine and Forty-five, informing them of what he'd seen.

"There are other people in the woods. Two adults, each armed and armored. They're definitely cultivators too, I can't tell exactly, but they may have completed the fundamental realm."

Nine was the first to respond "Any heraldry? Do you know who they belong to?"

"None that I could see, no tabards or the like."

"Alright. They're not ordinary hunters if they're wearing armor, but they may be monster hunters." Nine assessed. "These woods seem to host a great deal of monsters, it's possible they've sneaked in to earn some coin from a hunt."

"In that case, we have nothing to worry about right?" Forty-five asked.

Thirteen and Nine gave a discerning look to each other. "Possibly." Thirteen started "But it's better to be safe. Let's smother the fire and cover our tents. Nine and I will take watch, but make sure you all sleep with weapons ready, alright?"

""Okay"""Alright" they all responded.

One feature that the group factors when marking checkpoints to camp at is how well they can hide their camp once it's set up. In this spot for example, the foliage was rather dense, but there was just enough space to set up tents wedged between shrubs and trees, leaving them mostly hidden. The only opening left near the tents was the position of the campfire that had now been covered in dirt. Large, leafy branches were positioned to better hide the tents and the clearing.

Within his tent, Thirteen watched through the tent walls and trees beyond, observing the surrounding life force, as Nine lay asleep beside him. The rear of the camp was very heavily forested which made keeping guard relatively simple.

As hours passed, it eventually came time to wake Nine.

"Hey" he called quietly as he shook Nine's sleeping frame. "Morning. You're up."

"Ughh… Alright." Nine groaned as he sat up, looking for his waterskin.

Thirteen lay down and closed his eyes as he heard Nine leave the tent to keep watch.

The night passed slowly, and without incident.

——

When the sun rose again, Thirteen rose with it to find most of his group already awake and packing up.

"Good morning!" Forty-five called cheerfully.

"Good morning."

Thirteen quickly got to work dismantling his tent and packing it away. Looking to the others, he asked "So? Which direction do we try today?"

"The next closest hunting grounds should be north-west of us." Twelve responded. Twelve, like his older brother Thirty-nine, was a control meta. But where Thirty-nine focused on the art of the sword and spear, Twelve was a skilled archer.

"North-west it is." He declared. It was unusual for either of the brothers to speak up, so Thirteen figured he'd go with Twelve's recommendation. It's not like there was reason to go elsewhere.

During their travels, Thirteen's group steered clear of any known monster territories. He had once thought it strange that a town of people and a huge forest populated with monsters could coexist side by side, but it was later explained to them.

Most monsters, while more intelligent than common beasts, still act in a similar manner. They establish their familiar land, whether territorial or not, and hunt to sate their hunger. Just as a lion would not attack a horde of 100 humans recklessly, few monsters would attack the town of Beckten, surrounded by artificial plains.

In fact, the only great difference in behaviour between low ranking monsters and ordinary animals, is that they hunt to grow stronger. Unlike spirit animals that grow stronger with time as they absorb the qi of the world, monsters need to feast, often on powerful beings, to increase their strength. And all monsters know this intuitively, just as one knows they must eat to sate their hunger.

As they travelled, the group could not avoid all threats, and even had somewhat of a close call when a mutant gorilla crossed their path. Thankfully, Thirteen saw it in advance, and a simple rerouting allowed them to avoid the beast.

When the group finally approached another hunting ground of the Clawed Deadwood Serpent, they began to slow down their advance, once more eyeing every tree and dead log along their path.

They still had plenty of sunlight left, so no one felt a need to rush such a dangerous mission.

It was by their third hour exploring the domain of upturned and dead trees, that Thirteen found what he was looking for. With a signal to stop and wait, Thirteen advanced slightly to get a better look.

He was staring at a dead tree, one among many in this domain. It was slightly upturned, it's tilted frame leaning on a bright, living tree next to it.

The dead trees trunk was very straight and rigid, and along it, leafless branches could be found. All in all, it looked like a very normal, dead tree. And yet, when beheld by Thirteen's slightly glowing eyes, a wholly different nature was revealed.

The lifeforce surging within that 'dead' tree was enough to put anything else they'd seen in the woods thus far to shame. Thirteen noted too, that both ends of the tree, its canopy and its base, were completely hidden by other trees, and shrubbery respectively.

'The Clawed Deadwood Serpent has horrible senses. The only way it can hunt is to sit still for as long as needed, sometimes months, until something gets close enough.'

Looking to the branches along the 'tree's' trunk, Thirteen added 'The longer it's waited in one place, the more branches will begin to grow along its body.'

Backing off, he returned to his group and alerted them of the snakes presence. "It looks like it's been there for a while, how do we want to approach?"

It was Twelve, the younger brother of Thirty-nine who spoke first "I have an idea…"

——

Jumping over a stone and ducking under a low branch, Forty-five screamed her lungs out as she ran. "Why on earth did I agree to thiisss?!?!"

She could hear it behind her. Rapid thumping on the soft, leaf covered ground, a deep threatening sound hounding at her, and the crisp crunching of branches being broken.

Turning her head to look back mid-sprint, Forty-five immediately regretted it. "Its closer!!" She called out, receiving no response.

Behind her, a very large, very enraged gorilla propelled itself after her with its thick forelimbs. It had to be about six foot high at the shoulders, its fur bloodied by a series of cuts along its body.

It had taken quite a bit of effort to anger the mutant gorilla enough to chase so far from its own territory. None of the wounds were serious, just enough to truly anger the animal without provoking fear.

This was their master plan.

'This is such a stupid plan!'

Unfortunately, as the only agility meta in their group, Forty-five had been volunteered for the job of bait. Her flying sword also made for an opportune way to deal controlled damage to the animal.

'Okay. I'm coming up on the deadwood serpents hunting grounds now.' Looking back she could see that the gorilla too noticed where they were, as it instinctually slowed down as it passed dead logs.

'Cant have that!' she thought as she turned to run backwards, throwing her smallsword out towards the gorilla, she exerted her internal qi to control it mid-flight, slashing the gorilla across the face shallowly.

*ROOOAAR!*

Its voice bellowed deeply, nothing like the usual shrieking of gorillas.

"Woah! Okay now, come on." She called out as she turned to face the front once more, picking up her speed to avoid the massive creature barreling towards her.

When finally she could see that inconspicuous tree up ahead, and the stone marker left by her group, she gulped hard as she readied her sword in her right hand.

'One chance at this… I can do it.'

The moment she approached the bush at the base of that dead tree, time seemed to slow. In her peripheral vision, she saw two yellow balls suddenly appear within the bush. Cold eyes, with slit pupils that immediately became a blur.

As fast as she could, Forty-five extended her sword out in front of her, willing a great deal of qi, she applied as much force as possible to shoot it forward, and then, just as it began to move, she grabbed the handle and jumped forward.

Like a rocket, the sword pulled her forward by 30 feet, almost instantaneously, as she felt incredible strain on her arm. Though she didn't see what happened next, the rest of her group who lay in wait in the area certainly didn't miss it.

The mutant gorilla that had chased Forty-five so closely, was at one moment barelling forward, propelled by its strong arms, and the next, it was pinned to the ground in a cloud of dust, a vicious looking snake head, roughly the size of an adult mans torso pinned to it, incredibly large fangs digging deep into the gorillas bloodied fur and flesh.

Thirteen saw the straight 'tree' lose all rigidity as it slumped down and begun to fall the ground with a silky smooth serpentine grace.

The giant snake, whos body width was slightly wider than the width of a man, began to slowly coil the front of its body around the gorilla as it thrashed. Two long and thin arms, looking like dead branches could be found on the front of the snakes long body, each tipped with sharp claws that stabbed into the gorilla and rent flesh.

Noone moved. Forty-five was hidden now like the others as they watched.

The gorilla entered a frenzy to escape, but the serpent showed incredible power, as its body constricted and crushed the gorilla much like a python would, all the while its claws would rend and bleed the prey, and its head would tug from side to side, its deep fangs still latched into its victim.

The mutant gorilla, far larger and stronger than others of its kind let out horrendous, heart wrenching noises as it died, and not one of the children there didn't have a pained, scared, or disturbed look on their face.

However it served its purpose. The longer the serpent fought with the gorilla, the slower and more peaceful it became.

'It may be a monster, but its still a reptile. It has extremely little stamina and will slow to a crawl after any burst of action.'

The serpent slowly coiled more of its body around the gorilla as it rested, waiting for whatever remained of the gorilla's life to bleed out. It was this moment the group had waited for, when it was entangled in body, jaw, and claw with the now dead gorilla.

'It's time.'