Bless the Blood God

The trio secretly glanced at one another before continuing with the conversation: " A bit of sweat you say."

" From before it wasn't just a bit, you were sweating so much that you looked like you lost some weight from sweating so much."

Vellomao could only give a wry smile back as he had no counter to their claims.

Noticing the awkward situation Eliakim said: " Do you want to go hunting with us to catch some prey."

Vellomao looked away from the sad sight of his water bag, he had a hesitant look before asking them if they had got the chief's approval.

" Don't worry the warriors have already done a basic sweep around the area so we are allowed to hunt the prey around here."

" I see in that case I hope you don't mind me joining."

No longer hesitating, Vellomao decided to join them so he could prove his worth.

" You should probably go refill your water bag before we head out."

"Yeah, that's probably a good idea."

Vellomao stood up and walked over to the tribe members who collected the water from the lake.

When he went over there he saw several tribe members hugging a large cauldron full of water. Each of them were trembling at high speeds, and generating a lot of heat to purify the water.

The water boiled releasing high volumes of steam, which was then collected and transferred to a separate colder pot to cool.

' If I'm able to survive the ceremony tomorrow I'm going to be able to do stuff like that!'

'Than I'll no longer be a burden!'

After meeting up with the trio again they went off to catch some prey. Soon they found the tracks of an animal, kneeling down to take a better look Vellomao started saying what he analyzed from the tracks.

" These footsteps look to be from a single wood frog. It also probably had been infected by a poisonous creature not too long ago."

" I think so too, but why do you think that it was poison?" Poldi could not help but ask how could tell if the frog was poisoned as even though he was considered a strong hunter, tracking wasn't his strong suit.

Vellomao pointed to the tracks and began to explain, " I figured that it was poisoned because the footsteps become more messy and the gap between each step is shorter than the previous."

" And from the looks of it it might be a numbing type of poison; a strong one at that to affect a wood frog."

Though Vellomao was weak when considered among his peers he was quite skilled in the art of tracking.

Hunting was one of the only times he was able to display some of his strong suits so he cherished every hunting trip a lot.

Eliakim nodded his head in agreement to his analysis.

" Since the wood frog is poisoned that means it probably had already been eaten or is inedible so less not waste our time and find some new prey."

The group then left to find some new prey in the opposite direction of the frog and they discovered a large red creature that was carrying a rabbit with a horn in its mouth.

The group was hidden in a nearby bush.

" A crimson fox, since we are seeing them, can confirm that we are getting close to the blood sea."

Hermione slowly drew her throwing spear to not startle the fox as Poldi and Eliakim went forward to ambush it if it gets to flee.

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* Swoosh!*

The spear cut threw the air as it rapidly approached the fox alerting it. Unfortunately for the fox it was too late for it to dodge getting pierced in the thigh.

The fox dropped the dead rabbit and ran away carrying the lodged spear. Jumping out from behind a tree Poldi threw a fast punch that landed on the fox.

" Now!"

Eliakim wasn't left behind as he took out a dagger stabbing it in the eye of the fox.

Knowing that the situation was bad for it the fox entered an enraged state as its crimson fur stood up appearing like a raging fire.

Eliakim dodged the ferocious bites of the fox as he lured it back to where Vellomao and Hermione were.

Once the fox was close enough to the location he jumped up with all his strength and the wild fox ran into a trap that they set up beforehand.

The ground collapsed into a deep hole that even with the fox's impressive jumping height couldn't escape.

Eventually the fox bled out and died allowing the group to easily bring back home some nice fox and rabbit meat.

Taking back the fox and rabbit they cleaned up the blood of the fox and did a sweep of the surroundings to make sure that there weren't any creatures nearby.

" That was a pretty good hunt."

" Luckily we found the crimson fox before it had a chance at eating the horned rabbit."

" The horned rabbits are hard to find during this season so we are going to be eating well."

To not distract each other the group only did some light chatting with one another until they arrived at the campsite set by the tribe.

When they arrived back they attracted the gaze of the rest of the tribe's members at their catch. The warriors in the tribe nodded with approval as their peers had looks of admiration.

Giving the spoils to the tribe to be cleaned and later cooked, they were able to finally relax and talk about their experience.

" Vellomao we should go hunting once more after the ceremony tomorrow."

" Yeah I agree your tracking skills are so impressive that even Eliakim is complimenting you."

Smiling at the others' comments, he asked them what they were thinking about the ceremony tomorrow.

" I can't be more excited that we're lucky that the ceremony is happening when we are young and in our prime."

" I heard rumors that the Gong tribe has to be having a hard time recently so they're placing all their bets on their chief's son."

" If the chief's son doesn't survive the ceremony than the Gong tribe is likely to be assimilated by a bigger tribe."

" We can only pray to the blood god, the origin of all beings to bless us so that doesn't happen to our tribe."

" Bless the Blood God!"

" Bless the blood God!"

' Huh, who's the blood god? Why are all the memories of the blood god fuzzy.'

Vellomao, thinking that he was having trouble remembering the blood god because his fainting made some of his memories blurry; didn't think too much of it, putting it in the back of his head.

He was instead startled by the feverish excitement and adoration in the eyes of Poldi Hermione and Eliakim when they mentioned the blood god.

Though he tried his best to his surprise, when he noticed them looking at him. Not wanting to be seen as strange he followed from their example.

" Bless the blood god!"