Chapter 52

The days of rest passed far too quickly for Grud, it was a short period of going back to normal life. Wake up, have his seed sucked out by his wives, get food for his wives who could hardly walk, go hunting, which now had more predators in the area, come back with his game, eat with his wives and the tribe, help with the armor production where he could, eat dinner, go home, bang his wives unconscious, repeat the same thing the next day. Life was good.

But all good things come to an end, and soon it was time to travel to the final tribe, the Long Shadow tribe.

Now that it was just the hunter expedition and the Long Shadow tribe, the chieftains decided it would be safe for both parties to travel together now that the people traveling just lost half their number.

This was good news for Grud who got to sleep in compared to the other times they made a stop at previous tribes.

The morning that the hunters and the Long Shadow tribe were to move out, Grud was pleasantly roused by the feeling of his balls being massaged and his penis being milked. Grud just kept his eyes closed and enjoyed the lewd sounds of sucking and moaning along with the whispered chatter of his wives.

After a few minutes of enjoying his wives' ministrations, Grud released their favorite morning snack, after he felt the seventh mouth detach from his dick after sucking out what was left in his urethra, Grud opened his eyes to his beautiful naked and cumflated wives.

After a few minutes of cuddling, Grud went to get them some breakfast and shared his last meal with his wives for what Grud hoped was less than two months. After breakfast, Grud kissed his harem and stroked their bellies where his unborn children were.

When the time came to move out, Grud helped his wives to their feet as they all got dressed to see him off.

Grud and his wives gathered with the rest of the expedition along with their families to see them off at the outskirts of the tribe, that was when Vok, his crafters, along with the crafters from the Long Shadow tribe came forth with sets of armor.

Along with those armors, came the chieftains of the Spirit Moon, Rock Skull, and Long Shadow tribes. As the leader of the expedition, Chieftain Dhun stepped forward to address those in attendance.

"Hunters! Before we go forth to resettle the last tribe, we have something for you. I am sure many of you have seen the crafters at work using the shells of the beast that felled our fellow hunters and poisoned a number of you. Well, now that same shell that warded off your spear blows will now protect you as we escort our fellow tribe home and venture into the unknown, we will find what is pushing the other beasts out and put an end to it!"

All those present cheered as the expedition hunters were waved forward to collect the armor. What they were provided was relatively simple, the body was made of two larger carapace plates for the chest area while the stomach area comprised of smaller carapace plates that seemed to come from the smaller centipedes and the back of the armor seemed to be made using the underside carapace plates of the centipede, the whole armor is held together with leather strips that are tied to holes made in each carapace plates.

Along with the body armor, they were provided with bracers and greaves using the centipede legs that were also held together with leather strips.

After some time of hunters equipping their new armor, the expedition hunters looked intimidating and ready to take on any beast.

Soon after, Grud and the hunters had to say their goodbyes as the Long Shadow tribe and expedition hunters started their journey.

—

Grud pulled his spear out of a Tusk Pig he just hunted, he and a few other hunting teams had separated from the main group an hour ago to do some hunting for lunch, and with the speed the main group was traveling, Grud estimated he should be able to make it back in time for them to butcher and cook the meat. Unlike when it was only hunters, now they were traveling with women, children, and old people, which slowed down the pace of what Grud was used to since the start of the expedition.

Not that Grud was complaining, the sedate speed was a nice change of pace, the other upside of traveling along with the Long Shadow tribe was the perceived strength in numbers. With his enhanced senses, Grud had noticed a few predators that had no problems attacking the expedition when it was just the hunters, but with their current inflated numbers, the predators were hesitant to attack and just watch them pass from a distance.

When Grud got back to the group with his kill, they had just finished setting up a cooking station. After Grud dropped off his kill for the rest of the tribe to process, he sat down with some of the hunters that came back from their hunt earlier.

As he sat down, Grud overheard one of the Long Shadow hunters describe the path for the rest of the journey. Apparently, in a day's time, they will pass thru a small canyon, and two days after that, they would reach the Long Shadow tribe grounds.

The next day at around noon, the group reached the canyon entrance, from what Grud heard, it would take a few hours to get thru the canyon and should be out the other side before sundown.

About an hour into the canyon, Grud who was at the front of the procession started picking up sounds ahead of them. After notifying Chieftan Dhun, he called the main group to a halt and called up forty hunters including Grud, and advanced forward.

After ten minutes of travel, the other hunters also started picking up the sounds of grunting and dragging of feet.

Dhun gave a few hand signals and sent Grud along with four others forward around a bend in the canyon to see what was ahead. After a few minutes of stepping lightly as he could thru the canyon while trying to keep their echoes to a minimum, they found what making the noises after going around two bends in the canyon.

There were around thirty of them, they looked like big gorillas with thick sturdy bone plates growing on their arms, shoulders, chin, and forehead. Leading the front were five of the biggest males from the group, followed by some juvenile males, and from what Grud assumed were the females with their drooping tits and young clinging to them, the females seemed to have less pronounced bone plate growth but they outnumbered the males almost three to one.

With their resonance done, the signal was given to return. As they turned around to leave, one of the hunters was not careful and accidentally kicked a rock which loosed a pile of rocks piled on top of it to clatter on the ground, the echo of the clatter bouncing off the canyon walls.

All of the hunters froze where they stood and stared at the hunter. A few seconds later, there was a primal roar that came from where those gorilla looking things were and Grud swung his head back to see the five leading males and four juvenile males were charging towards them.

Seeing the speed that the beasts were charging them with and knowing they could not outrun the chasing beast, the most senior hunter with them made a decision. And pointed at the smallest of the five of them, "You, go call for backup, the rest of us will slow them down!"

Then the senior hunter pointed to Grud, "Grud, you are the strongest, defend us while we try to deal with these beasts as fast as possible." Grud took a second look at the charging beast and nodded 'These beasts look tough, it will be better for me to use a club to beat them away.' Grud then traded his spear for a club with one of the hunters and took up position in front of the three hunters.

As the gorilla beasts got closer, adrenaline started pumping thru Grud's blood, and his world slowed. In slow motion, the leading beast leaped toward Grud and reared its arm back for a punch.

Grud's body was ready, after months of hunting predators and Chieftan Dhun's fighting lessons, Grud felt cool and composed. And he was not the only one whose senses were sharp after months of fighting, the moment the beast leaped, the three hunters behind Grud hopped to the side, they knew that the momentum of something that big would not just stop even if Grud killed it mid-air.

When the beast reached Grud, he did a small sidestep, used his free hand to perry the punch aimed at his face, and swung his club with all his strength straight into the beast's face. This caused the beast who had not properly settled its feet on the ground to do a backflip and land face first on the ground.

But not far behind the beast he knocked to the ground, was two more. Unfortunately, as fast as his reaction speed was and seeing things in slow motion, Grud's physical body could only move so fast and he knew he would not recover in time to engage the two charging at him.

So he did something he had been incorporating into his fighting more often nowadays. Unlike his body which took time to move into place, his mana could respond to his will almost instantaneously.

After a lot of practice, while not precise, Grud was able to release mana from his body in a general direction without pointing with his hand like in practice, so when the two beasts were just about to punch him, Grud released a pulse of mana that pushed back the two charging beast and also the knocked down beast that was recovering.

The two beasts were knocked back but managed to keep on their feet, while the beast that was recovering rolled a few times from the mana pulse and quickly scrambled to its feet.

The display of being pushed back without being touched confused the beasts, and so they followed their instincts, if attack does not work, intimidate. The two beasts that got blown back stood up straighter, puffed out their chest, and started beating their chest as they roared at the hunters. The first beast that Grud struck joined in along with the juvenile males behind them as they hooted, and started jumping up and down as they tried to intimidate Grud and the hunters.

That was when one of the juvenile beasts had the bright idea of picking up a stone and throwing it at the hunters, the others quickly picked up on the idea and joined in on the stone throwing.

This forced the hunters to fall back and take cover behind a bolder after being pelted a few times. Lucky for the hunters, most of the stones hit their armor, but they still had to use their arms to protect their heads as they fell back, other than a few bruised shoulders and legs, the men managed to take cover safely.

It took a few minutes before the stone throwing stopped and Grud heard the beasts start to approach. Thinking that taking on these strong beasts may be hard even for him, Grud was thinking of a way to stall until backup arrived and his eyes landed on the many stones littered near him.