Chapter 320 The Beginning Of A Maddening Situation
"After it, follow the trail of blood," A man screamed as he followed a long trail of blueish green blood. Behind him was a whole team of six men and women who held weapons in their hands and had fierce expressions.
These were the secondary group trained to capture and hunt the fleeing beasts that broke off from the attacks of the primary group.
Their abilities weren't too unique and nor were they too strong but capturing and hunting down injured beasts was something they could handle. Though sometimes barely as a cornered beast sometimes seemed to bring out its most for survival, especially when injured to the point of death.
The man at front raised his spear and held it like a javelin, his ability was to enhance weapons and increase their strength. Though not too flashy, the ability was useful in certain times.
"Kim, tell me the location of the beast," He asked as he suddenly stopped and stood still. The petite woman behind him nodded as she squinted her eyes and looked in the distance.
Her vision changed from a normal human's as everything around her turned into a mix of black and white. Amongst the black and white, a reddish heat signature sprang up a couple hundred meters away. The heat signature seemed to be going further and further away while the redness of it's body seemed to be concentrated in the middle left of it's body.
"That's the heart," Kim muttered as she looked at the team leader and pointed forward, "Attack right where I point. Don't miss by any chance, it's gaining vitality as it goes deeper into the forest,"
"I understand," the man replied as walked behind Kim. Looking down at her pointed finger, he stretched his arm back and tensed his muscles to the maximum. His eyes burned with server as he poured every ounce of his energy into activating his ability and strengthening the spear in his hands.
A slight glow enveloped the surface of the spear as heat started to emanate from it. After all, strengthening an object beyond it's limit would strain it's materials and cause various things to happen to it. The same happened to the spear, it simply started to heat up and very fast at that too. So the man made sure to be as quick as he could because he knew, that at the rate the spear was being heated up; it won't be long before he had to drop the weapon or else it would be his hand to suffer.
His muscles were tensed as he slowly brought his hand back, arching his body upwards; he took a deep breath and concentrated on his body. Controlling his strength, he congregated it towards his arm and suddenly borough it forward in a whipping motion. His arm whipped forward as Kim heard something crack over head.
Looking up, she saw the leader heaving heavily. His arm swollen as blood flowed down his palm.
'Swoooshhhh…' the wind whistled as Kim sensed a change in the situation. Activating her ability, she peered forward as she saw the spear moved forward like a bolt of lightning and within seconds, it made contact.
Connecting with the beast's body, it didn't stop there but pierced right through it's chest. A large hole where it's heart had to be, the spear continued forward and smashed through a couple of trees before it stopped. Embedding into a huge tree with the heart of the beast still beating on it's tip, now stuck on the tree.
Astounded by the force her captain had produced, the attack was nothing ordinary. It was something only the stronger one's or the elites could perform. Not someone like her and the captain. Then as if remembering something, Kim smiled as she thought, "Well, our leader did promise us all that we will get stronger and surpass our limits under his command. I guess the captain finally surpassed the limits,"
Though, her smile vanished just as fast as it came. There was a lot of work to do and they were deep in the forest with the captain probably having broken his arm. There was no time to rest, also they had to scavenge the beast's body and take it's crystal.
She looked back at another woman who stood there timidly. Astounded just like her as the attack she had seen surpassed her imagination by a wide margin.
"Sarah! Heal the captain," Kim shouted as she brought the healer out of her stupor. Nodding timidly, Sarah walked to the captain and started healing him. Her ability wasn't too strong or effective, just that she could heal tissues and ligaments to an extent while disabling the pain receptors.
Therefore, all she could do for the captain was to help him to an extent but that was all. She could not heal him back to perfection but it was enough. He had one hand and that was enough. The captain accessed the belt on his waist and pulled out a dagger as he was sure that retrieving his spear would not just be a chore but would be useless as well. The spear was done for after the attack and he didn't have the luxury of using a weapon on the verge of breaking down.
The captain looked behind and saw the two men in the team looking sideways on what to do.
"You a*sholes, go on and get the beast's carcass. We need to strip it of the valuables, are you idiots or what?" The captain growled in anger as the two men finally came to their senses and nodded in fear and scurried to the beast's carcass.
At the same time, Kim approached the captain as she asked, "How much more before we get out of here?" her voice was tense and she seemed uneasy.
Noticing this, the captain realized something was wrong and asked right away, "What happened? Are there anymore enemies?" The captain knew that if another beast, just half strong as the one they had just hunted came up, they were done for. Therefore, he decided to take Kim's words seriously as she was the only scout of the group and the captain trusted her more than he trusted the whole team.
"It's the blood,"
"huh? Blood?" The captain asked, a bit confused of what Kim was trying to imply.
"The beast's blood, it will attract a multitude of monsters. You know how strong that beast was, I am sure it was in the perfection stage of Mortal Realm. If we don't get out of here, we will be over run by frenzy beasts," Replied Kim as she looked towards her left and spoke,
"See, I sense a few coming from there already. We need to move fast," She said and continued, "I will remain on the look out but the best we have is two minutes. That too if we fight the strays," Right after she said those words, her eyes changed color as she activated her ability and turned to her job.
While the captain stared at her for a second and made his mind. Coming to a risky decision, he decided to leave the beast's carcass and take off the valuables only.
Running towards the carcass, he stopped as he saw the two good for nothing members of his team fooling around as they slowly cut the beast to extract it's crystal.
"Idiots!" He growled and used his unharmed hand to slap the head of one of them, "We will die if we don't hurry," the captain spoke and pushed aside the one working on the carcass.
Using his dagger, he cut open the carcass and crudely removed the other organs before he reached the sprit crystal and just as Kim had said, the beast was strong.
It was the on the merge of evolution to the Magical Realm. Seeing the crystal, the captain's eyes lit up as he was sure that submitting this crystal would give him a good weapon in return.
Strong the crystal, he commanded the other two to help him in plucking off the scales and claws. These were the most important material that could be used for forging weapons and strengthening a lot of stuff.
As he did that, he realized that the time was almost over. He could already hear some grunts and growls from the surroundings.
"Seems like the strays are here already," He murmured and pulled out his dagger. Storing all the stuff, he looked to the two men and ordered, "Give it your all, don't slack. We need to get out of her alive. I don't wanna die this early," Saying this, he kicked the ground and made a run for it.
Behind him, the two men followed as multiple strays lunged at them on their way back. Kim and Sarah joined as well as the two man at the back flanked the strays using their abilities. On wielded a flare ability while other had zap ability. Both were lighter versions of elemental abilities but in such condition where the beasts weren't too strong, it was enough to act as a deterrent.
Unbeknownst to the team, the same happened to the other teams in the forest. It seemed as if someone was controlling the beasts from behind the shadows and from the number of beasts that attacked, it was just the beginning of a maddening situation.
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