60 Mantis Stalks the Cicada (1/2)
”Yes! Rank 6! A couple more and we can be rank 1”
Tianfei jumped off the tree onto the bear's back. Chilong took out a rope and strung it up against a nearby tree. He took a knife and made a slit around the throat slowly draining away the blood before skinning and butchering the meat. The bear had just enough meat that could last them for a day. This was because of the fact that the bear's meat was incredibly tough and majority is completely inedible. Xin Fan cut off a piece of the paw and slowly roasted it over the fire. Once the fat started to sizzle, he took a bite. Xin Fan gagged for a moment before forcing himself to swallow it. Eating it was like drinking a keg of oil. The grease stuck to his throat as it slowly slid down his oesophagus and into his stomach.
”How is it?”
”Ugg...So oily...”
”Here, water.”
Tianfei gave Xin Fan a gourd of water hanging from her waist. Xin Fan accepted it easily and chugged it down to wash his throat. Meanwhile, Chilong was gorging on the most fatty parts of the bear, eating all he could.
”How do you do that?”
Chilong didn't mind the judgmental looks off his teammates and continued to eat.
”You've got to get energy from somewhere right?”
Before long, a majority of the food has been consumed. With Chilong in their team, the consumption required was much greater than they originally thought.
”Hahaha...of course.”
As they chatted, a pair of gleaming green eyes stalked them from the shadows of the underbrush.
*szz*
Chilong's ears perked up. He instantly reacted by drawing his axe.
”Who's there?”
”What's going on?”
After a few seconds of pause, Chilong put back his axe in the sheath while keeping alert for enemies.
”...nothing. Must have been my imagination.”
-
A couple weeks have passed and the team has not found a single clue on where the ruins could have possibly been. Every day, they would search for as many beasts to hunt averaging on about 150 points a week. They have maintained their standing in within the top ten dropping out only once before consolidating their rank at 4. Since then, the number of teams dropping out have decreased to only 24 teams left in the abyss.
Xin Fan picked up a carcass of a dead rat and buried it in the ground. These days, he would find randomly scattered corpses of animals on their trail. Although he did not think so, Chilong was convinced that they were being followed. Xin Fan slowly scouted the nearby area for any beasts to score points.
*Sniff*Sniff*
He smelt the iron-like scent of freshly hunted prey. If there is prey, there must be a predator. A predator that has used up quite a bit of energy to hunt. Xin Fan waved his hands to signal the other two to come over.
*Grr*Grr*
In the distance, Xin Fan spied the beast about to feast on it's meal. The animal was catlike with it's black spotted fur shimmering against the moonlight. Xin Fan cringed at the sight of swells around the lip of the beast.
”Careful, a Plaguehunter Civet.”
The ravenous beast dripped saliva all over it's prey as it tore at the flesh. Tianfei bit her finger and drew a few symbols on a piece of talisman paper. She stuck it on herself before slowly climbing a tree, jumping from branch to branch before stopping just above the civet. She took out a bottle of some sort of poisonous substance and dipped a makeshift arrow in it. Using some air manipulation, she threw the arrow into the air and made it drop accelerating at high speeds piercing the civet right at the back.
*Squeal*
The civet instantly reacted by shaking off the arrow and healing the hole on the back with some sort of yellow mucus. In seconds, the wound has closed up and the civet climbed up the tree where Tianfei was hiding. Seeing immediate danger, she ignited the talisman with her qi and was forced back by a strong wind escaping into the dense forest of trees.