In an unknown part of a forest filled with trees and moss, there was silence and darkness.
In the shadows a figure lay, prowling, waiting for the perfect time to strike.
'Mother, why do we hunt things weaker than us? Is it the perpetual law that the strong must hunt the weak' a young adolescent voice spoke in the background, whispering so calmly it could be taken as passing breeze.
'My son, get rid of that notion. I have a friend whose people think the same thing...The Strong devour the weak, survival of the fittest... All are lies told to enshroud the mind on the truth' a calmer, more motherly voice whispered back, before continuing.
'Let me ask you, why do lions hunt antelopes?'
'Because they are stronger?'
'And?'
'Slightly Faster'
'Good, that's included, but you do remember that a lion can't last such speeds at short bursts?'
'Yes, they wear out'
'so what does a lion do, ambush!'
'I don't get it, they're still stronger'
'is a lion stronger than an elephant? Yet when a pride hunts at night, the weakest time for the elephant, was that their strength?... Or take a rhino, no matter how unstoppable it is, it cannot outlast the tenacity of a pack of Hyena's. All these accumulates to something...'
Just then, something moved in the darkness with such speed, it only felt like a shadow was moving. Just as it was to jump at an animal that looked like a deer silently resting, a large net with weights fell from a tree above it, just where it was to land, binding both of them.
'that close of mine always believes that strength rules all, but what I see, true strength is of the mind. What differs us from other species of animals and lower class Evo-Beasts?'
'Intelligence' the boy replied...
'Excellent, even the weakest of Ascendants with wisdom survive long enough to either be rich, famous or both.'
'So is it wrong to be... Strong?'
'No... No.... Be strong and wise... Then you will be a terror in the open and the dark...'
'But dad is a terror in the day and he just uses brute force?'
'...'
'...'
'... Don't let your father catch you saying that...'
Bonk!!!
***
Eze woke with a start.
A fruit from a tree he'd been sleeping on had fallen flat on his forehead, startling him awake. Groggy and moody, he awakened. Memories from his childhood, especially with his mother. Those days alone with her in the forest, hunting anything that walked in order to hone his senses.
Since she died, he'd felt a burden fill his heart, making him somewhat colder and sometimes ascerbic in his attitude to others.
His Dad took it the hardest. He didn't change much, except that he became skinnier and smaller, as if he'd lost over a hundred pounds. He and his sisters had tried but failed to cheer him from his melancholy.
His eyes squinted and then narrowed. The fruit didn't fall due to it ripening, but was a design he'd set up.
He'd placed a kink on the fruits stem, making it very unstable, but still strong enough to stay without falling except a strong force was applied to the tree.
And such force was applied, well indirectly.
The earth below and the tree itself were shaking....
'Stampede!'
Eze grinned, sniffing the air. Whatever it was, it was so big, and yet far away. For it to impact where he was camping already had goosebumps on his neck. He climbed up to the crown of the tree and used his hand to cover his eyes from the blue sunlight.
In the dim distance, he strained his Quather into his eyes to find a storm of dust in the distance.
"Ah ah, shuuu... You should calm down with pushing them that far" he talked to himself, his emotions more composed as he guessed what was going on.
A team has probably pissed off a herd of Evo-Beasts... And they are either chasing or being chased.
"I won't be able to make it at full speed to help, well best to check in case they're any stragglers to pick off.
Currently, Eze had spent two weeks in this new world, radio silent and living off the meat he killed. And the kill count he had had reached over fifty.
All these were done with perfect planning and ambush tactics. What boosted his numbers this high was a herd of over 60 Frill Gecko's who had a nest not too far from where he camped.
He'd created a trap, where he tossed an aphrodisiac into the cave they resided, then tossed in a mix of a anaesthetic gas and a viral germ he'd found on his hunting parties that put them permanently to sleep.
He didn't devour their brains due to the infection, but he took out their valuable parts and cores.
'I'm rich!' he thought.
He instantly jumped down, ignoring the battle ahead and went to the stream nearby. He washed his face, dived for a bath and cleaned up his teeth.
He hadn't done that in weeks.
'Damn I stink'
He dressed up and went to the cave of Gecko corpses, and grabbed a red grenade. He tossed it in and immediately, ignites their corpses.
"Be not ashamed, your deaths took my intelligence to the next level" he muttered, before running towards the stampede.
***
Two days later, Eze reached what seemed to be a canyon. There, he found traces of the stampede running through.
He'd gone using the trees to avoid prey on the forest floor, making his way as quickly but as quietly as possible. But that became harder as the terrain changes. He soon reached a savanna region, mostly dry with sparse trees and and rivers.
Traversing long distances had been a thing Eze had been trained for after his mother's death.
He soon reached a branch in the canyon.
SNIFF!
He sniffed the air, hoping to get at least traces of human or evo-beast movement, only to be met by a foul odour.
"What... Is this... Caghh!" He almost choked on his words as he looked beyond to the left side. On the right path, it seemed some of the herd had split off here. But he noticed vehiclular and beast tracks going left.
"Vehicles? Must be the army transferring already made parts and transferring them to assemble vehicles for Ascendant use"
It was well known that Vehicles could not enter into D to C-Class gates, but it didn't limit mechanical parts to be mass teleported using the gates as an anchor.
"The prey they were chasing must have been another herd of Ruin-Deer, this time a cluster as large as fifty. That's odd.." he uttered as he picked up dirt from the ground and examined the hoof marks.
"Usually Ruin-Deer are very antisocial and limit herd size to ten. This means the only way they could be this many is due to the season."
Once a year, they would gather for mating season. Seems the herd he intercepted were in their way to the meeting point.
"Lucky for those Ascendants then, the scored it big... But why?"
The smell coming from that direction was foreboding something disastrous, something terrifying enough to almost cause him to choke.
It almost felt like he could touch it, trace its threads back to their source, like he could touch air.
This only signified one thing; something higher than C-Class lay there.
And Eze started growing goosebumps, a ring of ectasy flashed into his head as he had thoughts to go investigate. His instincts were conflicted on seeing what it was and whether he could hunt it, and another conflicting thought on ignoring it.
"Thats not the nature of a hunter!" Eze growled before running down the path that could lead to his destruction.
And so Eze had fulfilled the requirements of the third law of Hunting.
Be prepared to put your life down for the hunt.
Before he left, he began to make some preparations. He took the germ he'd found earlier, a very viral germ native to this world. After days of testing, he found it very active in certain types of chemical mixtures like propanol, another very common gas around.
He had spent a week prior using his hunts and testing out the capabilities of this virus as an airborne weapnized poison.
And it proved very effective.
Most Evo-Beasts would die minutes after inhaling. Its effects caused massive nausea, difficulty breathing and some level of mental disorder.
This made hunting easier for Eze, but at a slight cost. He couldn't devour the brains of his target as his custom. But he wasn't too bothered by this development.
Next he began using the forest tree and vines to create small traps that he could store in his weapon box.
Next, he gathered his supplies of water and some roasted venison cut into strips for the journey ahead.
"If I perish I Perish... Let's finally become a fully realized hunter!" His eyes gleamed as he looked in the direction of the battle to come.