13 Humans

Abutting the borderline of the great lightning empire of the west and Andem, a country from the defeated Kingdom's association, was the forest containing Erik, on top of an easy mountain to climb. A big group of hunters was carefully making their way up, a few scouts dispatched to avoid a surprise attack from an animal. Normally, a lot of soldiers would be with them to command the hunt, but only one was dispatched this time, since there was a shortage of personnel.

As the empire had won the war, it was now preparing all their troops to slowly take over the countries of the Kingdom's association. Those countries had deployed all their strength into the last battle, but failed miserably, and now, only domination awaited them. Of course, it would be impossible for the lightning empire to assimilate all of them at once just after the war, the annexation would be a slow process.

Also, not every kingdom had capitulated, some commanders simply fled with their army back where they came from when they saw no possibility of winning. The empire had to watch out for them, so firstly, they needed to recuperate from the battle and prepare their assault plan. The devised strategy would be to start with taking over Andem completely, as the army was already so close, while sending some troops in surrendered countries to oversee the situation and keep control.

When they would have stabilized the situation, they would forcefully take control everywhere while bringing their army to invade unyielding kingdoms. For a few weeks now, they had blocked the access to Erik's forest to everyone, waiting for the army's recovery to start over their job with the wild. You couldn't let this kind of forest alone, it was too close to the cities and villages.

The problem was with the beasts in there, they would evolve and become dangerous over time. The hunter's group was there to find and cleanse the mountain of every dangerous being. No cultivators were in their ranks, but a large group of professional were enough to take care of this kind of place, where animals' growth has been controlled for a long time. Now they had penetrated the forest a bit, and the captain started giving out a few orders.

"Use the detection item here, we will start the hunt for real. Prepare the assaulting apparatus, we will move quickly once we find a location. Everybody knows the plan, so I will keep my verbal orders to a minimum."

They had brought along with them some enhanced objects, since their expedition would most likely be fruitless without it. One of them was a kind of powerful radar that could indicate where there was an evolved animal, it could sense their cores. It would also show how much they had cultivated, whether they had a newly formed core or had advanced to the next stage, when the body enlarged along with a strength boost. The expedition team could deal with at most one enlarged beast, but none should have had the time to appear in the forest.

Other enhanced items were either to hide their presence from the beasts, like an anti-odor liquid they had soaked their clothes in, or to attack them. Cultivators could be said to be rare, but you couldn't really claim the same thing with enhanced products. In the empire, those that only cultivated to improve their personal strength were not nearly as respected as the ones who produced enhanced item to contribute to the overall strength of the nation.

A powerful cultivator could produce tens of them in the short term with the right materials, so it was expected that they would not be so rare. Since their mission was important, the hunters had access to enough enhanced items to be inevitably successful in the objective's completion. Now, they had found their first target, rapidly departing to the closest animal possessing a core.

Once they got close, the hunters surrounded the beast, which was in the middle of relaxing, it didn't look quite wary, as if the forest was a safe environment for it. Actually, it should normally be, since its core made it way more powerful than any other normal animal, but this time he would be up against humans.

They didn't announce their arrival or meaninglessly waited, the group simply took a giant net and threw it on the beast, a big bear possessing a black fur with a tinge of blue. It immediately went crazy, throwing itself around, forming water around itself to slash at the net, a useless gesture since the net purpose was to nullify basic energy while the hunters attacked.

"Kill it", said the captain to his group.

He had to choose if the beast was worth capturing or not, as the empire could use them, either in fighting or to accomplish some tasks. There were precise indications for the captain to follow, and he knew that this bear was better dead than alive, its body was quite precious.

Immediately, the hunters started attacking with their bow, shooting an incessant stream of arrows while the quarter of the team was holding the net solidly, keeping the beast blocked in it. Since the beast had difficulty to use energy, it quickly died when its organs were demolished. Three hunters immediately started butchering the bear, carefully storing its core away. Two person who didn't fight prior to this went to do their job, carrying the corpse back to a camp while some hunters would defend them on the way.

After checking their equipment, the rest of the attacking team departed to the next location, ready to hunt any animal. They were going in Erik's direction, where Blaze was sleeping peacefully.