Chapter 22 - Invasion

A month has passed since Spencer had completely integrated into the tribe. He has been assisting in the daily hunts and gaining the trust of the people. Except for Dinah, who still held some disdain towards him for killing her mate, Baal, all other members of the hunting party have started to trust Spencer.

The people of the tribe looked up to Spencer due to his constant feats of strength shown throughout the hunts. Hagen, who was injured at the first hunt they did together, has already recovered.

But Spencer soon came to realize that the group was not very efficient at their job of hunting, even with Hagen back, leaving Spencer to intervene more often during hunts. It was getting to the point that Spencer was the one hunting instead of the group itself.

On the other hand, Spencer didn't mind helping the tribe with their hunts, he only cared about keeping himself entertained. On some occasions, Spencer would train with Hagen and the other members of the hunting group to fight and hunt creatures more efficiently since he has experience hunting against creatures vastly more dangerous.

In actuality, Spencer was also training himself to further restrain his strength, he wanted to be able to hold back subconsciously so that he would not unintentionally harm any members of the tribe, or any other individuals in the future without meaning to do so.

Spencer and the members of the hunting group could be seen in a clear field. Quintus, Hagen, and Cassius were all out of breath covered in scratches and bruises from head to toe. Spencer had been placing these three in what could be called torture in the eyes of anyone else for the past hour. He would have them attack him from all sides and then he would beat them into submission while holding back as much as he could to get a better hold on his strength.

The "training" was benefitting the group as they were slowly building coordination and mastery over their weapons the more they attacked Spencer. They began to respond to each other's movements, filling in for each other's weaknesses. Spencer, on the other hand, was becoming better and better at controlling his power output without having to keep up his focus constantly.

"Good, you are all improving greatly."

Spencer was getting used to the group members and has started to talk to them more often. He still ignored any questions involving his strength, but he would have minor conversations with them if needed.

Quintus, Hagen, and Cassius were all too focused to hear Spencer's words of encouragement on their performance, they only continued to attack him from all angles. Dinah and Agron were not part of these sessions, instead, while Agron was usually with the tribe tending to his duties, she was watching the rest of the group "train" from the sidelines.

"I think that's enough."

Saying this, Spencer grabbed a spear out of the air that was aimed at his face and shattered it. The spear was thrown by Cassius, he was the background support while Quintus and Hagen were the head-on attackers in the hunts.

Bringing the session to a close, Quintus, Hagen, and Cassius all fell to the floor fatigued and out of breath. Dinah came from the sidelines carrying a bowl of water and gave it to the exhausted trio.

Spencer walked up to a rock and sat on it, waiting for them to recover so that they could return to the tribe.

After about ten minutes, Quintus was the first to stand up, as he was the strongest physically of the group. Quintus walked in Spencer's direction and plopped down on the ground in front of him, sitting in the same lotus position he was always in.

"How are you unharmed? Why are you never affected by any of this?" Quintus asked, measuring Spencer.

Spencer looked at Quintus, who was eagerly waiting for an answer.

"I was trained since I was a child to be a hunter."

This response was utter nonsense, but it left Quintus who was ignorant of his abilities in shock.

"Is that why you are so powerful?"

Seeing that Quintus believed him, Spencer decided to carry on with the lie as it seemed to have worked.

"The people of my tribe raised me as a hunter from first light. I was constantly trained to hunt creatures since I was young."

While saying this, he lowered his head to make it seem as if he was remembering things he did not want to. This proved effective, as Quintus placed his hand on Spencer's shoulder to comfort him.

When Spencer looked up, he saw that everyone was recovered from their fatigued and was listening in. Ending his festival of lies, Spencer got up and began making his way back to the tribe's grounds.

The group followed closely behind him as he walked.

As the group approached their home, Spencer's nose was tickled by the smell of something akin to that of smoke and blood, jolting his senses.

"The tribe is in danger." - He suddenly halted his steps and broke the usual silence.

"Huh?"

All four of them heard Spencer, but they were confused by his sudden words, which was understandable, considering they are still several miles from the actual tribe.

"There's smoke coming from the direction of the tribe," Spencer explained.

The group was confused; they could not smell any smoke, but they were still worried as Spencer was known for doing things that others could not and they trusted his judgment. He began to run back to the tribe at a speed that would be fast by normal means, followed by the rest of the group running at their top speed behind him.

They soon arrived at the tribe, the first thing they noticed was that some of the houses were on fire, but what they saw next made their blood boil, many of their fellow tribesmen were sunken into the floor in their blood.

Quintus was greatly angered by this and so was the rest of the group.

The culprits of this chaos were what looked to be people from a neighboring tribe. They could be seen chasing down the rest of the survivors.

Seeing this, rage flooded Spencer's senses. These primitive "monkeys" dared to invade what he already considered HIS territory?!

Not skipping a beat, Quintus, Hagen, and Cassius rushed into the tribe and began attacking the invaders in their rage. Due to Spencer's hellish torture, it was a completely one-sided massacre once they joined the fray. Dinah also ran into the tribe, but unlike the rest, she did not attack any of the invaders, instead, she ran to a particular tent in the center of the chaos with a look of worry.

Seeing this, Spencer followed her to see what she was up to. Seeing Dinah entering the tent, he stopped at the entrance, waiting for her to come out.

*SCREAM!*

But instead of her exiting the tent, Spencer heard a terrifyingly sad cry coming from the inside. His instincts reacting, he flung the front of the tent open to see what had happened.

What he had seen only fueled his already boiling rage. It was comparable to adding nitroglycerin to an already burning fire, his eyes for an instant transformed, and became that of his demi-human form. His teeth sharpened, his muscled bulged greatly, and he grew in height.

In front of Spencer was Dinah sobbing as she held her now-dead daughter, pierced through the chest by a spear. Dinah was wailing in sadness, while Spencer was behind her slowly growing angrier the longer he witnessed the scene. He was not angered by Dinah crying, he was angered by the death of this young child, that did not have a chance to live a proper life before it was cruelly taken from her.

When he first realized that Dinah had a child a week back, he vowed to himself that he would watch over the child in place of the man he killed as a way of owning up to his mistake. Now, however, that child was dead, leaving Spencer's mind in its rage.

Exiting the tent, Spencer had consciously undone the changes his body did in that instance, but his eyes refused to change back. He was far too angry for them to obey his will.

As he was out of the tent, he noticed that Quintus, Hagen, and Cassius were coming in his direction, covered in blood, they didn't notice Spencer's eyes until they got close enough to him to see his face.

"W-What are you?"

Hagen asked in his fear at the sight of Spencer's predatory eyes. However, this quickly became the least of his worries as he caught a glimpse of Dinah holding her now-dead child in her arms.

Hagen quickly rushed over to tend to Dinah, while Quintus and Cassius who had seen inside the tent were frozen in their anger.

"I can still smell them." - Spencer growled as he snuffed into the air.

Having an idea of what he was talking about, Quintus and Cassius turned around to see more invaders running towards them from the reaches of the forest.

Spencer began walking towards the invaders, his pace slow and controlled. Getting closer, the first to attack was one of the invaders swinging what seems to be a club at Spencer's head, he did not react, he only stood there and let the attack hit him.

*CRACK!*

The club shattered on impact startling the invader, but the invader did not have time to be surprised as Spencer proceeded to grab its neck and snap it, causing its head to fall back and go limp.

Dropping the now-corpse on the ground, Spencer signaled for Quintus and Cassius to begin attacking, which they followed without batting an eye as they were too angry to have anything else on their mind than killing.

Spencer did not join them, as he went around the tribe to see how many had survived the invasion. The survivors that were left, were minuscule in comparison to the numbers they once held. After checking on them, Spencer began looking for Agron who was absent throughout this whole event.

Catching a fragment of his scent, Spencer began to follow the trail, only to see that it led outside of the tribe and into the forest.

Pursuing the trail, Spencer soon followed it up to the source. He found Agron quickly walking in the opposite direction of the tribe, carrying food and supplies over his shoulder, tightly gripping a club in his hand.

"Where are you going?"

Appearing behind Agron, Spencer gently grabbed his shoulder and questioned him. Agron, who was frightened by this quickly turned around and swung his club, but Spencer grabbed it and crushed it.

Looking at Agron with cold eyes, Spencer asked again.

"Where are you going?"

Agron was frozen in fear from the look in Spencer's eyes. His pupils gave off the feeling of staring into an endless void.

"Seeing how you are carrying supplies, I can only assume that you are fleeing, WHILE YOUR PEOPLE ARE DYING" Spencer spoke, shouting by the end with anger.

As Spencer was narrowing down the possibilities, he arrived at the most obvious one. Agron seeing that Spencer came to the right conclusion in only a matter of seconds before he could come up with an excuse, became desperate, to retaliate he quickly tried to escape Spencer by running away.

Spencer easily caught him before he could move and broke his legs causing him to scream in pain. Before he could continue to make any more noise, Spencer backhanded his face, causing his lower jaw to fly off from its socket, blood began to spray violently.

Agrons eyes showed only fear and regret as Spencer was holding him by his neck. Rearing his arm back, Spencer began tensing his muscles, he then threw Agron into the air and watched as he ascended and then began descending back to his location.

"Looking at you only disgusts me."

Releasing all the built-up tension, Spencer punched towards the flailing Agron.

*BOOM!*

With his full-powered punch, Agron completely vaporized alongside with a huge chunk of the surrounding forest in the process. The only thing left of Agron was just a mist of blood.

Ignoring the now evaporated Agron, Spencer turned around and vanished in the next second, making his way back to the tribe to check on the four he had left behind.