Chapter 48 -- Hunt

A small group of Uduk was peacefully grazing on a clearing in the forest near a waterfall. The sun had just risen and painted the forest with a warm golden glow, and the sun rays reflected off the falling water, making a beautiful rainbow.

It was a serene sight which showed nature's true beauty. Uduk where a herbivorous species if magical beasts mostly hunted for their delicious meat. Their bodies where covered in a soft golden brown pelt. The tallest was two meters from hoof to shoulder. They had giant antlers atop their relatively small heads, these antler's patterns where unique to every beast and sold for quite a few bucks.

Unknown to the peaceful beasts, in a shrub less than fifty meters away. Two predators lay in waiting for a chance to strike. If one looked closely at this shrub they would see two pairs of red slitted eyes.

A lone foal had ventured a little too far from the rest of the herd as it chased a butterfly. It suddenly heard ruffling sounds coming from the inconspicuous shrub and decided to get closer to investigate.

Back at the herd, the other beasts had realized that there was a foal missing. The foal's mother followed it's offspring's scent and ended up at the same spot near the bush only to see a puddle of blood on the ground. The mother seemed to realize what happened and was about to cry out for the rest of the herd when a clawed hand shot out of the shrub.

The hand lodged it's claws into the neck of the beast and pulled. The whole one and a half meter body disappeared into the shrub a moment later.

"I told you to attack fast! I'm sure the rest heard that cry" Lex whispered to Adam in frustration.

"Relax, I'm sure i was fast enough and killed it before the herd heard the call" Adam retorted.

However, as if to answer Adam, the whole herd of 6 remaining beasts started to run in the opposite direction from Lex and Adam's hiding spot.

"Shit come on!" Adam said as he jumped out of the shrub.

"I told you !" Lex said as he also ran after the runaway beasts.

As a species which couldn't fight, the Uduk depended on their speed to escape predators. A rank one Uduk could even outrun some rank two beasts. However they where no match for Lex and Adam, who have yet to catch up just because they where arguing about how to share their prey.

"Fine then , we will divide the herd in half, even though you got the bigger beast at first" Lex grumbled the last words under his breath.

The duo suddenly accelerated and caught up with the terrified magical beasts. Lex jumped on the back of the beast in last place. Lex and Adam had figured out that they could make their fingernails grow to become 5cm long claws at will. The beast tried it's best to shake him off but he had his left hand firmly on it's antler. With his other hand, Lex slashed on the back of the Uduk's neck, killing it on the spot.

He then quickly stored the corpse in his inventory and used the momentum he had to jump onto the next beast before repeating the same move once more. In less than a minute Lex had finished his half of the herd.

Adam went for a different approach as he ran parallel with his target and shoving his whole hand up to his elbow in the beasts neck. Then he would also store the beast in his inventory after licking off the blood on his arm.

"Do you think this is enough" Lex asked as they looked at the pile of corpses in front of them. They had both taken out all their kills from their inventory in order to fully know how much they had. They couldn't count them from the inventory. However even after taking them out they still couldn't count their haul.....there where just too many corpses.

After piling together all their kills they both had a two meter high hill of corpses each, and none of their kills where large beasts.

"Yah i think this should last us a few months. Let's go back to the village so we don't have to explain were whe ran off to." Lex said as Adam nodded before taking one corpse and casually breaking off a large leg and placing the rest of the corpse hill inside his inventory.

Lex raised one eyebrow at the large Uduk thigh in Lex's hand.

"What? it's just a snack for the road" Adam said with a shrug of his shoulders. Lex just smiled before shaking his head and also taking a snack for himself from his pile.

"Man! and I thought the spider was delicious but this is just something else " Adam said as he bit into his 'snack'.

"Maybe it's because Uduk meat is edible even for humans." Lex replied as he wiped the blood of his face with the back of his hand before licking it off again.

Xen wanted to warn Lex about the dangers of addiction. However he decided to just let the kids be as he will always be watching over them.

After a few minutes of walking and eating. The hybrid duo finally reached the village gate when Lex suddenly stopped.

"What's wrong?" Adam asked.

"Look at your clothes" Lex replied. Adam then noticed all the blood on his body and Lex was not spared. If any of the villagers saw them like this they would definitely scream and run away in fear. Most of the beasts they killed had red blood so the blood on Lex and Adam could be human as far as the villagers knew.

"We need to get to our rooms without being seen" Lex said. They both knew that was going to be hard though as the village streets where bustling with people. After thinking for a couple of minutes they came to the conclusion that they where not going to enter the village at thier state.

"Let's go back to the waterfall" Adam suggested

"Good idea " Lex said as they ran as fast as possible into the forest. They jumped from tree to tree with extreme speed while using their claws to grip the tree trunks.

It only took half a minute for them to arrive at the waterfall where they had found the Uduk herd. Lex and Adam removed their clothes and washed them on the river before washing their bodies under the waterfall.

The duo then wore their uniforms and dried them off by slowly increasing the temperature of their bodies using their powers.

"Let's go back"