Hunting

Somewhere in the universe.

Two people stood opposite to each other. One of them was the God of Earth, a serious expression showing on his face.

The other one was a muscular man, white hair and beard being his only obvious signs of his old age.

After the limitations for the mortals had been set higher, humans began to quickly rise in power and met the new limit. Most of these highly capable and talented people were unable to cultivate any further, because of the barrier erected by the four gods that still remained. They brought some of the ascendants under their control, giving them orders and territories to guard and watch over.

Some others actually did cross the limitations and became stronger than the four gods wanted them to. Often the mortals were detected fastly by the safety measures the gods had put up and killed them. Others were harder to find, since they were able to control their unintentional output of Qi and decrease it. Even so, most of them were killed someday.

Only one problem was left to be solved. Not all of the ones that grew over the limitations were caught. For now only one individual was known who had not been detected. Although it was one for now, the chance remained that many more such people existed and were discovered when it was too late. The gods were under pressure as they felt threatened by this.

They already regretted their decision, but couldn't do anything, since they needed the help to reign over the universe, after killing the God of Darkness and driving away the Goddess of Wind.

And if they really should change the limitations for others to not become as strong again, the mortals that had already grown over the new limit would be able to freely cultivate and get more powerful. That way, even more threats would appear and that was exactly what the four gods didn't want.

The man opposite to the God of Earth was one of these humans who had already advanced to the demigod level, perhaps even further. That was why one of the gods immediately set off to fight this person.

"Tell me, where are your friends? Where are the other demigod-level mortals?" The God of Earth changed his expression to one of anger. He needed to find the other threats and eliminate them as soon as possible.

"Hahaha, you really think I'd tell you just like that? Let's see if you're a real god. Come at me with all you've got. If you defeat me, I'll tell you what I know. Deal?" The man laughed mockingly, challenging the god carelessly.

A sly smile appeared on the latter's face as he retorted: "Fine, but don't trick me!"

"Of course I won't. I'm a man of my word."

With that, both men charged at each other, destroying several planets with their emitted auras alone.

---

I went out of the cave. I held my hand before my eyes, expecting bright sunlight. But after slowly luring through a small gap between his fingers, he realized that there was no sunlight.

The whole ground was full of snow, at least 3 feet high. Would there be any animals in this weather?

I still didn't know the average temperature of this planet and couldn't know if there were animals which had evolved as much as to be immune to the cold weather or if they were hibernating and if I could actually find them.

I just had to search and find out.

As I stepped onto the deep snow, I directly sunk into it. I walked further into the forest that was located directly in front of the cave I was coming out of.

The snow slowly but steadily decreased in depth, as the trees grew to be closer together, resulting in most of the snow being stuck on the branches and letting less through.

After what felt like an eternity, I finally heard the rustle of a bush. I immediately stopped and turned my attention towards the direction the noise came from.

When I looked to my right, a little rabbit, or rather mutated rabbit, jumped out of the thicket.

Its eyes were completely green, without a pupil or iris. While its body was only a bit bigger than a normal rabbit's, the ears were at least three times longer, standing up to my waist.

Similar animals were normally low ranked and weren't very powerful, so I hoped that to be the case here too. Rabbits shouldn't be able to gather Qi, let alone use it.

It paused as it passed by me and stared right back at me. I felt that this rabbit was a bit strange, but I remained still. I was weak and had to be careful, even if it was a low ranked animal.

It turned its head around again and began to ran away. Of course, I didn't want my food to flee. That's why I used the first technique in my new vessel.

I accumulated the necessary amount of Qi and slammed my hand forward. The energy formed a fiery palm, therefore the name "Flammable Palm".

It flew directly at the rabbit that still hadn't noticed the flames. Only after the palm reached the animal did it look back. They collided, creating a little fog.

I laughed and wanted to see wether I really did kill the hare. While advancing, I suddenly realized the mistake that I had just made. It was snowing and it was cold. How did I get the idea to use a technique related to fire? Because of the natural conditions, my palm should've been weakened considerably.

Before I could halt, the rabbit jumped out of the fog, attacking me. Now I knew why it seemed strange. It was actually a rabbit leader.

They were really rare, but able to gather and command a large group of its kind. This one looked fairly young and perhaps didn't have any hares as "followers".

Another advantage they had, was the use of Qi. They could accumulate and utilize it. Although only a small amount was able to be stored in their bodies, it helped them a lot to defend themselves against natural enemies.

Blue light surrounded the paws of the rabbit. Imbued with Qi, they got bigger and sharp claws grew on them.

The hare attacked me with these. I tried to evade them, but since I hadn't learned any moving or defensive techniques, I was pierced by the claws.

Blood started running out of the void, which replaced the middle of my belly now. It dripped down. The snow was dyed in red as I stared down in horror, the pain almost driving me crazy. Bits of blood came running out of my mouth.

'How long has it been? How long has it been since I felt this much pain?' I thought.

My belly began to feel numb. Soon I couldn't sense my chest anymore and breathing became more difficult.

Before I died, I needed to kill the animal that did this to me.

I whispered: "Heavenly Lightning." I used the rest of my energy to utilize the technique.

My eyes slowly closed and my vision became blurry. The only thing I saw now was the bright light which was reflected by the snow. Then I perceived something blue striking down onto the rabbit.

'My technique was successful. I just hope I killed it. I don't want to be eaten after dying. Unfortunately I was too weak to survive. I'm afraid that I won't be able to see the world another time...'

I closed my eyes completely and fell down, numbness covering my whole body. My consciousness faded away and soon I felt nothing, only black surrounding me.