Chapter 65 - The Hunter and The Hunted (part 2)

"Aaaaaaaaaaarggghh!!" Slim yelled in agonizing pain. The Snow Tiger had suddenly appeared beside him and bitten him across his body length, before he realized it. Blood gushed out from the large tree-sized teeth punctures and Slim's body dried up almost instantly but not a drop of blood touched the snow white ground. All the blood was sucked into the tiger's mouth and then the slim, shrivelled body of the Hunter was swallowed. Just like that. Not chewed, swallowed. As if he were a bitter medicinal tablet. And these series of actions happened in less than five seconds.

During that period of time, the three other hunters were stunned, frozen stiff from shock and fear and totally unable to react. They watched the tiger bite and suck their colleague like a fruity juice box before proceeding to devour the body in a single gulp. Only then, did they come back to their senses. Shorty was the first to yell.

"Oh Sh*t!"

"F*CK!" The less attractive lady exclaimed next. She rapidly sucked their dual daggers into her space ring and summoned a loaded knife-pistol hybrid in her right hand and four talismans in her left hand, held between her five fingers. The knife-pistol hybrid was basically a pistol with small sharp blades attached to the gun's body, especially in the gun's mouth area. The blades were made retractable like the blades of a pocket knife.

"What the hell just happened?!" The more attractive lady was the slowest to react. She was dazed and confused. This was not how the hunt was supposed to go. The large, metal net was supposed to capture the snow tiger, entrapping and restricting its movements and use of abilities. Even if it was just for only a little bit of time, it would have been enough for them to tranquilize this rare, expensive specimen and then, when they sold it, millions would comfortably roll in for them. Enough money that they would not have to ever risk their lives again and simply live a long beautiful life of luxury. At least, that was the plan.

Instead, the snow tiger had chosen that period to disappear. After which, it appeared behind the most experienced Hunter in their team, gobbling him up before he could think. Being the least experienced, this short five-second incident shocked her more than the others and left her unable to think or move for much longer.

"Rita, net!" Shorty called out to the more attractive lady, hoping for her to wake up from her daze and recall and throw the metal net again. Unfortunately, Rita was just too out of it to have heard. Shorty shook his head angrily and roared as he leaped into the air at high speed, gliding through the air while holding a gigantic sword laced with poisonous slime in hand. The tiger glanced at him and abruptly disappeared again.

Shorty did not feel that he was in danger and immediately knew who the next target was. Without any delay, even before he landed, the sword had been sucked in and a sniper had reappeared in his hands. He turned his gun to face the more attractive lady named Rita and pulled the trigger without hesitation.

*Bang* reload *Bang* reload *Bang*

These three loud consecutive gunshot sounds finally reached to Rita, waking her up. Her eyes opened with shock and she gasped. Looking down, she saw her chest had been shot. Why was she shot? We're they not supposed to be a team? Even if they were going to betray one another later on, should that not be after the tiger was either captured or dead? Why was she already dying from her partner's hands when the the target of their hunt was not even subdued yet? Blood gushed out of her chest as she spat out thick mouthfuls of blood and weakly dropped down flat on her stomach and died, blood quickly dyeing the white snow in bright blood red. Poor Rita died without even knowing why she died.

"Aaaaaaaaaaarggghh!!" The less attractive lady screamed in pain. She had suspected that she was the tiger's real target but was unable to escape fast enough. So, even though she jumped out the way at the first sign of imminent death, she was not fast enough and the tiger bit off her right hand and swallowed it alongside the gun the hand was still tightly clutching.

Unlike Rita though, the less attractive lady was more experienced and this wasn't her first time being so close to death during a hunt. She threw the four talismans in her left hand at the ferocious snow tiger.

Two of the talismans were meant for locking space abilities in a certain range. One of these two disrupted the usage of space abilities and the other had a single target space locking function which allowed it to lock onto a target and ensured any kind of space-related cells in the target's body were temporarily neutralized.

The other two talismans were meant for dealing damage. One of the talismans flew rapidly and exploded into a bright light, right between both of the tiger's eyes, successfully blinding the white furred snow tiger.

The majestic snow tiger roared in pain and anger as the light exploded. It wanted to disappear from sight again but the last struck. A sword illusion came out of it, rapidly changing into a real sword before successfully stabbing at the tiger's right eye.

*ROAAAAAAAAAAR*

The tiger disappeared.

"What?!?!" The less attractive lady was shocked. She quickly took a healing potion and drank it as she wondered why the first two talismans did not lock the tiger down. Did she buy defective talismans?

Shorty saw it properly this time though. It was not that the tiger disappeared. It just shrank until it was barely the size of an adult's palm. Because the Snow tiger was so small, white furred with nearly invisible grey stripes and camouflaged by all the snow around, not to mention the tension they were all feeling, it was easy to assume it had space abilities as it did seem as if it had disappeared.

Shorty tried to warn the less attractive lady but it was already too late by then. A large ice spear stabbed her from below while she was drinking her health potion. The effect of the health potion instantly wore off even before it could have any effect. Two more ice spikes impaled the already injured lady and she died instantly without any suspense.

Shorty locked on the little snow tiger, lying on the snow in pain.

'She really did a number on you, didn't she?' He thought as he slowly raised his sniper again, doing his best to not make a single sound. Most beasts were sensitive to sound and he wanted to one-shot the tiger. He didn't care about the money anymore, as long as he survived. Money can only be spent by the living anyway.

*Bang* *ROAAAAAAAAAAR*

Shorty shot the tiger. The snow tiger roared and increased back to its full size but the bullet hole in its head remained.

The majestic tiger knew that its end had finally come, but it was not going down without a fight. Ice spikes began to randomly shoot out of the snow. Shorty, the last Hunter standing, began to jump around, dodging the ice spikes that came from below him. He jumped into the air, reloaded his rifle and squeezed the trigger in mid air. At the same time, a ice spear flew at him at high speed. Shorty was in the air and could not dodge. He raised his sniper rifle to his chest in a bid to block the high velocity spear. The ice spear penetrated through the gun and passed through Shorty's thick skin, exiting on the other side before dissipating. Shorty spurted out blood from his mouth. Blood soaked his Hunter outfit and he dropped on the ground.

The snow tiger dropped on the ground. Its massive, bleeding head landed beside Shorty, dead.

Shorty struggled and took out a magic pill. He tossed it in his mouth and swallowed. Then.... he lost consciousness.

*************

Three hours or so later, Shorty woke up. The hole in his chest caused by the spear was gone. He removed his tattered leather outfit and changed to another that he summoned from his ring. He looked around. The tiger was dead, the less attractive lady's body was badly impaled, Slim was nowhere to be seen because he had long become the tiger's afternoon snack. And as for Rita.....

"Oh yeah! Umm. Rita, no hard feelings, right?" Shorty asked and gave himself a mental knock on his head. He had guessed wrong, he thought the snow tiger would go for the incapacitated one next but it had done the opposite, going for the one he seemed a significant threat. He ended up shooting her but it wasn't his fault that she died. If Rita was smart enough, she could have easily known to take out a healing potion or magic pill or whatever she preferred to use and her life would have been saved. Too bad, she was too inexperienced and overpanicked. She even died feeling betrayed.

"Such a pity. She was quite the looker. But now is not the time to blame myself." Shorty thought, not that he would have blamed himself later anyway. He barely knew them and never considered any of these partners his friends. They were together merely because of the adequate synergy and the benefits each person brought into the team.

Not to mention, Rita was the one who volunteered and somehow talked her way into being the leader of this hunt but she literally incapacitated her own self with her inadequate experience and inability to quickly adapt. So, totally not his fault. He just happened to make the wrong judgement.

"I mean, come on! Who doesn't f*ck up every now and then?" He said to himself as he took a large travelling bag out of his space ring. The travelling bag was actually a spatial item as well, created for those who loved to overpack even for the shortest trips. Shorty ought to have bought a hunters' space bag instead. After all, the hunters' bag was a specially made bag for hunters with lots of special functions like separate space dimensions of varying sizes for different beast sizes and automatic dimension to dimension temperature change, to ensure that different beasts with different storage requirements won't need to be stored together. There was also a little bit of time runes inside to delay the dead prey's body aging process and prevent decay. This was done to help the hunters maintain their preys' quality even after a long time.

Shorty knew all these but he had chosen to buy the travelling bag instead of a hunters' space bag, because it was cheaper and he believed it would be sufficient for the trip. He activated the travelling bag's space dimension or 'space wardrobe' as travellers liked to call it and groaned as he dragged the heavy dead snow tiger into the wardrobe.

He spent the next fifteen minutes dragging and pulling and shoving and adjusting the dead body inside the space wardrobe.

"Finally! It's time to go home!" Shorty said with a grin. It has been a fruitful hunt. He might have lost some several hundred thousands because of the state of the snow tiger but, at least, he did not have to share the millions he could still earn from the tiger with anybody. After all, all his partners were very, very dead.