Chapter 193 – Stopping

Edited by Ilesyt

There was lots of brushwood in the surroundings. After every few steps, there would be bushes.

“Back up.” The leader saw that the environment in this place was unfavorable to them and made a prompt decision, ordering the other people to retreat along the original route. Although he had no idea of what kinds of traps were set all around, at least there must be no traps along the route they had passed by.

As he thought so, he heard another two screams.

Two warriors fell to the ground: one was stabbed by a poisonous needle as the one before, while the other was cut on the throat.

Sha~ Sha~ Sha~ Sha~

Someone was moving quickly in the bushes.

The leader lifted his feet and went after the man quickly with a ferocious face. Yet he was not careless and even tried to figure out the movements of the figure in front, almost stepping on the same place where the other set his foot down. But many people following him behind were not that lucky: all seemed to be entangled by something and had to cut that thing with a knife; after a few steps, they got stuck again and fell down, not getting up again.

Hearing the sounds behind, the leader guessed the plight which his subordinates may be faced with. He didn’t stop, but speeded up instead of slowing down, catching up closely with the figure in the bushes ahead.

He squeezed out a hideous smile on his face. Found you at last. Go to hell now.

Cutting the head of this man and taking it back would earn him rewards and perhaps he could also get some fire crystals for advancing; maybe he would level up to a senior totem warrior. He had already made numerous contributions and any senior totem warrior who was only one step away from the senior level could be advanced as long as he did another deed of merit and got some rewards. His status in the tribe would be higher and he would be able to get more women, food, resources and rights.

At this thought, he got more excited. The totem tattoos on his face made him look far more hideous. Adding force to his feet suddenly, he waved his right arm with a stone blade in his hand, creating winds with his sword.

Noticing the wind behind, Shao Xuan stamped on the ground with his right foot violently. The ground under his feet made a small “bang” sound, sounding like a tough and solid dirt clod being shaken loose, while he himself turned around unexpectedly and rushed towards the opponent using this force.

Only at this moment did the leader see what Shao Xuan looked like exactly.

He never saw the totem tattoos on Shao Xuan’s face and was also surprised at the young age of Shao Xuan. But all of these were not important, what he needed to do was only to kill him.

He was about to figure out where the next attack would come according to the changes on the movement of Shao Xuan’s body again, when he caught Shao Xuan’s eyes. In this instant, he couldn’t help shuddering.

Shao Xuan’s eyes made him recall the moment when he hunted in this forest with some other tribe members several years ago: they ran into a ferocious beast, which was not only strong but also good at hiding and cunning. They were unable to evade even if they played dead. Those entering the forest were all senior totem warriors who were once arrogant outside, but more than half of them were killed by that ferocious beast, the ones remaining were those who ran away fast.

That ferocious beast at that time also looked inconspicuous and small, but it frightened them so much that they didn’t even have the courage to resist.

If he hadn’t run away, he would have been dead. This was his only thought at that time, which was also a nightmare lasting for many years. This time, hearing the rewards and believing that his strength had improved a lot, he decided to go into the woods once again.

But now, the same thought as he had in that year came to him again.

In that instant when he caught Shao Xuan’s eyes, he had an illusion that the situation at that time, when they encountered the dreadful ferocious beast, seemed to reappear.

The leader had an extremely short pause for an instance, a clamor in his heart resounded, “Run. Run fast. Run away from here.”

In this kind of either fight or flight, the least negligence would mean the difference between life and death.

“Blow the whistle.”

Only having time to say these words, he was penetrated by a stone sword.

Killing one man, Shao Xuan didn’t stop but stretched out the other hand, grabbing a wrist.

Another man followed behind the leader. In view of strength, perhaps he was no match for the leader, but he could equal the leader in terms of speed.

Just now, he obviously saw the leader was in an unfavorable situation, but he didn’t help. Instead, he chose to use the chance to make a sneak attack, but got caught unexpectedly.

Shao Xuan added force to his hand, cracking sounds rang up and the bones of the wrist holding the sword were crumbled.

“Aaah~!

With the strong pain from the wrist, the man couldn’t help but scream miserably. Certainly he couldn’t hold the ivory sword in his hand any longer.

Shao Xuan caught the white-polished ivory sword in one hand and held the stone knife on the other hand, cutting upward in that position at the other side.

All these happened in an extremely short time. The man holding the ivory sword was still shocked, regretful and caught in the pain of his wrist, having no time to think about how to avoid this attack; he raised the dark brown sword in another hand out of instinct, hoping to protect himself from Shao Xuan’s strike.

Bang!

Two blades collided against each other. The man just felt an overwhelming force passing through the sword in his hand and struck his arm violently, as if crashing against the arm.

Such mighty power abruptly struck his arm upward, while his whole body fell backward with the arm, as if someone was dragging him behind.

The unprotected area became open, but he didn’t have the chance to cover it as Shao Xuan’s stone knife was already plunged into his body.

Disposing of the two men following him, Shao Xuan wiped the blood stains on the stone blade with the weeds by his side.

In the hunting life for so many years, Shao Xuan had been on the borderline of death for many times. After coming here, witnessing the cruel wars between tribes, Shao Xuan had gotten used to this fighting manner that never started but ended up mercilessly once started.

Taking a long breath out, Shao Xuan heard the whistling sound coming from not far away. It must be that someone heard the last cry of the leader and whistled for help; those who were closeby should be hurrying here.

Shao Xuan didn’t return to handle those men falling behind, as the smell of humans and the noises there should be able to attract those hungry birds-of-prey over there.

This was an area Shao Xuan specially found; because of the fire pit in the old haunt, there were not many dangerous plants and ferocious beasts over there. While checking the surroundings this morning, he saw some bird paw-prints and roughly guessed what kind of birds they were from those paw-prints and some traces in the bushes.

Those were birds similar to the Phorusrhacos; getting pecked by this bird was like being hit by a hoe. It should be quite an ordeal for those people.

Looking at the sky and seeing the flying path of Chacha, Shao Xuan paid no more attention to those people behind but left quickly.

The man who whistled had the intention to retreat when he saw people around falling one after another. No matter what kind of rewards he would get, the basis was being alive; he didn’t want to die yet. At this moment, hearing the cry of the leader, he would naturally blow his whistle hard. Whistling while running back, he was too nervous to notice that he stumbled over something. At the thought of traps or those dangerous vines, he kept on slashing without seeing. After coming to himself, he found that it was only a dirt clod.

With a long gasp, he was about to stand up when footsteps could be heard.

Are the others coming to help?

No.

They are not sounds of footsteps from humans.

He got up and wanted to run away from here, only to find that the same sounds of footsteps came from the path of retreat.

One figure dashed out from the bushes and ran to the man with the whistle still in his mouth directly.

They didn’t have obvious wings and were not even so big as those meat-birds of the Lu tribe, but they had big beaks. Their eyes were eager; those were the eyes that saw food.

“Aah~!

Miserable cries rang through the forest; those heading over there from hearing the whistle couldn’t help pausing for a while, a chill came up in their hearts.

Meanwhile, at this moment, Shao Xuan, who was already far from there, was crouching on a big tree and watching a bear not far away from the tree.

There were many kinds of giant bears in the forests; and this kind of bears were definitely the stronger ones among the giant bears. Perhaps they may not dominate the giant bears with the weights, but they had agile speeds and absolutely strong strength.

Their four limbs were far more slender than the other bears, which made them look not that “clumsy” as other bears, but enabled them to move fast for a longer time with light-footed movements and fast running speeds. The short and wide jaw, well-developed muscles, the giant body and rampant canine teeth were foreboding, while the huge grinding teeth in its mouth could easily grind the bones of wild animals and even many ferocious beasts.

At times, they didn’t even hunt for food by themselves, but would rob the preys directly of other predators. Shao Xuan met many cases that the wolves were robbed by the giant bears.

Only with one look and no more observations, Shao Xuan, who had followed the hunting groups for many years, could conclude that this species should at least stand on top of the food chain in this area.

Right now the bear was looking for something hastily, sniffing, standing up and holding the tree trunk, licking one branch. It didn’t feel satisfied, broke the arm sized branch with its’ big palm effortlessly and put the branch in its mouth, chewing it.

After chewing the branch for a while, it didn’t feel fun and threw away the branch which was almost chewed into pieces. Sniffing, it moved on, walking over there, following the smell.

In this season, many bears loved to find and eat the honey for enough nutrition in winter, so Shao Xuan just found some honey and lured the bear over there with the honey. Only he himself was there, while there were at least one hundred men of the Wan Shi tribe in the forest.

This was the old haunt of the Flaming Horns tribe. Sometimes, even if you knew it’s dangerous, you would not make a concession. The old haunt was the precious place of the Flaming Horns tribe. Even if Shao Xuan was unable to stay here all the time, at least now he could try his best to stop those people; it’d be best to make them fear with a bloody lesson.

The good thing was that it was a forest full of many ferocious beasts, a strange but familiar environment.