Chapter 585: Hunt

It took me only a moment to reach the place when a strange wave of foreign energy washed off my body, as if I moved through some sort of barrier. Initially alerted, I quickly retracted my steps to confirm that I could still go back, even though I could easily bypass this obstruction by just creating a portal between my current place of residing and the house that I was building with my fiancee and her step-sister.

But seeing that the barrier didn't wasn't an obstacle that I had to worry about, I only shrugged its existence off my mind, before venturing even deeper into the place.

According to Lord Makay's words, this was the place that was overpopulated by the beasts. If I were to believe in them, then I would be instantly surprised by the lack of any attacks that came my way the moment I appeared on the other side of the barrier. But being someone who visited all sorts of places and watched all sorts of ecosystems grow, destroy themselves and reappear on the face of the world, I knew that there was no such thing as monsters overpopulation!

As long as there was more beasts than a specific area could support with both food and energy-rich resources, then the infighting between those creatures would quickly bring back the equilibrium of the place. Additionally, the fact that nothing dared to attack me upon my crossing of the barrier was even easier to explain!

After all, there was no way for any worthy herb to exist in a place where such a foreign power resided! Just the fluctuations of the energy would be enough to absorb anything that the barrier would consider to be above its limit of tolerated power, meaning that no herb that could attract the attention of the truly powerful beasts would ever have a chance to grow in this place.

What's more, just like humans, every beast had to establish a place it would call its own. Basing this guess of mine on basic geometry, the way of creating that sphere of influence would start with well… a sphere around said beast position! That's why, any of my potential enemies that would bother creating their home close to the barrier, would have its reach limited by said barrier!

Those two factors alone were enough to most likely deter most of the beasts away from the barrier, meaning that the further I would get away from this place, the easier it would be to find any target that would be capable of grabbing my own attention!

With that in mind, rather than carefully moving step by step and looking out for any attacks, I simply started running towards the depths of the forest, using the minuscule amounts of both energy and entropy that still resided in my body to cut my way through the thick forest.

And just as expected, it took me only a few minutes to be attacked for the first time!

Slash!

Throwing its paw at me, a bear-like monster attempted to claw its way through my body, only for its attack to be stopped right against my weak barrier. In the very next moment, I formed a thin spear of entropy, as diffusing even the tiniest amount of positively energised world's energy from my body was starting to appear as a challenge. Without even batting an eye, I took aim and threw said spear with a single thought of mine, nailing that monster straight through what I thought to be its spine.

"Welp, that was easy…"

Saying those words, I kind of expected some kind of response, but for some reason, ever since he received his own body, Bonger preferred to just remain silent in hiding while cultivating his energy to make its body even more resilient than before.

"Anyway, let's get this over with."

As much as I wanted to just continue my hunt, with how this place was supposed to be filled with monsters on every turn, I couldn't diminish the possibility that I was actually surrounded by them, with just my power level being enough of a deterrent for those mindless creatures to attack me.

With that said, ignoring how annoying it was for me, I still picked up the huge carcass of the bear-like monster before carrying it all the way to the barrier. Only after I threw it on the other side, did I allow myself to go back to the hunt.

Using the trail that I created before rather than creating a new one, I once again picked up the pace, diving headfirst into the depths of the uncharted land. Step by step, I could feel the atmosphere of this place becoming heavier and heavier as if something was pulling me down to the ground, trying to squash me between the thin air and the hard ground.

But as strong as this force would appear to anyone else, for me, fighting its influence off was just as hard as swallowing a bite-sized piece of cake. With my legs carrying me further and further into the forest, I still hoped to reach a stage where the space pressure would turn really challenging in order to check whether I could use it to temper my body a bit more, but after a certain point, rather than increasing, this force actually started to weaken down!

ROAR!

At least, after reaching this point, a new beast announced its presence, instantly proving that contrary even to the monsters I met all the way back near the first sword sect that I joined, they clearly lacked any intelligence! And to add more to it, if that beast had even the slightest amount of predatorial instinct, it would know better than announcing its presence was akin to losing the advantage of a surprise!

Turning my head towards the approaching monster, I suddenly realised why it didn't care about those basic conventions. Rather than meeting something akin to that boar from before, the beast that was currently charging at me, was actually the size of a reasonably big hill!