2
It was a dense and lushes jungle, vines twisting around the trees like snakes suffocating their pray, and bird cries came from all around.
Ace was sprinting through a very calculated route he had been building for a few weeks now, on either side of him was two very different undead beast's territories and both were very aggressive to strangers as well as each other which meant unforeseen conflicts could happen at any moment.
This made it extremely important to hide his presence and scent as much as possible, and little by little, the path had been tested and tried out until Ace was certain that neither beast deemed him in their territory at any point in the route.
To be certain he even sprayed a bit of the boar urine on himself as one of the beasts was the very same boar king he got the urine from.
Once again the booming sound of the bear lords mighty roar broke out, silencing everything around, even the birds were nowhere to be heard anymore.
This time it hit ace hard and his ears started ringing, some coiled up pieces of fur he had stuffed in his ears did little good, and Ace stopped for a few seconds to gather himself again before continuing on towards the noise, judging by the sound Ace knew he was close, and knowing the territory he was about to enter made Ace feel worried.
He had expected the trip to take longer since he knew the location of the bear lords territory, and the territory he was about to enter was not the bear lords. Truth be told even ace had no idea what creature lived in this place, he just knew that one did, and it was very, very powerful.
Ace had only ever seen its silhouette as it moved around the woods, he stopped when he realized it was watching him. It mostly lived in a cave and only came out to hunt, but nothing seemed to be its equal as Ace had found leftovers of more than one undead beast whom had been caught by the mysteries beast and killed.
Whatever had brought the bear lord to that illusive beasts territory could not be good, and Ace instantly regretted getting mixed up. He thought about going back, before his curiosity got the better of him. Something was clearly going on, and whatever it was must be more important to the illusive beast than Ace, maybe he could finally get a proper sight of the thing, and if he was lucky he might just end up with one of them wounded and fleeing in defeat.
Ace had been calmly observing not just to learn their weaknesses, but also to find the best opportunity to strike.
This was a crucial moment for Ace and he took in a deep breath while calming himself, his next step would officially take him into a ranked beasts territory. a single misstep could very well cost him his life, especially since said beast was the only one he had little to no information about, he didn't even know what it looked like, except that it was big.
Ace's steps suddenly came to a halt as a huge tree lay blocking his path, its mighty trunk was almost thicker than ace was tall, and the green fresh leaves still firmly stuck to the branches made it clear to Ace that this tree did not fall by accident, it was torn out from the ground. The resin was sticky and clung to Ace's fingers as he climbed over the tree, and he gazed ahead to see even more trees had fallen down, creating a route for Ace to follow.
This could very well be were it all started Ace thought to himself, and the bear lord seemed the most likely culprit for breaking these trees.
As soon as Ace reached his destination he heard panicked voices arguing between each other, and a deep growling that filled Ace's stomach with dread. A towering figure stood with raised arms not more than twenty meters from Ace.
At first, he thought it was another tree and obliviously moved towards it, but then It moved in a huge leap and Ace became instantly alert of the danger in front of him. Without even thinking for another second, he jumped behind the tree closest to him, and in deep relief he realized that the giant figure wasn't moving towards him, but away from him.
The giant beast fell to the ground with a huge "Thump!" the sound was closely followed by an ear-piercing scream from a person, properly from whoever the beast landed on thought Ace.
At first Ace's immediate reaction was to move forward to see what had happened, his curiosity was burning now and the ever-lingering presence of the illusive beast was still looming in the back of his head.
Even still he kneeled down, the most important thing now, was to prepare properly for the hunt at hand and to do so he needed his pouches. He looked the five bags over and decided on one that was made from leather of a brown-red color, it was swelling with liquid and the moment Ace put it on the ground and opened it, some of the content started spilling out.
The poison spilling out was not a concern for Ace, albeit much of the ground was ´covered in the dark green color of the liquid he didn't care.
One after another, every arrow-head in Ace's quiver had been soaked in poison, this was a paralytic poison Ace had concocted from both frogs and mushrooms, it was strong enough to lightly paralyze and disorient an undead beast, not to say what it would do to humans... so when he closed the pouch he did so with great caution.
At last everything was ready, and Ace finally started moving again. The fight had only intensified in the short time Ace had been preparing his arrows, and the sounds had become much more aggressive from both sides.
There were five trainees left and three lying on the ground, dead. Amongst the trainees stood a young man with light from his hands, and a girl with flames dancing around her body without ever burning her.
"Ether hunters" Ace thought to himself as he watched the two move around the giant beast and send off powerful attacks before moving out of the way, the other three acted as support, and would strike whenever the beast showed an opening.
In the middle of the fight stood the mighty bear lord, with a towering six meters it dwarfed everything around it. The name bear lord came from its frightening strength, not from its appearance, it looked like the corpse of a giant bear and a monkey mixed together with its arms and legs stretched out in grotesque lengths.
The eyes looked that of a dead fish and its fur was a sickly brownish green. truly it would look like a dying animal to the unprepared warrior, a weak target to earn their title of true warriors, except it was in no way weak and assuming so would most likely get you killed like so many other warriors had before.
Ace notched an arrow on his bow while starring at the scene ahead, he was waiting for the perfect moment to strike as he aimed the bow at the bear lord.