-4:39pm.
Once they were officially inside the forest, Rex and Ben dropped their casual attitudes and adopted a cautious posture.
Despite how enthusiastic they felt to use their powers on real beasts, even if they were domestic beasts, these 2 friends knew the danger that they posed and were wise enough to decide to make their entry as less bombastic as possible.
From common knowledge that they were thought in the academy, the deeper you went inside the forest, the more powerful mystic beast territory you barge into which meant the periphery of the sanctum was their target territory.
Though the periphery was proven to be the safest, Rex and Ben were not about to take any chances, they already pulled out all their equipment.
Once inside the sanctum, most hunters and hunting groups tended to separate from each other to increase their chances of encountering prey.
Rex and Ben were no exception to this rule. At this moment, they were both isolated from all the other hunters in the beast sanctum.
Shing! Shing!
As soon as they pulled out their basic alloy swords, Rex adopted a defensive posture while Ben bent down to open his bag and bring out the hunting bait.
After spending a few minutes inside the small leather bag, the dead lizards already accumulated a good amount of this bloody smell that irritated Ben once he opened it.
Fighting back his irritation, Ben opened it slightly to confirm that the bait was safely inside. Once this was confirmed, he nodded at his friend and they continued their journey deeper inside the huge forest.
The breakdown of Rex's bait plan was to go deep enough inside the periphery sanctum, then start dropping the bait from there while retreating.
This was to ensure that their net was cast wide enough.
This was an incredibly dangerous plan that could easily prove fatal, but due to the time limit that they were on, they could only settle for this.
Their sandals made soft twitching sounds as they came into contact with the dried tree leaves and green grass that adorned the forest.
Surrounding them from all sides was a huge green world.
The tall rubber trees that seemed to poke high up into the sky, the occasional bamboo trees, wild palm trees, and the numerous wild grass that filled this forest provided a perfect wild world for beasts.
As they walked through the forest, occasionally, the friends encountered small beasts like squirrels that scurried away immediately on seeing them.
This was not their target, so they refrained from attacking them. Their sights were completely fixated on pork meat and pork meat alone.
"Rex, I think we've gone deep enough, this should do it".
"A little bit deeper, Ben, have some pa…"
"But…"
"Shh!" Rex suddenly shushed his friend and squatted slightly to lower his center of gravity as he directed vigilant glances at his surroundings.
Rex may have never entered a beast sanctum before, but not only did he know all the details through books and classes, his sword training already honed his intuition enough to react quickly to the slightest sound of danger.
It took a bit longer for Ben to comprehend what was happening, but once he did, his heart tightened as he grabbed his sword tighter.
With absolute silence except for the chirping of birds and falling leaves now being the only sounds, Rex's mental state finally entered a heightened level as his eyes rapidly scanned the surroundings for clues.
Just 2 seconds and he found a paw print that was originally covered by a dried tree leaf. He recognized the paw print, and from how soft it looked, this was a freshly made paw print.
Rex tried to lower his voice to the barest minimum, almost a whisper.
"Ben, take 2 steps back…"
Ben obeyed without thinking.
Thud! Thud…!
Growl!
Just the first step from the human agitated the wild domestic beast as it pounced from its hiding spot behind a dying brown cluster of grass.
As soon as the beast pounced, Rex's sword stabbed also.
Clang!
A clear metallic ringing sound reverberated the next moment as the massive Lion managed to parry the stab on time with its super-sharp claws.
Rex felt the wind blowing past his ears and he reacted immediately.
By jumping and inclining his body to an impossible angle, kicking his friend out of danger at the same time, while also bending and pulling his parried sword slightly, he was able to evade the danger and counterattack at the same time.
The Lion clearly did not expect such clever maneuvering from the 2 youths. Its lethal attack failed to connect as Rex's sword cut its abdomen open.
Roar!!!
The Lion was enraged!
It ignored Ben and went after the one who injured it. Its powerful legs exploded with speed, empowered by its rage as it prepared to unleash lethal revenge on the human but Rex was ready for it.
Clang! Clang! Clang!
Rex stood his ground, unleashing a combo of ruthless sword slashes as he briefly held the Lion to a standstill without being able to end the battle decisively.
The thought of channeling his mystic energy crossed him, but perhaps the battle was too fast-paced to enable this, but at this moment, Rex found himself unable to concentrate enough to manipulate his mystic energy.
This was what resulted in this situation, but he was not alone.
Unlike Rex who was under pressure, Ben was left unattended and this provided the best opportunity for him to channel his mystic energy.
Green energy enveloped his body as his speed increased exponentially the next moment. Ben rapidly sprinted to the Lion's side, and before the powerful beast could respond, a shining sword blade already cut through its neck.
Ptui!
The Lion twitched furiously, kicking with its legs before it finally went limp. Ben's one move succeeded in ending its life.
"Haha…"
Ben was about to laugh at the achievement but Rex shushed him immediately. Experienced beast hunters said that killing a beast was one thing, successfully carrying it out of the sanctum was another thing.
There were of course mystic treasures that took care of this inconvenience, but at Rex and Ben's level, they could not afford it.
They could only resort to doing it the normal way. They came for a pig but getting to hunt a lion and taking it was not bad either.
"Drag the body away, leave the leather bag for me".
"Ok". Ben did not tarry as he dragged the Lion's dead body and started rushing away, leaving his friend behind to protect his retreat.
Rex did exactly just that. This battle though brief would have surely attracted other beasts, and the Lion's blood did little to prevent this. Rex could only hope to increase the chances of whatever beast coming to be a pig.
He opened the leather bag, and rapidly applied the robo aphrodisiac to the lizards, getting his hand bloody in the process before he began throwing one down at a time while retreating with his sword in his hand.
Rex's heart pounded in his chest as he observed his surroundings carefully.
Rustle!
Any slight rustling sound now attracted his attention.
While they both retreated, it did not take long before a 2nd beast appeared, it was still not a pig, Rex was frustrated.
Ha!
He kicked on the forest floor and jumped high, chopping rapidly at the tree with his sword as the spooked Python immediately turned to escape.
As the effects of gravity finally acted on him and he started descending, looking down, Rex's heart skipped a beat as he saw 2 pairs of red eyes looking at him straight from below.
Grunt!
Perhaps, it was adrenaline, perhaps it was simply desperation, but the sudden appearance of 2 wild pigs caused Rex to instinctively channel his energy.
In that small nick of time, his sword was covered by the white golden glow as he chopped down at the 2 beasts with all his might.
Boom!
The sword cut through the 2 beasts, the sword energy cutting even further below the ground as Rex finally landed on the ground and rolled to the side.
The 2 pigs died immediately but the robo aphrodisiac finally seemed to start working its magic as another wild pig appeared at the same time, and was the main reason why Rex rolled further to the side on landing.
Grunt!
Rex managed to dodge the initial charge by the pig, rolled even further to the side in the process to the pig's blind spot as his sword ruthlessly slashed again.
Whoosh!
The pig lost its head smoothly to the sword slash.
"Phew!" Rex finally picked himself up.
"Look out!" Ben, who finally dropped the dead Lion and got ready to fight was shocked as he yelled at his friend in alarm.
GRUNT!
With a loud grunting sound that was so much louder than the previous pigs, almost bursting his eardrums, the enormous pig charged, giving Rex no time to react as he was hit straight on the back.
Crack!
Rex felt a few of his bones cracking as the pain left him dizzy.
Despite the pain, the fear of death and the stimulation that it made to his mental state enabled him to hold tight to his consciousness.
Once Rex turned around, the first thing that met his eyes and shook his consciousness was the blood red eyes that seemed to look directly from the abyss, then the enormous pig that was easily 3 times bigger than the previous ones.
"A Mystic beast!" Rex was horrified.
The enormous beast was already charging toward him.
"Stand your ground Rex, I'm coming!" Ben yelled louder as his body was already completely shrouded with his green mystic energy, rapidly increasing his speed and his perception of his surroundings.
Rex could think of nothing better than to do the same. As he forced himself to concentrate to channel his mystic energy again, something suddenly seemed to have been stimulated in his brain as his vision went blank for a moment.
Suddenly, Rex's vision became filled with a bloody red background.
He suddenly seemed to have been transported into a bloody battlefield. He could see numerous corpses lying about, and a river of blood that seemed about to drown him on this bloody battlefield.
Everything seemed so real that he felt lost in it.
"Rex…!" "Rex…!"
Hearing his name being yelled repeatedly woke him up, but it was already too late, the mystic Pig was directly before Rex.
The mighty charge of the beast enabled it to collide directly with Rex.
BOOM!