The earth was rumbling and crying like a tied fierce dog. The gases coming out of cracks were creating an unbearable environment to stay in one spot for some time. The volcano was throwing heated rocks everywhere like a real villain at the Halloween party.
As if all these horrors weren't enough, even a group of beasts aimed at Ulf and ran toward him. He initially thought that they were just running from the ongoing disasters, but looking at their expressions, things weren't quite right. These beasts were clearly coming for him.
'For me or maybe...' Ulf thought and looked down at his right hand.
Even if Ulf took a safe distance from the beasts when he arrived in the central region, it was a bit hard to believe that none of them would feel his existence for a couple of days. However, these beasts didn't pay any special attention to Ulf's presence.
Only one thing that could change this attitude out of the blue was this little shining stone he had picked up.
Running away from them seemed to be a very hard task as some of the beasts looked stronger than middle grade. Ulf didn't have even one minute to think of a way to survive.
Throwing the stone may be a solution, but he didn't want to abandon the resource, which would be more useful than the core of a mountain rhino. After advancing to the leader rank, cultivation progress would stagnate several-fold. Perhaps, reaching the chief rank would take at least twenty years or a little more for Ulf. This speed of improvement was never seen in his village, but it didn't satisfy him. There were some hidden factors that made Ulf desperate to get stronger as fast as possible.
As Ulf found his determination, he began to study situations in his surroundings. He noticed soon that the beasts, which stayed behind and didn't climb the mountain, created several groups and took different directions.
Though, it didn't mean that they were working peacefully together. When the beasts reached the separated spots, they started the all-out fight with each other. These powerful creatures had been just ignoring other beasts, but for some reason, they were striking mercilessly now. Thankfully, because he was comparably far from the mountains, not many strong beasts joined beasts' 'expedition group'.
All these spots where the beasts were gathering gave the same sensations as the giant rock, which contained the stone with a large amount of poor qi.
'So, these beasts really have a keen sense regarding qi. Even early-grade beast wolf could sense the existence of the rhino's core and didn't give up easily. So, it will be even harder to deal with these ferocious beasts now.'
The fact that the beasts put their lives in such a death-threatening place when some of them were even blasted in pieces by the first wave of volcanic meteors, showed the importance of the blue stones. This kind of opportunity must have rarely been befall in the southern forest.
Ulf needed to find the best way for his survival with the perspective to leave the central part of the forest with the stone in his right hand. As the beasts were coming closer, Ulf detected that at least two of them had late grades. Outrunning them here in the valley wasn't possible. The environment was giving them a huge advantage to catch up to him.
When the beasts were just several hundred metres away, Ulf took action.
'Why not imitate the other groups of beasts and create the same upheaval? Instead of being the main target, it would be better to make them target each other. There is a famous old saying that 'It's good fishing in troubled waters.'
Right after that Ulf threw the shining stone in the middle of him and the upcoming ferocious creatures.
The many bloodthirsty eyes exhibited a hint of confusion, but soon regained their focus and then became more agitated to rush forward. Until then, none of them wanted to be the first one to confront Ulf and were running almost at an equal pace. But when a little sparkling star lay on the ground appeared without its owner, the real race began.
Two late-grade beasts, a black, scary-faced wild boar with dirty bristles and a dazzling white giant wolf, got ahead of the others. However, even if they had identical late grade ranks, the wolf still was accelerating and had a very good potential to outrun his opponent on the side. Because of that, the cunning wild boar was trying to hinder its competitor by swinging the long, sharp tasks.
As the boar was preventing the white wolf from advancing faster, it was first to get close to the blue stone. When it intended to bite the desired object, even Ulf got nervous that maybe his decision to cast the stone aside was wrong.
Ulf felt relieved when he saw that the giant alpha wolf wasn't going to resign from the competition. The white beast used its long front legs, responded to the boar's action faster and hurled the blue stone in the air.
However, the wolf had to pay for its deed, when the angry wild boar suddenly thrusted the shark point of its task at the rival's breast, very close to the throat.
The boar intended to finish the seriously wounded wolf. Though, it had to hold back, because the dispute between the late-grade beasts gave others a chance to overtake them.
A desperate fight for the shiny qi stone forwent. The team made of many middle-grade beasts were confronting wild boar together to oppose its overwhelming power. For example, two hyenas more than 3 meters long with childish smiles were aiming at the boar's thighs. Among them, Ulf was astonished by the one peculiar beast - hornless rhinoceros with long fur.
'This one seems to be a specific species of rhinoceros for this world.'
It was smaller and less dangerous than the monster's offspring mountain rhino with its qi manifestation ability. However, it could still perform the tank's role very well against the enormous irritated boar with the black bristles for a while.
In the end, after fighting approximately for an hour, the wild boar had several severe wounds and was losing quite a lot of blood. On the other hand, one hyena was pierced by the boar's task in the abdomen. The injury was so heavy that half of the stomach was reviewed. Even the hornless rhino's thick armour was penetrated in a few spots very deeply and became incapable of moving. As for the stone, it was still untouched in a middle.
The horror of the higher-grade beast was fully displayed. Even the heavily wounded white wolf could deal with part of the lower-grade beasts, with its superior agility.