He had ripped through his shoes and shirt, revealing his scaled, clawed feet and muscular upper body.
He vehemently kicked the hunter in his chest, launching him through an entire tree.
As this large dark oak tree came crumbling down, he jumped right through it to then step on the hunter's chest.
He crushed and shattered his ribcage, causing cracks in the ground to scurry away from Arwin.
He coughed out blood, loudly shouting in pain upon taking such an impact. The large weredragon lifted him by the neck and used his other hand to punch him in the face, doing so repeatedly.
Blood shot off his face with every hit, and he could do nothing to resist. His arms and legs fell limp, and he was revealed with a swelling, profusely bleeding face.
His eyes were already swelling, and he could barely breathe with his ribs that had been crushed in.
Using the last of his strength, he revealed an iron dagger to try and stab into the weredragon's body.
Tap!
The sharp end of the blade landed on his scales but simply slipped off, leaving nothing but a scratch.
"You won't be breaking through my scales with a dagger like that. Perish, weak hunter!" He declared.
With his hand on his neck, he squeezed with more force than he had done before, and Arwin's face looked extremely red from the blood that was being forced into it.
"You know what?" The weredragon abruptly said, with his new voice of darkness.
CHOMP!
He bit Arwin on his shoulder, and the hunter screamed in pain powerfully.
"NOO!!" He exclaimed, almost coming to tears.
In his pain and suffering, the weredragon had nothing but a smile across his face.
Whoosh!
STAB!
A long iron sword had been propelled with the use of wind and had fully broken through the weredragon's scales, on both sides of his body.
Small fragments of scales dropped due to the wound, and he roared in pain, while dropping Arwin.
"I told you you couldn't do this on your own." A hunter stated, grabbing him.
The dark-skinned hunter, with nearly a complete set of battle markings, stormed toward this weredragon.
His orange aura of qi cloaked his body, and he revealed a wider iron sword of the same length of the katana-like blade in his torso.
Shouting, green lightning claoked the sword and made It shoot more quickly through the air. It was sizzling and hot to the touch, and dug right through the weredragon's abdomen.
His shout was now akin to squeal, as the pain was so great. This alpha dropped to his knees, with volumes of hot blood seeping out from this wound.
This hunter looked down on the weredragon with clenched fists, hyperventilating. He looked ready to slaughter the man right there, but another hunter grabbed him by his shoulder and started pulling him away.
"We can't take down that alpha, we have to leave now!" A hunter insisted, pulling him back further.
"Fine. It won't be long until we slaughter you, you demon! Have fun taking those blades out!" He shouted, as the hunters rushed off into the distance.
As they retreated, they all had to come to a stop as a large golem was now stood ahead of them.
However, the lead hunter didn't seem bothered by this beast that had stopped them. He dashed forward and drove his hand through its entire body. Breaking the stone that he crushed through, he simply ripped out the beast's crystal that was housed in its abdomen.
The humanoid stone golem collapsed to its knees, lowly groaning in pain.
With an iron blade, he sliced the beast's head right off before advising the hunters to continue forward.
*****
The two academies were gathered together, this time at the city walls. Now, there was going to be an outing like what Abel had taken part in back in Fragan.
"Hello students. Today, we will be forming 3-man squads that will be competing in defeating the strongest beasts. Now, you will be entering an E-Zone that was just reclassified from being a D-Zone. We have supplied you all with supplies, such as healing pills and medical equipment but for water and food, there will be plenty within the zone."
"This will not just be a day-long expedition, we will be keeping you outside of the zone for several days on end. We believe that you have all grown as cultivators and should be given greater challenges to grow from."
The students looked even more excited, and the students slowly started forming their groups. Some students from the two different schools actually joined forces and made teams together.
Otto von Falken, Elric Reinhard and Keagan Natsuo joined together to form a superteam, that the others felt was unfair.
It seemed like they'd get no points if they'd try to compete against them.
Abel, Zeke and Duncan formed their usual trio, confident in their newfound abilities. Well, this was only the likes of Abel and Duncan.
They weren't allowed weaponry and armour this time, having to rely on their techniques and martial arts to keep themselves alive.
The large gates opened as the chains keeping them closed were released.
There was a large, wide desert with several rocks of colossal size.
"Follow your maps to the zone. There should be no beasts of considerable difficulty on your way there and any cultivators not within the E-Zone 45 minutes from now will have their entire team disqualified." Master Klemens announced.
On the map, the Zone was almost twenty miles away, and any ordinary human would have to take a day to get there. However, the students utilised their qi and conditioned bodies to begin their journey ahead.
The students dispersed, all heading in generally the same direction.
Abel. Zeke and Duncan proceeded as a unit but the two supernaturals were forced to move much more slowly than they had intended.
"Don't worry about me, you two should just go ahead." Duncan said, breathing heavily from the run.
"Don't worry, we're not in a rush." Abel calmly replied, breathing slowly out his nose.
In about 40 minutes time, they arrived at what was described as the E-zone from assessing the surroundings. It was several tens of kilometres squared and so, they couldn't even see any other students around them.
As they arrived, the mission began.
They took a few minutes to examine the surroundings, not finding much. Duncan looked much more hastily at his surroundings, while Abel and Zeke were simply more intrigued in just seeing what beasts were out there.
From on top of a rock beside them, a seal-like beast leaped down and landed ahead of them. It had dark grey, oily skin with a set large canine fangs. It also possessed claws and was humanoid in shape, with a lot of muscle but also a large layer of fat.
This fat was mostly concentrated in its gargantuan belly, and it stood at a large 6'7.
"Allow me." Abel said to his friends, stepping forward.
His demonic face took form, and he smiled at the beast that showed no fear toward him whatsoever.
It charged right at hm, and threw a punch. Abel took the attack head-on and easily tanked it.
The beast continued with an intense assault but it could do nothing to bother Abel. It landed two slashes across his forearms, but the cuts n his flesh sealed up and vanished in mere seconds.
The seal-like beast then shouted, slugging down its left fist for an overhead strike. However, he caught the fist, before driving his hand through its chest.
In his hand was now his beating heart, and droplets of blood now covered his face and clothing. Duncan looked away from the brutality of the kill, and Abel removed his hand to ten drop the beast's heart.
Duncan looked horrified upon seeing such a gory sight, and Zeke just carried on forward to the corpse. He was surprised that the two warriors even had the guts to kill the beast in this way, and they seemed so calm while ripping out the crystal from its abdomen.
It was clear that his friends were no longer human like him. They seemed darker, more malevolent in nature.
Across the zone, Otto stood against a horde of the same seal-like beasts. One of the seals was taller and more muscular than the others, which he assumed was their leader.
"Have you got those guys?" Elric asked, severing the head of one of those beasts with a simple swipe of his palm.
Otto engulfed in an aura of fiery qi, that was red and orange in colour.
Black scales appeared across his body, and the other students looked upon him with awe.
"So, he's already at the advanced novice stage and has a beast dantian. He really is the strongest in your academy." Keagan said back to his other teammate, Elric.
Elric just scoffed with is arms crossed, full of arrogance and envy of Otto.