The forest beside the lake was calm as usual. Cold breeze from the lake gently touched the bushes near the grassy ground gently to shake them in a rythmic tone.
The water collecting ant line, that was busy collecting rotten corpses yesterday, had finished its sudden task and was focused on collecting water again.
A little further ahead from that line, some wastes from yesterday were half buried by the beatles with soft soil they had dug out for the whole night.
The ants didn't go for those wastes as those were so rotten to suit the ants preference and left those for they Beatles, who always live under the soft soil by eating the fermented spoils.
The whole area was filled with lots of ant dead bodies yesterday. As ants don't ever bother to collect their fallen brethren, some mysterious figure collected all of them and placed the dead ants pile near the Beatle nest.
"Yeah keep growing the nest here, hehe. I will need you guys for my future plans".
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For the whole morning, Shokal was hunting Ants with 'hit and run' tactic. He placed they fresh animal corpse's from yesterday and scattered them near the Ant line.
when 3 or 4 ants came collecting those, Shokal got their aggro gaining their attention while jumping here and there to stop them from escaping, and from the side, mantis finished them with a swift swing of his sharp frontal arms ,slicing them in half.
When the job was done, both would flee the area not to get noticed by other ants. As they were too weak to fight a whole horde.
By the mid day, Shokal could easily manage a team of more than 5 ants together. as he could literally jump in a short distance before he got surrounded by ants.
And he got a miniature hunter who easily ambushed the ants within a minute, killing them one after by swiftly jumping and pounding them before they could even react.
Even when Shokal was resting, mantis would venture alone in the surrounding bushes to kill anything that he could manage.
Shokal strongly commanded it to always avoid direct confrontation. As it had a tendency to fall for blood lust.
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In the late afternoon, Shokal opened his status to see the latest changes:
<Name: Shokal>
"Wow my soul shard number is 20 now. I'm really hunting in a good speed with the help of mantis. In half a day, I have managed to collect this many!"
"I would probably manage to kill all ants within a week and fulfill my shards criteria "Shokal was daydreaming recalling the moments of ants hunting.
"Let's try to hunt today's meal too then."
Shokal called mantis with his mind and ordered him to come Infront of him. After a while a thin green jade like figure came out from the nearest bush.
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Shokal figured out in the night that mantis need to eat too. He was basically a revived being so Shokal had assumed it in advance.
But the shocking thing was mantis could recover any physical injury or mental exhaustion which Shokal found out while they were sleeping inside Eden.
Shokal saw the golden threads entering its body while he was inside Eden. Indicating it was getting repaired from the inside .
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Shokal tried to feed mantis the dead corpse he had at . Mantis ate them hesitantly. And Shokal could feel in his mind that Mantis prefered to eat freshly hunted creatures.
So in the early morning he ordered mantis to hunt for itself and saw him tracking some hamster like animal within a minute.
He was a very efficient hunter. Mantis positioned itself in a low tree branch and launched itself to the hamster in a blink.
Swift blades rushed through the air and stabbed the little creature who was killed instantly. Mantis then, released a mist like substance while he jumped from the place back on to the branch again.
Shokal was delighted to see the display of pure stealthiness mantis had showed just now. He unknowingly spoke out loud that the mantis was just like a little ninja.!
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The sun had set already , while there was a little light illuminating the lake for the last time for today . A deer with 3 branched Horn was drinking water gracefully.
It's eyes were always looking for subtle changes in it's peripheral vision. Two long ears were always alert for any dangerous sound that were coming from the forest.
A bush behind the deer was subtly weaving in the wind, where one of the branches was a little unusual.
The branch was unusually stable in the breeze. when looked closely a shining blade can be seen even in this low light.
Some purple sticky liquid was drooling out from the tip of the blade slowly. And the cold wind dried the purple liquid over the blade to give it a faint purple hue.
As the wind was blowing, something launched past the bush, towards the deer in a flash.
'shoosh'.. .....
On the next moment , there was two little scar on the back legs of the deer.
The dear got alerted in the sudden attack, it kicked backward once and started running away. A green mist was seen in the place from where the deer started running from .
The deer swiftly went running inside the forest when suddenly both of its back legs couldn't bear it's full weight as if they were broken. the deer fall down to the ground loudly.
'Thump!'
The deer helplessly tried to stand on it's front two legs when suddenly a swift swing came right at its neck, slicing it to make the blood get splattered everywhere.
A jade like figure was standing on top of the freshly hunted prey. After a while Shokal came to the spot almost running.
"Wow the paralytic sap really worked . Good job mantis! Today we are going to have deer stew!"
The mantis nodded it's head with happiness while the red blood was still dripping from its scythe like blades .
"Who would believe this frail looking animal is a cold blooded killer" Shokal said while smiling awkwardly..