Chapter 54: Chapter 54: Brown Devils
This beast hunt wasn't just a race against the clock like Mr. Allen made it sound but a competition to see which team was the strongest because the stronger teams would obviously go after the higher-ranked beasts gathering more points in the process.
Unlike the weaker teams that had the standard plan of hunting as many of the weaker beasts as possible before the time runs out.
Obviously, they were going to fight for hunting spots but most of the weaker teams knew it was best to steer clear of the paths of the teams with top-ranked students.
This mostly applied to Preston and Arsha's team as they were both top two students and the only level fives in their grade.
Other than these two there was Claudia's group which consisted of a third-ranked, a seventh ranked, and a twenty-first-ranked.
At the moment, Arsha had been able to find his team a good hunting spot toward the west of the forest, he knew the forest's layout and terrain like the back of his hand so his team already had some sort of advantage.
They were in a heavily shaded area with huge trees and lots of vines on those trees, the vines were there for a reason because they happened to be in monkey territory and the monkeys sure didn't have any plans of hiding from them.
There were a lot of brown-furred monkeys and they were all swinging freely around them laughing like they had found a couple of humans to play with before disposing of them.
That was exactly what they did, unlike the other beasts, they rarely moved out of their territory but anytime a human mistakenly wanders into their territory, they would have fun torturing the person before finally disposing of them. And they didn't do this to just humans, they also did it to beasts, according to reports they had been able to subdue a good number of master-tier beasts with their tactics.
These monkeys known as the brown devils were one of the most dangerous groups of beasts known to mankind, pretty much everyone knew about them and that included Jayden and Maya who had their backs to each other as Arsha kept walking further ahead.
While Arsha seemed to be quite relaxed they were gravely on edge and rightly so.
"Why did you bring us into the den of these Demons, Arsha? I don't like where this is going." Jayden voiced his complaint pointing the spear in his hand toward the trees.
"Yeah, I feel like we're at a disadvantage here," Maya commented, holding up the straight dagger in her hand.
Arsha slowly scanned the trees with his eyes for the last time before turning his gaze to both of them.
"That's not something I expect to hear from a wind mage."
"Well, unlike the higher-ranked wind mages, I can only elevate myself for a couple of seconds, I can't freely move myself around with the wind." She explained.
"I see, well there's nothing to worry about anyway." He remarked.
"Why's that?"
"They're going to come to us."
'Or I'll just go to them.'
Just as soon as he said that, two wind blades came flying from the left and right toward Jayden and Claudia but just before they could hit them, an earth wall quickly rose from the ground to block the attacks.
That was the work of Jayden but it wasn't over as numerous wind blades came flying toward them from every direction.
He had to make an all-around wind barricade to block the attacks before making an open to push forward with Maya who was able to deflect some of the wind blades without much difficulty.
"I don't understand, why are they only attacking us?" Jayden blurted with a puzzled look on his face.
"Because you're giving them what they want," Arsha responded as he squatted to slip his hands into his gauntlets.
"Huh?"
"You're terrified, their standard game plan is striking fear into people and then taking advantage of them, if you show them that you're not afraid, they'll become wary and if they sense that you have a strong aura, they won't attack." He explained before getting up on his feet. "I've passed through here a couple of times without them doing anything. Fighting them is a hassle so I also leave them be."
"Seriously?"
Another barrage of wind slashes were sent flying their way at that moment but Jayden was fast enough to create an earth barricade to block the attacks.
"But I guess I can leave them be today." Arsha continued before slowly unsheathing the dagger Maya had sheathed on her lower back. "I'll be borrowing your spare dagger."
"Sure, no problem." She nodded in affirmation while still keeping her guard up.
"There are twelve basic tiers, seven intermediary tiers, and two unique tiers that seem to be hiding at the moment." He disclosed with his gaze on the trees as the howling monkeys kept circling them from up there.
"You know how many of them are up there?" Maya muttered with a bewildered expression on her face.
"Yes, and it's time to cut them down." He responded before turning to her. "Do you think you could give me a little boost?"
"Yeah, I can do that."
Without hesitation, she quickly gathered a good amount of wind force around him and launched him about twenty feet into the air.
That wasn't enough to get him to the trees but he was aware that she wouldn't be able to get him to the trees, he just needed her to get him a little closer.
Just as the effect of the thrust wore off and he was just about to start falling, he latched onto one of the tree's branches with his hydro threads and pulled himself further up.
One of the monkeys tried to cut the hydro rope before he could get to it but nothing it tried worked, and as soon as he got to it, he used the dagger to cut the beast into two equal parts before allowing it to go crashing to the ground.
The other monkeys were surely rattled now after seeing their mate get sliced like that but Arsha didn't give them any chance to escape as he swung from tree to tree, cutting them all down with the dagger and allowing them to crash to the ground.
There was nothing Jayden and Maya could do besides stand there and watch with admiration and a little bit of shock.
They knew how strong he was but him being able to do something like this never crossed their mind.
Almost two minutes later and all the monkeys were on the ground and none of them were whole, some of them got sliced into numerous pieces, some lost their limbs and some lost their heads, he made sure not to show them any mercy.
"With the way you were acting, I thought they weren't getting on your nerves too, but I guess that was just an act like always," Jayden muttered as he stared at one of the monkeys that had the lower part of its body cut into four pieces and its eyes pulled out of the eye sockets.
With all the monkeys on the floor now, they expected him to start making his way down but he was still up there, staring down at them from the tallest tree in the middle.
"Now."
He heard a growl-like howl from behind at that moment as a brown monkey which seemed to be slightly bigger than the other ones jumped toward him from behind and was just about to pounce on him with its fangs bared.
"Running would have been the better option."
Just before the beast could get its hand on him, it had its body pierced by numerous hydro threads from below and now it was dangling in the air void of life.
The hydro threads quickly retracted after that and the beast crashed against the tree branches to find its way to the ground.
"Oh, no you don't."
He quickly turned to the right at the moment and shot out numerous hydro threads toward the tree closest to the one he was.
A loud aggressive howl was heard as soon as the threads latched onto the monkey he was after, and without any form of hesitation, he quickly pulled the beast in.
The monkey had its fangs bared and was ready to bite him as he pulled it closer but Arsha was fast enough to smash those fangs of its mouth with his gauntlet before proceeding to pull its eyes off the eye sockets.
Once he was done with that, he threw the eyes away and sent the beast flying down toward Maya.
"You can do the honors of finishing it off, Maya." He said just as it dropped beside her.
"Um… okay." She responded with an awkward expression on her face.
Right at that moment, a chain with a pointed tip came flying straight toward the beast that was apparently still alive from the far end.
Maya let out a gasp as the chain quickly flew right by her but unfortunately, it didn't succeed in hitting the beast, not because it missed but because Arsha was suddenly standing there with the chain wrapped around his hand.
"Arsha?"
"I was wondering when you were going to make a move." He uttered with his gaze on the person on the other end hiding behind the bushes.
With just one pull, he pulled the scavenger forward and sent him crashing to the closest tree to them.
"Stealing kills is allowed doesn't apply to this team."
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone