Kaizen was also surprised, he knew his strength had increased but he never expected the difference to be this obvious. Those points, they must have a lot of value if thirty extra could make this much different.
"How did you do that?" One of the guys asked, shock evident in his eyes.
Kaizen tried to remain calm, pretend like it wasn’t a big deal so they wouldn’t sense that he was trying to hide something. "I’ve been working out a lot."
"Do you have a sleeping build or something? Dude your strength is terrifying."
"Now it makes sense how you could become a hunter. Not bad kid."
The deep growl of something quickly drew everyone’s attention, the all turned away from Kaizen, eyes scanning their surroundings.
"A beast strong enough to uproot a tree must be insanely strong, everyone should be alert, don’t lower your guard." Stark ordered, and immediately they all drew their weapons. Fire, ice, earth and water made weapons. Only Kaizen had a normal dagger.
Kaizen stepped back a little away from the rest as they kept walking, he could sense that they were surrounded. But by what exactly, he had no idea.
Just then, another tree came flying straight at Stark, and with a swift strike of his blade, he cut it in half. "This is getting old, show yourselves." He barked, pointing his blade towards the location from which the tree was thrown. And right then, a giant nine feet tall bear walked out from behind the trees.
It looked muscular and it walked on two feet. With each step it made, the ground vibrated under its feet.
"That shit is huge." One of the hunters remarked.
The bear let out a loud growl, and instantly...other brown bears charged at them, coming out of their hiding places.
The hunters didn’t wait for the bears to reach them and also charged at the bears, they were over two dozens. Kaizen remained standing in his position, waiting for anyone to reach him. Or maybe he could just, call them. Somehow, he knew they would listen, like a gut feeling.
He exhaled coldly, then whispered with a cold voice, eyes focused on one particular bear. "You, Come at me." And to his surprise, the bear turned and immediately charged at him.
It actually worked, what the hell
Everyone had started fighting, too focused on killing bears to notice Kaizen. The bear was fast, it had its claws aimed for his head as it roared, but just before it could strike, Kaizen smirked.
"Boom." Kaizen mouthed the words, and right then, the ground beneath it exploded, the force of the explosion instantly tearing the bear into pieces. Blood sprayed on the ground beside its remains. The explosion made everyone turn to look at what just happened, but Kaizen had already left that position and now was now in a different place, and all they saw was the bloody remains of a bear.
"What just happened, who did that?"
"I don’t know, it seemed to be an explosion."
Kaizen turned towards the fire user from amongst them, "was it you?" Everyone knew only fire users could create a fire explosion, so he was the first person they would suspect. But the guy also looked confused.
The growls of the raging bears instantly cut off their attention, and they all continued fighting. Kaizen sighed in relief, no one suspected him. He’d only wanted to try out the technique he’d learned from the system’s training. Channeling fire energy into the earth and making it like a trap that instantly explodes once anything or anyone steps on it. It was something similar to a mine.
He was skeptical if it would work or not because he didn’t release enough energy, made sure to supress it enough and still release a small amount enough to make the trap. And good for him, it actually worked, and it was even more disastrous than he recalled. The damage this one caused was far more than the first time he used it, even though he suppressed his mana before using the technique.
Kaizen was still staring when he sensed something coming at him from behind, it was a bear, but something felt off about this one. Without turning around, he infused a little fire energy into his dagger to enhance the speed, and then he threw it after making sure no one saw him.
The dagger moved with the speed of lightning, instantly piercing through the bears heart, and it collapsed to the ground with a loud thud.
Everyone stopped fighting because instantly, all the other bears started to retreat, afraid.
Kaizen turned to look at the bear he’d just killed, and his eyes widened when he realized it was the boss of them. The biggest one of them is what he’d just killed so effortlessly. He had wanted to get rid of whatever was coming at him silently without having to fight or show his abilities, but he didn’t realize it was the biggest of them, or he would have found a way to let the other stronger hunters kill it.
"Look, the biggest of them is dead!"
"So that’s the reason why they all retreated. Their boss is dead."
"Who killed it though?"
They all walked towards the bear, eyes wide, inspecting the body closely.
"How the hell did it die with just one hit?"
"No way... that wasn’t magic, there’s no burn or ice marks, just a clean puncture to the heart."
Stark crouched beside the beast and examined the wound. "This was done with a blade. A single throw... and it hit right on target."
Everyone turned to each other.
Kaizen exhaled quietly, then raised his hand. "It was me, I got lucky." There was no need in hiding this one, at least he hadn’t used any elemental magic that would give him away.
Stark’s eyes narrowed slightly. "You... threw that dagger?"
The guy who had first inspected the body scoffed under his breath. "That’s not luck, kid. That’s precision. That throw was clean."