*Eze my son, I want to remind you what we hunters stand for... Our code...*
A mature female voice spoke to a young boy, her back facing him. On her left hand was a wooden bow and an arrow nocked on it.
Her skin was dark and her hair plaited in corn rows. she wore a hunting jacket with a quiver of arrows strapped to her back.
The boy on the other hand was young, about ten years old, with a mini afro and sporting a pair of shorts and a partly torn T-shirt.
*We hunters have three rules that we must follow to successfully hunt.*
The woman took her bow and aimed. About a few two hundred meters away was a large gorilla like Evo-Beast, larger that most gorillas, standing about fifteen feet tall, a giant mutation of a silver backed gorilla.
It was gorging itself on a dead deer it had just killed not long ago. The woman aimed carefully, remaining still, not even taken a breath. If one looked carefully, one might think she was frozen in time.
*Everything, and Everyone can be hunted!*
Then, she let go. All the boy saw, or heard, was a whistle fly through the air. The gorilla suddenly stopped gorging it's meal, before it slowly leaned over... And fell.
*Always hunt prepared. Never enter the hunting grounds without a plan to take your opponent down as efficiently as possible.*
Then she stood, leading the boy down the hill they stood on to the corpse of their fallen quarry.
Once they got there, the woman began to butcher it, before saying
*And sometimes, there will be hunts that you have to make a choice to live or die for your prey. To retreat is not wrong, just don't retreat unless your quarry is stronger than you*
The boy nodded as he also grabbed a small knife from the woman and assisted her to butcher the Evo-Beast.
***
Eze began to close his eyes, prepareed for the coming onslaught, poised to stroke first. Just then, the ground rumbled as six large wolf like Evo-Beasts with a myriad of spines on their spine protruding from their fur burst from the trees into the clearing.
Just as they burst out, an arrow lodged itself into the one at the extreme left, instantly killing it.
One of the Fenrir's stepped on a trap Eze had placed prior, causing a jolt of electricity to zap into its body, stunning it. Immediately, another arrow found its way into its skull.
Two others triggered a different trap, causing gas to spray into their face, blinding them. Two more arrows found their skull without fail.
The last two, seeing their comrades downed quickly, tried to stop their charge, but the twang of a bow and the whistling of two arrows stopped their thoughts of escape: permanently.
It might have seen a long battle, but Eze had used one second on each Fenrirs, killing them in less than 10 seconds.
'Well that was quick!'
Phase initiat... Ended, Phase Two commencing...
This time, Eze could smell a larger pack running out from the Eastern side of the dome. It was a larger pack of about twelve Fenrirs. Eze licked his lips and smiled. He grabbed a ball like object from his bag and then twisted it. It soon began to tick, before Eze tossed it into the trees.
In less than minute, the group of rabid Fenrir's charged out to the open, sighting Eze as prey to be killed.
They then saw their meal make a thumbs up and click his thumb to his forefinger, and then...
BOOM!!!
That was the last thing they saw. All twelve corpses splattered across the area like ragdolls.
Phase Ended... Third Phase initiated...
And so the slaughter of D-Class Fenrirs began...
***
Up in the control room, the man viewing Eze was partly disgusted but also partly impressed.
He's using tools to cheese his way to victory. Efficient, but unreliable when it comes to calculating his full potential...
The man thought before sighing. It wasn't abnormal for new Ascendants to use special tools or weapons to make their victory easier, it just undermined the entire efficacy of the test. Most ended up graded poorly, even if they were placed in a higher class than D.
Just then, a ruckus broke our...
"Yo, am I seeing things?... Come check this out guys" a male voice roared from another side of the room. This caught the attention of everyone in the control room to the man's screen. Even Eze's personnel turned to see what was going on. There they saw something that caused an uproar on that screen.
"Quick put on live... The people have to see this"
"What the.... So fast! Too fast!!"
"Is she really D-Class?"
"That's what the monitors saying but..."
"The motions, who is she?"
People in the room soon gathered to a large screen in the centre of the room to watch a young lady dressed in a body fitting single piece suit and wearing a mask like a ninja, butchering D-Class Third Grades like chickens. It was so fast, they themselves didn't even know how the Evo-Beasts died.
Eze's personnel was anxious to join in, but didn't want to leave his seat.
'Sorry kid, just do your thing now will ya?' he apologized, before clicking a few buttons on his keyboard, and then dashing towards the crowd now forming under the overhead screen.
The system command he imputed put Eze's test on autopilot, making more beasts arrive until the tenth Phase where the Alpha, a C-Class Evo-Beast would be released. Most Ascendants didn't even go past the fifth wave...
'what could possibly go wrong?' the personnel thought to himself, putting his duties at the back of his mind.
***
Phase initiated... Phase Three Ended
Phase initiated... Phase Four Ended
Phase initiated... Phase Five Ended
Phase ini.....
Eze had been taking on waves upon waves of Fenrir's. At First, they were just D-Class first grade beasts, then a few second grades entered into the fray...
Now he battled packs made up of mostly second and third grades. And though it was very tiring, Eze had experience taking on packs of Evo-Beasts alone when he was still a mundane human.
Currently, he was perched on a large tree, waiting. He'd almost run of arrows, and this was the ninth round. He could smell a peak grade D-Class Evo-Beast bounding towards him from the far woods with a pack made up of a few third grades and mostly second grades.
'Should I just quit?' he thought to himself, but then thought against it. He'd done worse when he was still human, and even though he'd done enough to earn his license, he felt he needed to do more than this.
Soon he heard howling and growling noises coming from the woods ahead. He hid amongst the leaves of the trees, almost camouflaged in them due to his brown jacket.
Soon a pack of Fenrir's burst out from the scene, sniffing the air for his scent. They couldn't catch a whiff of it due to the fact that Eze had sprayed himself with an smell canceling perfume his mother gave him.
His clothing made it even harder to track him as he was always in green, black and brown.
Soon, a larger Fenrir as big as a house marched out of the woods, sniffing deeply. Even though the scent canceling perfume wa strong, it wasn't omnipotent. It soon began to find a trail, leading the wolves to a totally different location, far from the tree.
This was an old trick Eze figured out. Most Evo-Beasts usually go for where their assumed preys scent was prevalent the most.
Soon it found a large log of wood that could house a human just laying there, about five hundred meters away in a hidden corner. It went into a prowling state, slowly stalking, whilst the other Fenrir's began to surround the area.
They soon had the log of wood surrounded. And in a quick bound, the leader pounced on the wood, shattering it.
What greeted it was a rude explosion of sharpnel and fire.
'Uncle Aziz Specialty Black Mamba C4'S' Eze thought as he smiled. The Peak Grade Alpha didn't last at all as it's head was caved in one shot. Eze took the Ogbunigwe and began to pepper the last of his arrows into the remaining dazed Fenrir's, killing them.
Phase Ended... Phase Ten about to be initiated, Please do you wish to leave?
The voice over the communicator spoke in a warning tone. This was the part of the test that was usually reserved for outstanding Ascendants who wanted to test their limits. Usually, most of them declines at this point. But for Eze
"Nah, we die here... Bring it!' he called, nocking his last arrow as he jumped down the tree he was perched.
It was time to perform
the third part of the Hunters code. He had chosen not to retreat.