The Martial Unity

The herd began relaxing as they settled down, resting as the sun had almost completely dipped under the horizon. Rui observed carefully, waiting and hoping for the target of his mission to show up. As the night grew darker, he couldn't help but wonder how the target of his mission had managed to hunt so voraciously and yet be so elusive.

The Shaia Plains were gigantic, meaning the herbivore population was immense. In order for a single or even a handful of beasts to hunt so excessively that they significantly impacted the herbivore species and be still be so elusive that the Ministry had a hard time learning more about it, he couldn't even imagine how such a thing came to be.

It didn't matter how powerful one was, hunting a huge number of herbivorous animals everyday was not something that could be done very secretively. If it was just one or two animals, it would be one thing, but as many as would be needed to affect the ecosystem?

Was it really possible to do such a thing uncaught?

Rui intended to find out. Out of all the herds he had detected, he had chosen the largest herd. Chances were that the target of his mission would go for larger groups of prey because of the greater amount of food it could eat. Thus, increasing Rui's chances of being able to ambush the predator.

Of course, it was entirely possible that the predator roamed around the Shaia Plains in a much more random fashion, hoping to get lucky enough to stumble into a small heard that he could then completely devour.

If that was the case, perhaps Rui's strategy would not necessarily increase his odds.

('Can't be helped.') He shrugged. The Shaia Plains were enormous, there was a limit to what could be done by him. There was even a chance he would fail this mission and the Martial Union would dispatch a team of Martial Apprentices to aid with the reconnaissance and extermination of the target or targets of the mission.

Or he would get lucky.

laid in wait the entire night, staying up using a rejuvenation

And waited some more.

And some more.

a little

waited so long that

take patience and perseverance. But I may have underestimated the psychological fortitude required

he ceased the static surveillance and returned

standard gear for reconnaissance hunting missions, he was easily able to divide the Shaia Plains into squares, positioning himself

an ecosystem within the land. Seismic Mapping did have subterranean sensing capabilities to a high extent. The problem was that it became harder to form a clear image of

the mission via direct surveillance, so he especially kept a look out for any seismic signatures that were either unknown, unusual or could match the estimated appearance of the target of

hours later

muttered as he approached the corpse. It could barely be called corpse, since almost only the bones had been left behind. Yet the remnant flesh had not rotted much at all, despite this.

as time since death goes.') Rui thought to himself, he was no forensic

('Last night.') Rui realized.

meant that the beast had ran into different herds than the one Rui had been trailing.

a very similar condition. This was very