The Martial Unity

The task turned out more difficult than Rui expected, the bear was quite erratic and chaotic, causing Rui to spend literally every alternate second redirecting the bear in the direction he wanted to. He needed to use a combination of fear and pain with the Stinger to redirect it each time.

It took half a day until they were finally close to the village.

('Finally!') Rui was ecstatic. He was actually quite exhausted, but he focused. The crucial part was soon to come. He had redirected the bear where he wanted, through great difficulty. Now he needed to send the bear rampaging straight into the part of the village where Vranil was closest.

As they reached closer, Rui glared at the bear, exposing his hostility. He wanted to inspire even greater terror to cause the bear to speed up.

"ROOOAAARR." The bear roared as it picked up the pace in terror. Rui kicked it in the ass with the Stinger once more before stopping and diving straight to the ground. He had already reached quite close to the village and he could not go much further without revealing his presence.

But what he had done was already enough.

In the distance, nearly half a minute later he heard the bear roaring once more. However, this time, he heard the humans screaming in alarm as well. He heard several gunshots firing over and over again, followed by painful screeches drowning out grunts from the bear.

And then there was silence.

Rui jumped up to the top of a tree swiftly. Hiding behind the trunk as he stood on a branch. He pulled out a monocular not wanting to miss anything further. Thankfully, dusk had already long come and the darkness gave him cover.

The bear had run into a group of gang members patrolling the village, and had immediately attacked them in a frenzy.

This was part of Rui's predictions as well as his plan. Having been forced to run for half a day had caused it to develop an extreme sense of hunger. It had avoided Rui because its survival instinct was even stronger, but ordinary humans could not threaten it, even with weapons. It had immediately lunged at them even as they futilely shot at it, and killed them all, before beginning to eat silently and greedily.

But the deed was done, and it had already drawn the attention of the second of the two living beings that could kill it.

"There it is." one of the gang members shouted from a distance pointing at a distance. "It's already killed three of us."

Rui's eyes sharpened as he felt the atmosphere grow heavy.

The humans and the bear froze in terror.

"Strong." Rui evaluated, raising an eye.

Vranil Fra was a gargantuan man, he had an aggressive and savage aura. With unkept hair and beard, he looked like someone who had resided in the wilderness for the past eight months, than luxurious quarters.

He ran to the bear with wide open arms.

"Not that fast at all, still not bad, especially for his size." Rui murmured.

The bear immediately turned around, running away. But it was too late.

SPLAT

He swung his open hand at the bear and five long finger-deep gashes appeared on its back.

"ROOOOAAAAR!" The bear roared in pain as it tried getting away despite the pain and the profuse blood loss. Yet Vranil held in place with fingers still in the wound.

Rui's eyes widened at that sight.

He was holding the bear back with just a single arm!

Even Rui would need to use his entire body to accomplish something like that. As far as sheer raw physical power went, Vranil was in the same league as Fae, probably even higher, being a male.

The bear turned around, biting him. It had realized escape was futile, its sense of survival forced it to fight back.

Yet, it couldn't even hurt him, another feat that impressed Rui immensely.

SPLAT

Five deep gashes emerged on bear's neck, spurting out blood like an open tap. It was already too late at that point.

The bear perished, quickly.

Vranil Fra had an ugly expression on his face. "Where did this bear come from? There were supposed to be no Apprentice-grade animals in the near vicinity of the Hefermaine village, nor has this bear been spotted in the past eight months. Why did this bear travel such a large distance away from its natural habitat?"

The men scratched their head in confusion. They hadn't even considered the matter; they had been too busy trying to stay alive.

"There's a chance it was driven here by a predator. A predator powerful enough to chase it. Look at these wounds on its body." He pointed at wounds inflicted by Rui's Stinger. "I did not give it those, and they're quite fresh as well." The man gruffly spoke. "Be careful when you head out for tomorrow's hunting, take more men."

The men gulped in fear at those words.

Vranil turned back to the corpse of the bear. "Drain and skin the corpse. Its meat can be of use."

He turned around at those words, heading back to his quarters.

"Yes sir!"

If Rui had been able to hear and understand their conversation, he would have been grinning ear-to-ear.

Everything was proceeding as he had forseen. All of it.

Rui's plan to chase the bear was not just to see Vranil fight, it was also part of his plan to eventually take down the gang, all without a single casualty to the village. He intended to complete this mission as cleanly as possible.

If the gang members came to believe that there potentially was a predator in the forests powerful enough to hunt even mid-grade Apprentice-level bear, then would they suspect a Martial Artist when Rui killed all their hunting gang members in the forest tomorrow?

Furthermore, once all those hunting gang members did die in his hands tomorrow, would they foolishly send more ordinary humans? Or would they send in a Martial Artist instead?

Into the forest, misbelieving he was fighting a dumb beast instead of a superhumanly smart Martial Artist.