My Last Hunt

Quest For Three Stones (29)

Zunal;

Hunting the wandering monster

Walking on the barren land they were moving toward the rocky hill miles away. Qiao has the responsibility to restrain the attention of the stone at any cost while the hunter king would try his best to find out the hidden place of the stone. As they were moving toward the denser place; not only the aura was getting stronger also the unknown layer was protecting. It must be protecting layer created by the stone for safety measures against the powerful hunters. That was true; it was necessary to keep away the threat. 

The hunter since decided to face the stone so his mind was constantly thinking how to tackle if the stone has created stronger layers around the hidden dwelling. He was also rummaging about few precious and rare stones with him as to which one can be helpful in case a direct attack. There were various types of the stones according to the characteristics of the monster bearing it. Being a hunter king he has few stones of level seven and four level eight stones with him. Two of level eight were attack type and other two were defense type. Most of level seven stones were attack type. 'I can use level seven stones for berserk attack in case the stone found our advancement and if it attacked then I will use the defense type stones for instance the present physique strength could not bear it' the hunter king reflected his plan.

He could see the young hunter was busy to control his own consciousness and fighting against the stone. It was shocking revelation for him that the young hunter was consistent and able to fight against the infinity level stone till now. If it was any other hunter of this world then he must have become a roost of the stone. 

There was sure an advantage to be from the advanced world; all the aspects of the advanced world were enough to temper a brain thousand times from the early childhood to young age; since Qiao was now university student he has already witnessed a lot. None of the hunter's brain of this world can match to the advanced world's people; compared to facing the monsters, fighting against the challenges of advanced world were lot more daring and it helped the people from the advanced world to show more resilience as in tough situations. 

Qiao was toughened with his circumstances and the first two stages might not be able to directly affect him perhaps in case the stone was willing to bet everything to kill and stop the advancement. The first layer of illusion began and the hunter king started to walk in front of the young hunter in case the illusion bear at attacks. They were not in the territory of the stone but walking toward the real hidden place so it was bound to be warned expanse unless the stone was ignorant to not create a stronghold around itself but that was impossible. 

The first layer was expanding in hundred miles and a monster which accidently came wandering here was lurking to get rid this confusing place. This monster was the same who dragged Qiao here. Not only had it lost the forest where it used to be happily hiding under the ground also it had constantly been haunted by the illusions which was similar to the never ending torture. It regretted why it took the risk to run behind the whole team and then the bad days began to still playing with its limits. 

It saw the two hunters from afar and there was again an illusion of the same hunter who followed him in this place but then they lost each other. The constant illusions lost its interest to attack the hunter; it thought to mind its own business but then again the beastly instinct compelled to test this again whether it was real or not. The monster ran toward them and the hunter king who was waiting for the first attack of the first layer was not expecting a monster to appear at this mean time. Qiao also recognized the monster but he was not in a situation where he could hunt the monster; his brain was under constant attacks of the stone and sliver of disbursement might waste his effort and render a chance for the stone to break apart the first stratum of his consciousness. 

The damage to the first stratum meant that he was about to lose the real battle. A battle against egoistic stone; would not be his stubbornness questioned seriously if he lost? He solemnly shook his head. His eyes were burning red at this moment because of his hard struggle. The hunter king took this responsibility since the level one layer was not attacking yet. 

The monster's aim was to attack the young hunter and the hunter king shook his head to see this; thinking how many were offended by this hunter. "For now I am available not the otherwise so stop it." The hunter king used one of his level seven attack type stone at the monster with a flip of his hand. From the move of the hunter king one could tell how he took this monster insignificant. The monster was only level five while the hunter king was much more powerful. The attacked stone reached the monster and left no path for retreat though it happened to notice the power of the stone however it does not have the strength to run away from the attack. A sharp red light blinded the vision and blood splattered cutting the body of the monster in several pieces. 

A stone fell right in front of the hunter king. He was not willing to bother himself to bend and pick the stone up instead he rose his hand up in the air and the stone which was flipped to attack the level five monster came back. This was the strength of level seven attack type stone. 

Level seven stones could be used seven times for attack on a level seven or up monster however attacking a level five monster was not big matter much less to bring a sweat. The hunter king put the stone back in his fleece and thought to kick away the level five stone but Qiao gestured him to not do this. As soon as the stone fell in front; Qiao cortically observed the stone and it matched the characteristics of the Zunal stone. The hunter king nodded and handed him the stone. 

Qiao kept it in his fleece. They again started to move toward the destination. Within just a hundred feet the hunter king was alarmed when he saw the first crack appeared in the forehead of the young hunter. It was evidence of the struggle he was going through. The skin was unable to bear the torture and the blood started to seep. It was a small crack however they should keep in mind that they were still in the first layer under the control of the stone. It was sign of threat whether they should think again or go back. The choice was present. 

The blood seeping from the forehead dying red the fair skin makes it a little off nevertheless Qiao did not lose the composure. He occasionally screamed when he felt the piercing needles making way in his consciousness. "There are people who always think that they are controlling everything instead in reality they are being controlled by their hankering for more power and in the end they fall face down; the same way I will see how deck your face down." Qiao spoke when he put his hand on his forehead and saw the blood. 

The hunter sensed some danger and readied the stone for attack. Nothing appeared only the barren land shook for a while creating bigger crevice in the ground; these crevice expanded as far the vision could see and now they cannot walk smooth instead they have to jump from above the open crevices in the ground. "I admit this stone is quite intelligent to create such kind of defense in the first layer and curious what it would be in second layer." Breaking apart the ground was enough to tackle many enemies at once especially if the stone wanted to crush the hunters inside the ground. A sudden crevice can easily do this job for the stone. Slowly the crevices started to change the location by closing and opening. They were jumping to avoid the deep and dark inner space of the broken patches of the ground. 

The changes make it higher level risk to lost balance or fell inside. This was the power of first layer of the infinity level stone; in simple terms it could pull the ground from under the feet of any hunter and he would only open his eyes when it could no more do anything unless the hunter happened to be hunter king. The hunter kings could jump out of the crevice or use any powerful stone for support.