They were flying over the great plain, until they reached a sparse forest of low trees around noon. Soon they spotted the first Hular snacking on one of the trees. From the air it looked like a gigantic sloth. It not so much climbed trees as it simply ate them in a few bites. Very imposing creatures.
“We'll engage it on the ground, you two attack it from range, so we don't end up hurting each other. I have experience fighting alongside Wu, but I haven't seen any of you fight.” Liu said in a loud voice for everyone to hear. Having taken leadership he added: “If we run into a monstrous beast, retreat and regroup on me.”
Wu and Liu advanced on their flying swords. Their swords plunged into the ground behind the Hular, taking it completely by surprise. It took several deep gashes, just in the process of turning around.
Dave conjured a huge shard of ice and launched it downwards at the Hular. It moved agilely to the side an avoided the shard. Cheng waved her hands around and summoned a construct of yellow lines floating in the air. “Hold it still for a second and I will set it aflame.” She screamed loudly.
Dave launched more shards to box it in and drive it towards Liu and Wu.
One second the Hular was busy fighting for its life, the next its entire pelt lit up in a large bonfire. It fell over, nearly crushing Wu and clawed at its eyes. Liu and Wu descended on it and finished it off.
“Can you use your ice to put out the fire?” Liu asked Dave.
Dave used “Frozen Lotus” at low power, without launching any shards of ice. The others shook off the ice that had formed on their clothes and broke free of the frost that had locked their feet to the ground. “Could've warned us first. That was cold.” Wu complained quietly.
The fire on the Sloth's fur had been extinguished by his blast of cold.
Wu began skinning the Hular, the fur had been burned, the skin was however still intact and he pulled it off in large sections. Dave had a few questions: “What is the skin used for?” Liu answered him: “It can be used for talismans instead of expensive to produce talisman-paper. Ordinarily they send someone to help harvest the Hular with us on this mission, but Wu did a short course on how to harvest their resources, when we were younger.”
Wu was busy breaking off its teeth and stuffing them into his spacial ring, so Dave left him to it and decided to survey the area from above.
He rose to a height of roughly a hundred meters and looked around. Even with his enhanced vision he failed to see another of the gigantic animals. The trees stretched on and on, forming a sparse forest that seemed to get deeper in the distance. There were few clouds in the sky and the sun was peeking through, leaving a chessboard of shadows on the ground below Dave. He took in the view while ignoring the bloody work happening below him.
In the time it took for an incense stick to burn, his companions were done with their bloody task and headed up to meet him.
Dave asked: “How come there aren't more Hular in the surrounding area?”
“They are fiercely territorial and are quick to attack each other, you can often see them walking around with scars from such battles.” Liu answered him while standing relaxed on his sword-shaped flying artifact.
They continued along the area with sparse trees instead of heading deeper into the forest.
“Why are we staying along the edge instead of heading inside the forest?” Dave asked, while being a little confused. “The mission is intended to keep any Hular from wandering into the great plain and getting aggressive as it slowly starves to death. Territorial disputes would otherwise drive them out into the plain, if we did not periodically purge the outer edges,” Liu said before continuing,”the Hular are what makes the northern forest so unattractive to settlers, even though there would be abundant wood for construction and heating.”
“I spotted another one. A small one.” Wu called out from above, as he descended past them towards the ground.
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Instead of being the size of an elephant, this once was the size of a tiger. Liu and Wu flew around and approached it from the back. They rammed the flying artifacts into the ground at a shallow angle and used the additional speed from being flung off to quickly close the distance and deal a surprise attack.
This time it worked less well. They stumbled over a ridge of earth that was being quickly raised by the Hular. “Monstrous beast”, Liu called out while Wu was jumping to his feet. They tried to run back to their sword-shaped flying artifacts, however the Hular was moving speedily to cut them off. Cheng was still winding up for her attack so Dave was the only one who could do anything to prevent Liu and Wu from ending up in the claws of the beast. Dave Launched a stream of icy shards into the area where the Hular would have to enter to attack them, the shards were moving too slowly to target the creature directly, however targeting the area where it would have to go to attack was very much possible. The ice spikes froze the ground around their point of impact, making the terrain even harder to traverse for the beast. Dave wished he had brought a rifle when he arrived in this crazy world. The “Frozen Lotus” technique was more useful when it was being applied in an unavoidable storm of ice. He should have looked for a more specific ranged technique, instead of haphazardly modifying a technique and calling it a day.
While Dave had been saturating the area with ice, Liu and Wu made it back to their flying artifacts and took off. Seeing this, the sloth let out a loud gurgling roar and launched a ball of earth after them. They deftly dodged it and rose to meet Dave and Cheng.
They all retreated a bit, keeping the Hular in their sights.
Dave decided to lead the discussion with: “I can keep peppering it from a distance, eventually it'll get tired and you two can swoop in and finish it.”
Cheng added: “I can help with that, although I cannot do it for a long time.”
“No, we need something that kills it without damaging its leather too much. The leather of a demonic beast like this one is bound to be very valuable.” Liu said while nursing some of the scrapes he got.
“I have a more powerful attack, but I need to be alone and close to it. It's risky for me.” Dave added and complained in the same breath.
“You're already in the beginning stage of core formation. Getting slapped around by a monstrous beast that's, at best, in qi gathering shouldn't hurt you much.” Wu ruthlessly said.
“Okay, I'll do it, but I want whatever that pelt is worth afterwards.”
Dave descended towards the roaring Hular. When he reached the treetops he stealthily jumped from his carpet and gripped onto one of the trees. The large sloth was still roaring its unhappiness towards the sky and Dave avoided immediate detection. He slowly made his way towards where he could hear the Hular roar while staying low to the ground. Meanwhile the others had figured that distracting the beast was a good way to help Dave, so they had started flying around above the Hular, occasionally dodging a ball of earth being thrown their way.
Dave stayed low to the ground and made his his way towards the back of the beast. Luckily, just like sloths on Earth, this beast had front-facing eyes despite not being a predator, so he had a chance to sneak up on it in the first place. He reached its back and blasted it with the maximum amount of qi he could press into the “Frozen Lotus” technique before the technique would change into something different. As he activated it he closed his eyes in prayer.
A sound like a freight train driving past his head erupted around him.
The forest had been decimated. Trees lay pressed to the ground. Everything was covered in a layer of frost and snow. There was very little left of the Hular, just a huge reddish smear on the ground. He did not even feel tired.
He had destroyed the forest in a three hundred meter radius and he did not even feel winded.
Cheng made it down to him: “Are you all right?” She asked politely.
“Yea, I'm fine.” Dave replied reservedly.
“Guess they weren't joking when they told us that core formation level experts were in an entirely different league.” Liu interjected as he reached Cheng.
“Can you guys help me find my flying artifact?” Dave asked as he came out of his stupor.
“It's funny. You asked for the Hular pelt, but now there's nothing left of it.” Wu said in mild schadenfreude.
“Yeah, I guess there isn't. I'll have to make my money in a different way,” Dave sighed, “now let's go and search for my flying carpet.”
Cheng ended up finding the carpet near the edge of the destroyed area, luckily undamaged albeit a little frozen here and there.
The rest of the afternoon was uneventful. They hunted five ordinary Hular before they flew back.
“I'll sell these skins and deliver your shares to your homes if you give me your addresses.” Wu said as they reached the main square with the mission board.
They all gave their assent. Dave had forgotten to remember his address, so he had to describe the house to Wu, before they parted ways.
Dave picked up a two-man mission for exterminating giant wasps near a village in the eastern forest.
Afterwards he went home to Lydia, after having bought her a treat for being well behaved. Dave got her the front left leg of some unknown creature. At least the leg looked vaguely bovine so he hoped she would be okay. It would not be long before she joined him in core formation and would no longer have to eat.