after approximately 6 hours of sleep, John finally woke up.

He stood up in the underground room that he created and took a deep breath.

He tried to hear and feel the outside.

As soon as he felt it was safe to leave, he used his Matter Manipulator to open a hole that was big enough for John to climb out from the room.

He cautiously looked at his surroundings with his dagger, the Dark Wraith, on his hand.

The dagger glinted with a malicious light as it reflected the light that sent on its way.

John only sheathed the dagger when he felt that there were no threats around him.

*ROARRRRR!*

*RUMBLEEEE*

The ground quaked as the loud roars from beasts resounded throughout the whole landscape.

John had to crouch down to not fall from the sudden quake that came out from nowhere.

"That's some giant beast..." John looked at the distance, from where the sound came.

[Is it the target...?] John wondered.

He immediately took action, he couldn't allow another person to kill it before him. He must be the winner of the Great Hunt.

John jumped from one platform to another.

Some of the platforms he passed through he was able to see some skeletons and dried blood on the ground, there was even some with bodies of Florans that were clearly killed by another Florans since the wounds in their bodies came from primary arrows, spears, and swords.

John only took a quick glance at the bodies, and then proceed to continue in his route.

He felt pity. The way the Florans trained their future warriors surely was bloody and merciless.

They abide by the law of the fittest. Only the strongest would survive while the weak would be nothing more than a pile of bones that was served as a stepping stone for the strong.

In this case, he preferred the way other races treat their young generation. Even the Avians that were highly religious and also a kind of merciless and warrior race, they weren't as bad as the Florans.

The Florans only know how to value two things, strength and intelligence. It had neither of them, you were as good as dead, in their eyes.

Warriors and Greenfingers, they were the only two types of Florans. Any other talent was deemed as useless to them.

Of course, they were at least better than a few centuries, or decades ago, when they abandoned any child that was unable to become any of the two specializations.

It was only with the rise of the Greenfinger's Council, that the Florans had started to finally appreciate other types of talents so that their civilization could flourish and, at the same time, avoid being influenced by the culture of the other races...

John stopped his stray thoughts when suddenly felt like being watched.

He paused in his tracks and scanned his surroundings, yet, he was unable to see a single soul.

*Swishhhh*

An arrow just went past his head, centimetres away from his cheeks.

It John hadn't been fast enough to incline his head to the side, he would have been killed the arrow.

John took his bow and notched an arrow on it while he glared at the position the arrow had come from.

The Floran that he was against this time was a lot more experienced than the previous one that he faced.

This time, the Floran knew how to hide his/her killing intent, making difficult for John to located from where exactly the arrow came from...

Just as John lifted his bow and aimed, he felt the shadow of death looming from his left side.

*Swish*

A new arrow came directly toward John.

John tried to dodge, but...

*Puchi*

He was able to evade the fatal strike by twisting his body, but the arrow still pierced him in the left arm.

Blood gushed out from the injury.

Even though the shirt he was using was rather strong, it was incapable of blocking such a strong arrow. If even with the metal plate over his chest and back, he still felt the looming of death, how could a mere fabric block such arrow?

[Two enemies..... probably more...] John bit his lips as he felt the pain on his arm intensifying.

*Drip, drip, drip...*

Drops of John's blood fell on the stone beneath him, creating a small scarlet puddle.

He stood there, silent while he scanned his surroundings, searching for his enemies.

John was unable to determine their position despite the clarity of the place that he was.

The Floran hunters were being very calm and tricky. They didn't follow with another strike since they missed two times in a row.

They were waiting, waiting for an opportunity to deal the death blow.

Their calmness only incited John. He had to hurry and investigate what was that roar that he heard sooner.

"Huh?" He suddenly felt something on his arm.

He tried to move it, but he felt that it had gone numb and was barely responding to John's thoughts.

[Poison!] John immediately realized that he had been hit by a poisoned arrow.

Luckily for John, the poison was way weaker than that found on Batongs since the poison was only able to create some kind of numbness around the place it had been in touch.

[They are waiting for the poison to take effect...] John's face darkened as he saw that he was in a bad position.

He switched his sight and looked a certain place, 40 meters away from where he was.

With one arm numb, it was impossible to use the bow, so John immediately placed it back into his PIPS.

As he stored the bow, John secretly retrieved something from the PIPS.

It was a beautiful, colourful feather, but it gleamed with sharpness.

John took three Razor Feathers from the birds that he had killed on the same planet he found the Batongs.

He hid the feathers with his sleeves as he watched, waiting for their next move.

By now they should have realized that the poison had already taken effect, but the Florans were still being careful and waited for a few extra seconds before going for their next move.