The Fifth Hunt Mark

The level-three Ironback Mountain Badger treated its burrows as its own shell.

When Helian Yuan first approached the entrance, it showed only half its head. He thrust his short spear, and the badger immediately withdrew. The spear tip struck its forehead armor, numbing his right hand with the impact. Then it charged out of another side tunnel and snapped at his ankle.

Every opening in the ground was a tooth it could suddenly grow.

Helian Yuan backed away without pursuing.

He spent half a day identifying seven exits. Three connected to one another, two were false burrows, and the remaining two led to the main den. Blocking every hole was impossible, and smoking the badger out would only drive it deeper underground.

So he would first destroy its safest route.

Before making his move, he tested it twice without causing harm. The first time, he left meat outside the burrows and watched which exit the badger emerged from. The second time, he placed a new stone beside the beast trail to see whether it would change routes in response to the altered surroundings.

The level-three Ironback Mountain Badger did not touch the meat on the first night. On the second, it took a roundabout route through the farthest side tunnel, pushed the new stone down the slope, then turned back to sniff the bait. It did not rely on its shell alone; it also actively removed unfamiliar objects near its den.

Helian Yuan therefore abandoned the idea of burying iron spikes along the main route. The badger would push, dig up, or go around any obstacle that stood out. An effective trap had to make use of a tunnel it had already accepted, not mark out an obvious "danger" on the ground.

He hid loose stones in old cracks in the tunnel roof and laid a rope snare along the tree roots, covering all the freshly turned soil with bone dust already found outside the badger's den. The preparations took two days, longer than the hunt itself.

The hunter with the crossbow on his back watched from a distance and said only, "By the time you're done, it'll have moved dens."

Helian Yuan replied, "If it moves, that still counts as driving it off this slope."

Killing it did not have to be the only objective. If the badger saw through all his preparations and moved away, he would still gain a safe network of burrows for storing things. Precisely because there was a second acceptable outcome, he did not need to take a risk early just to prove he could kill it.

After sunset, the wind shifted north. His planned hiding place would send his scent straight into the burrow, so Helian Yuan moved his position ten paces west and switched to using his left hand to pull the rope. His right arm was reserved for the final thrust; he could not tire it out before the badger exposed a vulnerable spot.

He waited until a layer of frost formed on the beast meat before the badger emerged from the distant side tunnel. As he waited, his injured leg itched in waves, and his shoulders and back stiffened from lying prone for so long. A real hunt was not all about holding a poised, tense stance. Most of the time, it was simply a matter of resisting the urge to move, so that one unnecessary adjustment would not ruin two days of preparation.

Before nightfall, Helian Yuan had placed the bloody beast meat at the bottom of the slope to lure the badger from its den. The level-three Ironback Mountain Badger did not eat it immediately. It circled the meat twice, then sniffed toward the higher ground. It recognized freshly turned soil and the smell of rope.

Helian Yuan hid downwind, waiting until it finally bit into the meat before shooting an arrow from the side.

The arrow struck its back armor and bounced off.

Startled, the badger turned and charged toward the nearest side tunnel.

It was the very one Helian Yuan had loosened beforehand.

When it was halfway inside, its body tugged the rope snare in the roof. Loose stones fell from both sides at once. They missed the badger, but completely sealed the passage ahead. Forced to back out, the level-three Ironback Mountain Badger had barely emerged when Helian Yuan arrived from the side of the slope.

His short spear thrust toward its eye socket.

The badger lowered its head, bracing its forehead armor against the spear tip as all four claws dug forward into the ground. It was not as strong as the Ironmane Bear, but its defenses were more concentrated. If Helian Yuan pushed against it head-on, the spear shaft would bend first.

He retreated with the force of its push, drawing the badger toward a sloping patch of ground.

Thinking he could not hold out, the badger moved faster and faster.

Halfway down the slope, Helian Yuan suddenly released the short spear, seized a hemp rope he had buried beforehand, and yanked it down. Three round stones rolled down the slope. Rather than striking its back armor, they slammed into the ground behind and to either side of the badger, squeezing it into a stone channel where it could only move forward.

The badger could not turn around.

It continued forward, only to find a steep drop at the end.

As it fell, the joint between its belly armor and foreleg was exposed.

"Come on!"

A tiger shadow covered Helian Yuan's shoulders and arms.

In the first breath, he leaped down from the side of the slope.

In the second breath, his short spear used the force of his fall to stab into the vulnerable spot.

In the third breath, the badger rolled, bending the spear shaft beneath its back armor.

Helian Yuan did not stubbornly try to save the weapon. He let go at once and grabbed the edge of the stone channel to avoid the rolling beast. The level-three Ironback Mountain Badger tumbled to the bottom, the spear blade widening the wound in its belly, yet it still struggled toward the nearest burrow.

Helian Yuan followed to within two paces but did not summon the shadow again. He picked up a sharp stone and repeatedly smashed it into the open wound until the badger stopped moving.

The short spear's shaft was slightly bent, and its iron covering had been worn through. Victory had not come from one clean, impressive strike. He had first deprived it of its burrows, then made a gap briefly appear in its shell.

After the badger died, the burrow complex did not immediately fall quiet. Faint sounds like those of young beasts came from deep within the main den, then quickly stopped. Helian Yuan raised his torch and saw two smaller sets of claw prints, but did not pursue them. Hunting a level-three magical beast that occupied a beast trail and wiping out every living creature in its den were two different things.

He sealed the main entrance with rubble, leaving only enough room for the young beasts to pass. This would keep other predators from immediately entering without burdening the stone hollow with another responsibility. If the young survived, they would find another den; if they did not, that too would be an outcome of Sunken Bone Slope itself, rather than his deliberately expanding the slaughter for one more hunt mark.

This took extra time and left more of his scent behind. Helian Yuan therefore gave up returning to the spring that day and went to rest on the more distant northern slope, avoiding the risk of the level-four Blue Rock Panther following the blood trail to his usual dwelling.

As Helian Yuan skinned the badger, he carved a fifth hunt mark on the inside of the hide.

He left a small gap between the fifth hunt mark and the first four. It was not for appearance's sake, but to remind himself that this victory had depended on two days of preparation, his assessment of the tunnels, and a spear that was almost ruined. If he remembered only that final thrust in the future, he would mistake preparation for luck in the next fight.

After making the mark with his knife, he did not linger long. The Gray-Robed Retrieval Team would enter the mountains in three days. He needed the Magic Crystal Core to trade for medicine, and he also needed to clean up the traces left in this hunting ground.

The main den was piled with hard objects the badger had collected: bones, broken blades, pieces of iron, and several stones worn smooth. An old iron ring lay beneath them all.

The iron ring was thicker than a wrist. Its inner surface had been polished bright by prolonged friction, while most of the markings on its outer side had been filed away. Helian Yuan washed it clean and could still make out a line of incomplete characters.

"Assign a number after retrieval."

Not "retrieve after assigning a number."

First retrieval, then numbering.

That was the reverse of the order he had previously assumed. Perhaps the numbers were not assigned when the magical beasts entered the hunting ground, but reassigned after some kind of retrieval was completed.

There was also a broken hinge on one side of the iron ring, and it was close in size to the old chain on the level-four Azure-Scaled Water Python's tail. The badger's den had evidently once been used to store or discard retrieval equipment.

Helian Yuan did not take the entire iron ring. It was too heavy, and too likely to make noise as he walked. He used his hunting knife to saw off a small section where the inscription was clearest, then buried the rest again at the bottom of the den.

As he emerged from the burrow, a low growl came from the stone wall to the east.

The level-four Blue Rock Panther stood on high ground, its head lowered as it sniffed the scent of blood.

It did not come down the slope. It only used a foreclaw to scratch a fresh mark into the stone.

That mark crossed directly over the two slanting lines Helian Yuan had left the day before.

The stronger master of the hunting ground had seen his mark.