Jin lay perfectly flat on the high branch. He peered through the gap in the broad green leaves. He watched the mud clearing far below.
Four men walked into the sunlight. They did not look like soldiers. They did not wear clean imperial uniforms. They were rough, dirty, and heavily armed.
They wore mismatched armor. One man wore a chest plate made from a giant beetle shell. Another wore rusted steel shoulder guards over a stained leather coat. They carried heavy weapons. Jin saw long, jagged bone swords and thick plasma rifles slung over their backs.
Jin focused on their faces. They were ugly. They were covered in thick burn scars and crude bio-mechanical implants. One man had a metal jaw that clicked loudly when he chewed on a piece of dried root.
They were laughing.
It was not a friendly sound. It was harsh and cruel. It sounded like wild dogs fighting over a fresh kill. Malice dripped from their expressions. They looked like men who killed for money and enjoyed the work.
Jin felt a heavy physical pressure radiating from them. It pushed against his chest even from high up in the tree.
"They are strong," Jin whispered. He barely moved his lips.
Nyx lay next to him. She looked down at the men through her cracked obsidian visor.
"They are Peak Core Formation," her telepathic voice echoed in his mind. "Level nine. All four of them. They are one step away from condensing a Nascent Soul."
Jin felt a cold sweat on the back of his neck.
He was Foundation Level 4. These men were an entire major realm and five levels above him. If he had walked out to ask them for directions, they would not have even used their weapons. One of them could have crushed Jin's skull with a single, lazy backhand.
Nyx was right. His Earth logic was a death sentence here. He needed to stop trusting his old instincts.
Down in the clearing, the four men did not stop to rest. The leader, the man with the metal jaw, pointed his bone sword toward the thickest part of the jungle. He shouted a command in a rough, guttural dialect. The other three men grunted in agreement.
They started walking again. They did not try to be quiet. They hacked through the thick vines with their heavy swords. They trampled over the glowing ferns. They knew they were the apex predators in this sector of the jungle.
Jin watched them disappear into the dark green shadows. The sound of their heavy boots faded slightly.
He started to push himself up from the bark. He thought they were just going to wait in the tree until the men were completely gone.
Nyx grabbed his shoulder. She pressed him back down.
"We follow them," she stated in his mind.
Jin looked at her. "Why? You just said they would kill me."
"They will kill you if they see you," Nyx corrected him. "We will not let them see us. They are hacking a clear path through the dense brush. They are saving us energy. More importantly, they are human mercenaries. They do not live in the wild permanently. They came from a settlement, and they will return to one."
Jin understood. They were going to use the murderers as tour guides.
Nyx stood up on the branch. She checked the Aether-seal around Jin. It was still strong. It completely masked his scent.
She dropped off the massive branch. She fell silently through the air and landed in the mud clearing. Jin followed her a second later. He climbed down the thick hanging vines. He was clumsy and slow, but his Level 4 muscles made the descent much easier than it would have been yesterday.
He hit the ground. His boots sank into the black mud.
Nyx pointed a black-gloved finger forward. She moved into the dark jungle, following the wide trail of chopped vines and broken branches the mercenaries left behind.
Jin followed her.
The tracking lasted for hours. It was a grueling, miserable process.
The sun climbed higher into the sky. The heat inside the jungle became suffocating. The air was so thick with humidity that Jin felt like he was breathing hot water. Sweat poured down his face. It stung his eyes and soaked his torn silk shirt.
He was incredibly thirsty. His throat felt like it was coated in dry sand. Every time he swallowed, it hurt.
But he did not complain. He did not ask to stop.
He watched Nyx. She was teaching him how to survive without speaking a single word. He watched where she placed her feet. She never stepped on dry twigs. She never brushed against the large, hollow seed pods that made loud rattling noises. She stepped only on soft mud and damp moss.
Jin copied her every move. He placed his heavy leather boots exactly in her footprints. He moved slowly and deliberately.
They trailed the four men from a safe distance of two hundred yards. They stayed entirely in the deep shadows of the massive trees. If the men stopped walking, Nyx raised her fist. Jin froze instantly. When the men started hacking through the brush again, Nyx lowered her fist, and they moved.
Half a day passed like this.
Jin's legs trembled with exhaustion. His stomach cramped from hunger. The Aether-rich snake meat he ate before sunrise was completely burned up by the intense physical exertion. He was running on pure willpower.
Suddenly, Nyx stopped. She crouched low behind a massive, rotting tree stump.
Jin dropped to his knees right behind her. He peered over the wet wood.
The four mercenaries had stopped moving. They stood at the edge of a deep, rocky ravine. The jungle cleared out here, replaced by jagged grey stones and small pools of stagnant water.
The men spread out. They unslung their heavy plasma rifles. The leader drew his jagged bone sword. They were looking down into the bottom of the ravine.
A low, rumbling growl echoed up the rocky walls.
A massive beast stepped out from a dark cave at the bottom of the ravine. It was a terrifying monster. It looked like a giant, mutated bear, but its flesh was covered in thick, overlapping plates of dark grey iron. Spikes of solid bone protruded from its spine. It was a low-tier Core Formation beast.
The mercenaries did not look scared. They looked greedy.
The fight started instantly.
It was brutal and entirely one-sided. The iron-plated bear charged up the rocky slope. The mercenaries opened fire. Bright blue plasma bolts slammed into the beast's heavy armor. The heat melted the iron plates, exposing the raw red muscle underneath.
The beast roared in agony. It swiped a massive paw, shattering a boulder next to one of the men.
But the men were Peak Core Formation. They were too fast and too experienced. They surrounded the blinded, burning beast. The leader stepped in close. His bone sword glowed with a sickly green Aether. He swung the blade with massive force.
The sword cut clean through the bear's thick neck. The heavy, iron-plated head hit the rocks with a loud crash. The massive body collapsed.
Jin watched from the tree stump. He felt sick. The violence was so casual. It took the men less than a minute to butcher a monster that could have wiped out an entire city block on Earth.
The mercenaries laughed loudly. The leader wiped the green Aether and the blood off his bone sword.
They walked down to the dead carcass. They did not care about the meat. They were looking for something specific. One of the men used a plasma torch to cut open the bear's heavy chest plate. He reached his armored hands inside the steaming chest cavity.
He pulled out a glowing, dark grey crystal. It was the beast's Aether core.
"Got it," the man yelled. He held the crystal up in the sunlight. "It's intact. The density is good."
The leader with the metal jaw grinned. "Perfect. The Guildmaster will pay a premium for an Iron-Bear core. That client in the Canopy tier has been waiting three weeks for this specific mutation."
"What about the bone spikes?" another man asked. He kicked the dead beast's spine.
"Leave them," the leader ordered. "They are too heavy to carry back on foot. The core is all we need to complete the guild mission. We got our bounty. Pack it up."
The man shoved the glowing grey core into a thick leather pouch on his belt.
Jin listened closely to their rough voices. He picked up the key words. Guildmaster. Client. Bounty.
These men worked for a Mercenary Guild. That meant they were operating out of an established settlement or an outpost. They had a destination.
The four men did not linger in the bloody ravine. The smell of the dead bear would attract larger predators soon. They turned around. They faced a different direction, away from the deep jungle and toward the west.
"Let's go," the leader grunted. "I want a hot meal and a cold drink by nightfall. The outpost is only a few hours from here."
They started walking. They moved fast, eager to claim their reward.
Nyx turned her head. She looked at Jin crouching in the mud.
"They are returning to their outpost," Nyx stated in his mind. "The tracking phase is almost over. We follow them to the edge of the settlement, then we break off."
Jin nodded. His dry, cracked lips formed a small, tired smile.
A settlement meant a comms terminal. It meant he could find out exactly where they were on the planet. It meant he could plot a real route to the Genesis Zenith Academy.
He pushed himself up off the wet ground. His legs ached, but the hope of a cold drink and a safe wall gave him a final burst of energy.
Nyx moved into the shadows. Jin followed her. They trailed the four laughing murderers back toward civilization.