The Primal Hunter

Chapter 1158 - A Day In Holstred’s Life Full of Surprises

Holstred held a hand on his sword as he flew through the dense forest alongside the rest of his fellow officers. The former Knight Commander and slave made a hand motion, telling the scout beside him to move forward and see if he could spot any of their targets.

Right as the scout moved forward, Holstred felt a great release of energy in the distance, making his eyes open wide. “Defenses!”

A beam of pure flames shot towards the scout in the front, the man unable to react in time. Luckily for him, Holstred was as he used a skill to instantly teleport in front of the man and summoned a shield of energy.

The fire beam exploded upon impact, setting the surrounding forest aflame. Lowering his shield, Holstred looked ahead. “We’re close... I believe that was a trap of some kind.”

“A magic circle was placed on a tree roughly nine kilometers in that direction,” a ranger in his group said, having located the source of the attack successfully.

“That means we’re close,” Holstred nodded as he took out a token. “I’ll inform him. Continue onwards and locate the enemy camp before it’s too late.”

“Yes, sir,” the group of officers said in unison as they all began moving forward once more, adopting a defensive formation in case they found themselves attacked again.

Holstred was currently leading a group to apprehend: or more realistically, slay: a group of criminals who had lately caused trouble in a mid-sized city on Earth. While the details weren’t perfectly clear yet, it appeared they were all servants of some god who’d tried to gain influence and create a foothold on the planet. They had done a pretty decent job, too, having taken over an entire city with over two million citizens.

Miranda had responded by sending a team of her own to investigate and have a discussion with the City Lord. It was from there that things hadn’t gone well. Again, the details were vague, but the end result was that all seven people in the negotiation team were publicly executed by the City Lord, all of them accused of being heretics.

The City Lord had likely wanted to accomplish something with these executions, but it evidently hadn’t gone as planned. Despite the City Lord and the followers of the yet unknown god being in control of most parts of the city, there were still officials related to the World Council present.

What could only be described as an internal civil war began within the city, leading to more executions and murders before spiralling into public conflict in the streets. At that point, the situation had become untenable, and Miranda had stepped in with force, sending Holstred and his team of officers.

However, when they arrived in the city, the City Lord and higher-ups of the unapproved religion had taken off. They’d set up a secret teleportation circle that, from an initial analysis, was supposed to take them off the planet, but Miranda had stopped them using her remote control over the Pylon of Civilization. Each Pylon had the ability to disturb teleportation, and coupled with the planet-spanning barrier that also worked to do the same thing, it had put a stop to their plans.

Using the space mage as part of Holstred’s team, they tracked the City Leader and his coconspirators and followed their teleportation as best they could. That had now led them to this situation where they were actively tracking the enemy, and from the looks of it, the other side had indeed been well prepared.

They encountered several more traps that slowed them down, making it clear the other party always had this as a backup plan, as there was no way all of these traps had just been placed.

Moreover, they were in one of the areas still considered unexplored territory on Earth. It was one of the areas considered quite dangerous due to how prolific C-grades were, and only those considered elite dared enter.

Holstred had been slightly hesitant going, but having already used his communication totem, he felt a lot better about the situation should things go wrong.

Continuing the pursuit, one of the scouts soon notified him that auras had been detected not too far away.

“Prepare yourselves,” Holstred said in a calm voice. “Assume they’ll resist.”

After saying this, he also detected the auras. Their entire group slowed down slightly as they broke through the treeline and saw a large circular grass and tree-covered mound appear before them.