In less than a second, Rui had already made deep gashes across all their bodies, killing them on the spot. He ensured that the length and depth as well as the distance between the gashes was consistent and equal across all bodies.
All of this was to reinforce the idea that a beast had killed them instead of a Martial Artist. If Rui had killed them with his techniques, then it would be quite difficult to believe that a carnivore was responsible for his deaths. Vranil might come to suspect that it was a human.
Suddenly, Rui turned around sharply as Seismic Mapping picked up a powerful seismic signature in the village moving towards his direction at an incredible speed.
(‘It’s time’) He grabbed one of the corpses, slit its throat and sprinting away deeper into the forest an incredible speed, dragging the corpse with him by the arm.
The corpse left a large trail of blood as Rui dragged it along, indicating the path Rui had taken.
Just two seconds later, Vranil arrived at the location of the corpses.
As Rui had predicted.
Rui had ensured that all nine men were screaming as loud as possible, screeching to their absolute limits.
There was no way the Ruyloken Gang failed to hear them, the men must have quickly informed Vranil of the screams and he must have dispatched immediately. That was the reason Rui tortured them before killing them.
All to draw Vranil out from the village.
Hunting a predator in a vast forest was difficult, not just because predators were strong, but because they were also difficult to locate in such a vast amount of area.
However, in this scenario, the predator’s location was largely known. The men walked the same path and hunted in the same area every day. This was a rare chance for Vranil to be able to easily locate and confront the beast immediately.
In Vranil’s mind, if the beast wasn’t dealt with immediately, there would only be more and more casualties as time passed. He intended to kill the beast that threatened to sabotage his operation as soon as possible, he couldn’t let it wander around freely.
Thus, he had immediately sprinted into the forest at top speed when his men informed him of the screams. There was no doubt in his mind that the same beast that had hunted the bear into the village was definitely responsible for killing his men. They were armed to the teeth and would have easily dealt with the ordinary predators of the forest. He was also relatively certain that the beast would not leave the area immediately as it fed on the corpses of his men.
It was the perfect timing.
When he had arrived, his expression rotted as he beheld the corpses of his men with deep gashes that looked like they were mauled by the claws of a big cat predator.
He frowned. (‘Why did it not eat them? Did it kill them for fun?’)
Then he noticed one of them was missing, and soon the trail of blood that Rui had left entered his vision.
Vranil’s eyes widened as he made a deduction. (‘It didn’t eat my men, but it took one of the corpses away with it. The only reason it would do that is if it had cubs or offspring that it wanted to feed!’)
In his mind, this was an excellent and brilliant inference.
(‘I can’t let them survive! If its offspring grow up and populate the forest, we’re fucking screwed!’)
If Rui had been able to hear his thoughts, he would have smirked. Rui had evaluated the probability of Vranil infering the existence of offpsring as around seventy-five percent. Unfortunately, he couldn’t be sure, it would all depend on exactly how smart the man really was. Rui could not know such a thing, but he truly did not think Vranil was stupid.
Thankfully, Vranil was actually quite smart. Smart enough to be completely fooled by Rui.
Vranil did not even hesitate as he followed the trail of blood at top speed. He was confident he could catch up, the fact that the bear managed to escape the beast meant that the beast wasn’t very fast, as long as Vranil chased after the blood as fast as he could, he believed that he should have been able to catch up.
Just as Rui predicted he would.
Everything was going as he had forseen.
“He didn’t react.” Rui murmured, running, as he watched Vranil chasing after him, with Seismic Mapping.
He glanced at the corpse he was dragging.
There was no head.
Where did the head go?
Rui had tossed the head into a large bush five meters side of the trail of blood he was making.
Why did he do that?
He wanted to test Vranil’s sensory capabilities. If Vranil had even decent sensory capabilities, he would have been able to detect the head inside the bush instantly, and most certainly would have atleast reacted differently. After all, why would the predator put the head into a bush?
In order to test distinguish whether one had good senses or not, he nearly needed to create circumstances where someone with good senses would react quite different than someone with bad senses. Then he would be able to tell whether one has good or bad senses based on their reactions.
Rui had done exactly that.
However, Rui could not detect even a single hint of any reaction from Vranil based on the seismic radiation he was giving off. He had not even turned his head, as far as Rui could tell.
“He didn’t react, I guess that means his senses are probably shit.” Rui murmured to himself softly. “Regardless, plan D it is.”
He dragged the corpse into deep a cave that he had scouted earlier and tossed it deep inside.
Vranil arrived ten seconds later, yet he paused as he saw the trail enter into a cave.
“Tsk.” he tutted with irritation as he gritted his teeth.