The Martial Unity
chapter-152

Generally, predators were too hungry to bother in doing anything else asides from consuming their meal once they hunted their prey. These beasts were already entirely lacking in any significant self-awareness and self-restraint to be able to resist their hedonistic urges. In a state of heightened hunger, it was almost certain that consuming their prey to satiate their hunger would be their priority.

Apparently, the target of his mission disagreed. He knew the carcasses were likely the remnant of the target of his mission. They did match the intelligence provided to him.

The intelligence provided by the Ministry of Ecology and Environment stated clearly that the target devoured almost every ounce of flesh of the carcasses of its prey. The pictures provided by them matched the sight of the carcasses he saw.

Rui sniffed the air. There was a faint acidic odour in the air, this also matched the traces of a corrosive acid detected on the carcass and the soil beneath. The Ministry of Ecology and Environment had concluded that the beast target of the mission likely had an acidic saliva that it used to aid in the digestion of the carcasses of its prey.

If that was the case, then Rui had genuinely begun to give more credibility to his first conjecture that the beast was able to consume the carcasses of its prey at an incredibly rapid speed. Acidic substances were able to degenerate and decompose organic matter incredibly fast and thoroughly.

Still, there were many more oddities at the scene.

Rui looked around the environment and the corpses, frowning.

There were several things of note.

First, this was a section of the Shaia plains with very few trees and only short grass. Meaning it was an open part of the plains. It was basically impossible to hide.

The second thing Rui was paying attention to was the ground. It was comprised of clayey-mud with high-silt saturation, the type that would retain foot prints quite well.

He could see hoof-prints that matched what one would expect from six-legged deer. But what surprised him was that there weren't any footprints of the predator in the distance that led to the carcasses.

So how did the predator reach them in the middle of this open field without leaving any footprints on the way?

('So, it hunted the deer in the middle of this open field where every step left a footprint, even moreso when you're moving faster and stepping harder, without leaving any trail of footprints?') Rui frowned.

Rui closed his eyes as he processed through all the information available.

There were several straightforward conjectures to be made with the intelligence provided by the Ministry of Environment and Ecology as well as his own observations and deductions.

The fact that there were no footprints visible entering and exiting open plain mean that either they were never there, or they had been erased.

The latter seemed too absurd, a predator beast erasing its own tracks? Furthermore, even if it erased its own tracks, how did un-crush the grass that something of its size and power would doubtlessly crush on its way in?

Furthermore, why didn't it erase its footprints from when it rested and consumed its prey?

Rui shook his head; it was far too unlikely in the face of the other option.

The other option was that the tracks had never been made at all.

This directly followed with two of the least absurd options; The first option was that it had the ability to fly, glide or float, to some extent.

The second was that it was deceptively light, and thus did not create a trail of trampled grass and footprints.

He had considered whether this place just happened to be the primary habitat and home of the animal and the deer had unwittingly stumbled upon it, which seemed to be the most plausible and reasonable option at first, but how did it leave without leaving any footprints?

It's not as though the other options were without issues. If it was light? Why did set footprints after entering? Rui wondered about this as he stared at a stange footprint he had seen among the hoof-prints of the deer that matched the descriptions of the creature, and probably belonged to the target of the mission.

That left flight, which wasn't inherently weird as a possibility, wings were extremely common in the animal kingdom, after all. But none of the eye-witness accounts mentioned any wings. Furthermore, the beast was immensely elusive to ordinary forest surveyors of the Ministry of Ecology and Environment apparently.

How could a big beast that travelled by flying in the air possibly be elusive? Travelling birds in an open sky were among the easiest things to spot, and birds were far smaller and inconspicuous than an apex predator flying around in the sky.

"Something's not adding up." Rui muttered. He wasn't able to figure out what.

It could be that the beast just had some esoteric capabilities that gave it some abnormal and unconventional degree of stealth. Maybe intangibility, though that would beg the question why it was ever sighted at all.

Or why the deer clearly showed a running pattern that indicated they could see their pursuer.

Rui documented his findings using the eco-survey device that the Ministry of Ecology and Environment had given him for situations just like this.

As he continued his grid searching, he ran into multiple odd instances where traces of a hunt occurred or a trace of the predator could be seen.

He also ran into corpses left behind by the native predators of the Shaia Plains, species of the big cats, that normally hunted the herbivorous species of the Shaia Plains. In these cases, he was able to deduce what had happened from the environment around the corpse, fairly straightforwardly with no logical discrepancies.

As time passed, he managed to grid search a decent portion of the land, which he could conclude were not the primary home to the beast.

Soon, dusk came, and he prepared for a night of dynamic surveillance. Hopefully he would run into the beast tonight.