Bear School Astartes-Chapter 699 - 682. Metamorphosis

As the scoutflies illuminate more and more tracks, Lann and Little Jack are getting a better understanding of their target.

Analyzing the state of prey based on its tracks is a skill hunters possess.

Although Little Jack doesn’t have Lann’s intellect for superhuman-level detailed observation and analysis.

He was part of a team that successfully hunted the Barbaric Jaws Dragon as a New Continent Hunter. It was because of this achievement that the Commander-in-Chief sent him as an assistant to enhance the mission’s success rate.

’Using clumsy hunters as just headcounts only decreases the mission’s success rate,’ the Commander-in-Chief understands this very well.

Sending Little Jack was a recognition of his grandson’s hunting skills.

The fierce claw scar running from the side of the neck to the corner of his mouth was not for show but honors earned from battling monsters.

Now, the two are at mid-to-lower sections of a big tree, fiddling with something using their hunting knives.

The sound of steel flipping over the sticky gelatinous substance is slippery and unpleasant.

It’s a clump of gelatinous material rubbed onto the tree trunk, showing a murky yellow-green color with a spark scent when sniffed closely.

Lann wipes the Dragonbone Dagger against nearby leaves, cleaning its Valerian steel blade of the sticky substance.

"The flammable matter in its body is quite abundant... it’s high-energy."

The Demon Hunter muttered to himself, speaking.

This is somewhat of an occupational mannerism of Demon Hunters while working.

These sticky residues on the tree trunk are a part of the Barbaric Jaws Dragon’s ecological habits. It’s the excessive secretion from its nasal cavity.

It can also be called snot.

The Barbaric Jaws Dragon will rub to clean the abundant secretion in its nasal cavity and use this secretion as a territorial mark.

While spitting fire, in most cases, it actually expels sparks from its nostrils, and thus the snot contains flammable materials.

However, analyzing these tracks is actually just routine work.

This habit of the Barbaric Jaws Dragon was long unraveled by the New Continent Expedition Team over decades of work.

What truly caught Lann and Little Jack’s attention was the strange mark behind the snot clump.

It’s an impact mark, with a strong and mighty force, but the location of the impact doesn’t seem intended for an attack.

Therefore, it left only an impression with compressed, deformed, and splintered wood but wasn’t completely destroyed into sawdust.

In terms of timing, the impact mark and snot mark seem to have occurred almost simultaneously.

And of course, the Barbaric Jaws Dragon wouldn’t tolerate a creature making an aggressive move (tree collision) nearby while marking its territory.

This means both marks belong to the Barbaric Jaws Dragon.

"If we estimate the Barbaric Jaws Dragon’s size from the height of the snot, then the impact location... is its side waist?"

Familiar with the Barbaric Jaws Dragon, Little Jack measures the two marks with his hands while staring blankly, clearly constructing an image of a Barbaric Jaws Dragon with the appropriate size in his mind based on experience.

"The size is about a circle larger than the Barbaric Jaws Dragon you repelled back then."

Having the height of the snot and the height of the side waist, Little Jack could easily estimate the size of their target this time.

Meanwhile, he was also a bit puzzled.

"But using the side waist to strike a hard surface... this is the first time I’ve seen such a habit in Barbaric Jaws Dragons."

Lann didn’t speak, but he was even more alert in his heart.

Abnormal prey habits often indicate danger for hunters.

The two continued forward guided by the scoutflies. Although the Barbaric Jaws Dragon only represents four-star in the hunters’ mission system.

In the ancient tree forest, only rare monsters like King of the Sky—Male Fire Dragons are above it in the ecological chain.

That’s why it boldly leaves snot as territorial marks in the forest full of predators.

Because ecological chain positions higher than it would hardly bother abandoning easily caught herbivorous dragons to provoke it.

Positions lower often come like delivering meals.

Thus, the Barbaric Jaws Dragon is called a ’bully’ in the forest by hunters.

The further they track this Barbaric Jaws Dragon, the more familiar Lann feels.

And since even Lann, who arrived not long ago, started feeling familiar, there’s no need to mention Little Jack, who grew up in the New Continent.

"This direction is... the path to the Star Gate?"

He muttered, while the familiar feeling that arose in Lann’s heart since knowing the Barbaric Jaws Dragon was prowling around the base reached its peak... at this moment.

The trail led by the scoutflies reached its end, just outside the dense forest, lay a road cleared by the expedition team for vehicle transport.

A Barbaric Jaws Dragon was sharpening its claws on a stone step along that road.

The ’scratch scratch’ sound, monotonous and heavy.

Just like its occasionally exhaled breath.

Carrying a kind of temporarily, forcibly restrained ferocity.

Mentos analyzed the scars and traits on the Barbaric Jaws Dragon’s skin; its biological brain confirmed it was the one Lann repelled on his first day in the New Continent.

On that day, Lann used its own weight and movement to almost detach its thigh from the pelvis.

And now, the nearly dislocated thigh is securely seated in the pelvic cavity and, compared to the intact leg, is even sturdier and more powerful.

Making the two legs somewhat uncoordinated.

It’s back.

Roaming over where it was once repelled, waiting for the enemy that had once repelled it.

A dislocation, for wild animals, is almost a potentially fatal injury.

Because the reduced mobility can lead to failure in hunting.

And even for humans, after dislocation treatment, the dislocated limb would lag behind intact limbs in many aspects.

’What doesn’t kill me makes me stronger’, this saying is wrong in most cases.

Because the self-healing ability of organisms has limits, injured limbs often don’t surpass uninjured ones.

A hurt back isn’t as strong as before, a torn ligament can never be pushed hard again...

This is a common sense of anyone whose work is related to physical activity.

But in this world... ’common sense’ was overturned.

The Barbaric Jaws Dragon should have been hampered by injuries, leading to starvation or disease-death, yet thrived with abundant nutrition thanks to the flourishing ecology of the ancient tree forest.

The debilitating injuries on its body were forcibly twisted by its powerful vitality!

Perhaps accidentally, or intentionally, a collision on the side waist put its nearly dislocated leg bone back into the pelvic cavity.

And in the days that followed, tasting success, it began constantly repeating this collision, eventually turning into a kind of exercise.

The resulting effect of this exercise could almost be termed as ’metamorphosis’.