Chapter 679: Young Blood Trials
The small Predator drop ships descended like silent meteorites, scattering deep into the vast jungles of Pandora.
The hatches slid open, and seven Young Blood warriors drew in deep breaths of Pandora's spore-rich air. The sensors beneath their bio-masks rapidly analyzed the atmospheric composition and biological signatures.
They dispersed, blending into the dense, bioluminescent vegetation as seamlessly as drops of water merging into the ocean.
Their primary objective was to acclimate to the environment and conduct preliminary hunts to hone their skills, all while searching for any clues tied to Celtic's death.
The Pandoran jungle offered an abundant bounty of prey.
Mountain Banshees, Viperwolves... a variety of agile and ferocious creatures became the perfect targets for them to practice their stealth, tracking, and killing techniques.
The faint hum of plasma casters and the sharp whistle of wristblades slicing through the air occasionally echoed from isolated corners of the jungle.
A Viperwolf, right in the middle of hunting a fan lizard, had just sunk its teeth into its prey's neck when a searing beam of light struck its skull with pinpoint precision, carbonizing it instantly.
Not far away, a Young Blood slowly decloaked from his active camouflage. He walked over to the Viperwolf's corpse, cleanly severed its iconic jawbone with his wristblade, and fastened it to his trophy belt.
It was his first trophy. Though insignificant, it marked the beginning of his hunt.
However, the Pandoran jungle was no docile hunting ground.
The wildlife here was not only ferocious but possessed unexpectedly lethal traits.
One Young Blood, attempting to hunt a swarm of relatively small but extremely aggressive Stingbats, severely underestimated the sheer madness and volume of their pack tactics.
Although he swung his wristblades and combi-stick to strike down several, a few breached his guard. Their razor-sharp bone spurs left deep gouges in the armor joints at his shoulder and thigh, causing dark green blood to slowly seep out.
He was forced to trigger a wide-area bombardment with his plasma caster just to scatter the relentless little predators. However, the violent energy fluctuation exposed his position, forcing him to rapidly relocate.
Another Young Blood encountered something far more bizarre.
He had tracked a seemingly lumbering Hammerhead Titanothere into a zone densely packed with massive, bizarre purple fungi.
The moment he initiated his attack, the surrounding fungi suddenly erupted, spewing massive clouds of hallucinogenic spores.
His bio-mask sensors blared a piercing alarm, but it was too late.
His vision began to warp, and incomprehensible whispers echoed in his ears. He hallucinated the deceased Celtic waving to him from within the spore mist.
Swinging his weapons frantically, he attacked the phantoms until his combi-stick embedded itself deeply into the stalk of a giant mushroom, snapping him awake.
Panting heavily, he rapidly retreated from the zone, his heart pounding with residual dread.
The lethality of Pandora's ecosystem far exceeded the records in their database.
They quickly realized that this forest harbored apex predators that even they should not lightly provoke.
At one point, two Young Bloods moving as a pair advanced cautiously along a stream winding through colossal spiral plants.
The moist scent of soil and vegetation in the air was abruptly shattered by an overwhelming stench of blood and lethal danger.
A massive Sturmbeest was lowering its head to drink, completely oblivious to the death lurking in the shadows.
The next second, a pitch-black silhouette plunged from the high rock wall like a demon!
It was the apex predator of the Pandoran food chain—the Thanator.
Its movements possessed zero wasted effort. Its massive frame displayed terrifying coordination and explosive power in mid-air, its trajectory suffocatingly precise.
The Sturmbeest only had time to let out a short, terrified squeal before the Thanator's front claws—capable of tearing through reinforced alloy—clamped onto its neck and spine like iron vises.
The immense kinetic impact slammed the Sturmbeest into the water, sending spray high into the air.
The Thanator's massive, tooth-filled maw followed instantly, biting down on the prey's vitals with surgical precision. The dull crunch of shattering bone was clearly audible even from a distance.
The entire process took merely seconds. It was lightning-fast and ruthlessly decisive.
A perfect amalgamation of berserk power and highly efficient killing technique, without a single wasted motion.
The two Young Bloods froze in place. Acting almost entirely on reflex, they both triggered their cloaking fields to maximum output, suppressing their energy signatures and vitals to the absolute minimum. Like two silent stones, they pressed themselves tightly behind a massive tree root, barely daring to breathe.
Their sharp eyes peered through their camouflage, locked dead onto the pitch-black Thanator enjoying its kill. Only after the beast dragged the lifeless Sturmbeest carcass back into the dense depths of the jungle with slow, powerful strides did the suffocating oppressive aura finally dissipate.
The two waited in silence for a while longer. Upon confirming the area was secure, they dropped their cloaks. A nearly inaudible exhale, tinged with lingering awe, escaped from beneath their masks.
"That... is a true hunter," one Young Blood whispered over their encrypted comm channel, a trace of unmistakable reverence in his voice.
"An Elder-tier target... not something we can challenge right now," the other replied, his gaze still fixed on the direction the Thanator had vanished.
They knew perfectly well that with their current experience and loadouts, challenging a Thanator was tantamount to suicide.
Only the most seasoned Elders in the clan, equipped with the most devastating weaponry, possessed the qualifications and capability to hunt such a terrifying creature alone.
Consequently, after completing their initial environmental acclimation and collecting a few basic trophies, the Young Bloods shifted their focus entirely toward the core objective of this expedition: the Vengeance Hunt.
They began consciously scanning for traces of sapient life activity.
They quickly locked onto two primary targets: the blue-skinned native species utilizing primitive weaponry but deeply connected to the forest (the Na'vi), and the outsiders wielding energy weapons who had constructed a massive metal fortress (the RDA).
Several Young Bloods stealthily approached the perimeter of the Omaticaya clan's new home—the Land of Chants.
Hiding behind massive spiral-leaf plants and bioluminescent moss, they observed the Na'vi settlement built around the colossal Hometree.
They tracked the patrol routes of the Na'vi warriors, witnessed their deep bond with the Ikrans, and sensed the faint but immensely expansive spiritual fluctuation radiating from the massive Hometree itself.
"Target concentration zone. Defensive grid... integrated with nature, unknown energy field interference present," a recon-designated Young Blood transmitted the intelligence back.
They decided to initiate a probing attack.
A lone Na'vi hunter, inspecting fish traps near the edge of the river valley, became their target.
A plasma beam shot toward him silently. Yet, just as the beam was about to strike, the hunter seemed to sense it intuitively. He threw himself forward and to the side. The beam grazed his shoulder, scorching his skin and a portion of his garments.
The hunter let out a warning shout, rolling nimbly to his feet. He drew his bow and scanned the surrounding jungle with extreme vigilance.
Almost simultaneously, two Na'vi warriors patrolling nearby on Ikrans arrived swiftly, with more warriors rushing over from the direction of Hometree.
Seeing the ambush had failed and noting the rapid enemy reinforcement, the Young Blood immediately utilized his active camouflage to exfiltrate, refusing to get bogged down in an extended engagement.