STRIKER: Independent Beast Tamer

5th Zone, City-A

Jeremy Night reached the border area an hour later. He stopped his journey and began to look for a place to stay.

Then he came across a huge shade tree. He landed on one of the branches. The branch was sturdier and longer.

He used his eye power to observe the place. His eyes spotted many corpses. Their remains were completely eaten; not a piece of flesh was left.

But what shocked him was something else. Right now, he was looking at bird-type beasts over 3 meters in size. As he continued to observe the beasts, he recognized them.

It was the brown vulture, which feeds on the remains of dead beasts. He knew these beasts were rare.

These beasts could be found where there were huge battles. They feed on the remains, so they go looking for such battle sites.

This time, they had arrived in this wilderness. It showed that they were not native to the place. Jeremy Night watched them silently feed on the remains.

His heart stirred. He had underestimated the gravity of the situation. He thought it was a regular beast tide, just that the intensity of the beast tide had increased.

But the remains of this many corrupted beasts and the smell of rotten blood showed the big picture. It showed how terrifying the battle had been.

Jeremy took a few minutes to calm his heart. He needed to figure out the reason behind the frequent beast tides. He couldn’t think of a reason other than a Tier-9 Beast acting as the mastermind.

He thought the situation that had happened at the Special Base was repeating here. But the problem was that he didn’t know whether they had seen the Tier-9 Beast themselves or not.

Jeremy took a deep breath and looked ahead. He decided to travel along the borderline. Maybe he could get clues.

He was expecting a situation similar to the previous time, where the worm beasts hid in the ground for an ambush.

If any Tier-9 Beast was making a move behind the scenes, it must have sent its kin to monitor the wilderness.

As time passed, he began to cover more distance, but he didn’t come across any other clues. Just as he was about to change his mind, his gaze spotted something.

"What the..." He almost cursed, but he stopped himself in the end because he saw a group of Beast Tamers ahead of him.

They were moving discreetly. He watched them cross the border, then saw them enter the unknown land.

Seeing that, Jeremy was taken aback. He knew that it was nothing short of suicidal. Even he didn’t dare to enter the unknown land without thinking.

There were six people. He couldn’t figure out their strength from this distance, but he could track them over a long distance using his eye power.

When they had gone a few hundred meters ahead, he followed them from behind. He crossed the border and stepped into the unknown land.

Jeremy knew that he was taking a bit of a risk at this moment, because the official boundary had ended.

The name "unknown land" itself implies that no one has a map of this place. It was a territory where higher-tier beasts roamed freely.

If not for these people going ahead of him, he wouldn’t have taken the risk. He let go of unnecessary thoughts and continued to follow the group.

Time passed.

They went two miles deep inside the unknown land. The group of six men looked around their surroundings. They were communicating with their own lifeline beasts to avoid danger.

Finally, they seemed to have reached their hideout, an underground hideout located at the foot of a huge bedrock.

The group of men opened the cover and began entering one by one. When the last person entered inside, he closed the top cover.

Jeremy Night watched everything from a distance. He was shocked, because their actions reminded him of the killing organization.

"They are from Darkshade," Jeremy muttered to himself.

He had almost forgotten about them. Other than the Corrupted beasts, he had faced life-threatening situations from them as well.

Now this changed everything. If they were involved, then anything was possible. They could be the ones involved in the beast tides as well.

He recalled the memories of encountering their old hideout. They must have many secret bases as well.

Jeremy didn’t know what to do next. He was making assumptions and needed to verify whether they were involved or not.

If he got closer to the hideout, the chances of their lifeline beasts being alerted were higher. He decided to wait and see from this distance.

He had heard from Sister Melinda that they didn’t know whether the threat was over or not. The beast tides occurred suddenly, catching them off guard.

If they were planning something sinister, he expected them to come out soon.

Jeremy found a tree and waited on top of a branch.

Two hours passed by.

He then saw two people coming out. They looked at each other and discussed something before leaving their hideout.

They were coming in his direction. Seeing this, he retreated and changed direction. He then saw them heading toward the border again.

Jeremy’s eyes flashed with a cold glint. He decided to take them down. Once they got closer to the border, he followed them.

He saw them going in a different direction again. They were not going back to the city; instead, they were heading somewhere else.

He didn’t know whether they were going to their old base, but he decided to stop them before that.

Swoosh!

He didn’t waste time and used "Feathered Steps."

His speed increased. With his eye power, he avoided the obstacles and caught up to them in a few minutes.

He didn’t draw his blade. Instead, he used a close-combat technique. He appeared before them and struck their bodies with punches.

Boom!

The vibration transmitted into their bodies and broke a few of their bones. Before they could realize what had happened, they crashed into the ground.