Damian as he was about to be slammed into a tree activated the Flame Burst Skill and launched himself into the air, in the process causing the wounds in his stomach to be widened massively and increasing the pain and blood that they caused.

However, he avoided being slammed into the tree and the Moose Beast's antlers were stuck in the tree after piecing into the tree.

Seeing that the Moose Beast's antlers were embedded deep into the tree and that the beast was struggling to get them back out, Damian didn't waste any time or hesitate despite the pain he was experiencing.

"If I don't finish this now, with the wounds I have suffered, I won't be able to," said Damian to himself as he rushed over to the beast after landing on the ground with his Fire Sword in hand.

Damian was still careful seeing that the Moose Beast was kicking its legs out wildly and was still able to smell and hear him approaching it, but it couldn't see him, giving him the perfect chance to wound its legs as much as possible.

He was kicked a few times and had lost a lot of blood, while he had also used most of his Internal Energy after all the skills he used, especially sustaining the Flame Sword which was very draining.

However, despite that, Damian was happy as the Moose Beast would struggle to move with the number of cuts and burns that its legs had suffered and that allowed him to take it down from a distance with his bow.

The moose Beast was on the verge of breaking off from the tree, but Damian wasn't afraid and had enough time to prepare his bow and tie his wound with a long cloth that he had ripped off what was left of his academy robe.

Firing arrows from a distance, even after breaking off from the tree, the angry Moose Beast seemed to have lost the will to fight and lucky for Damian, it didn't enter a berserk state, which meant that its beast core was still intact and it wouldn't gain a burst of power.

After its legs buckled and the beast fell to the ground, Damian walked over to the beast then stumbled over, struggling to stay conscious let alone stand up after all the blood he had lost and all the energy he had used.

Before sitting down to relax and recover after the tough battle that he had just fought, Damian wanted to salvage the beast core of the Moose Beast and keep it beside him, so that it was less likely to be stolen.

Damian couldn't jump up high enough in the fatigued and injured state to get his belongings that were up in the tree, so had no choice but to use the bow he had in his hand to cut open the beast.

The sharp bowstring, with some time and effort, was able to cut through the fur of the beast and after that, Damian summoned any more energy and power that he had left in his body to break open the skull of the beast and acquire its beast core.

The anatomy of beasts was fascinating to Damian who had a very curious nature and was yet to understand how beast cores were formed and why beasts could have cores either within their heads, or their chest, but Damian didn't even have the energy to think about that at that time.

With the beast core in his left hand and his bow in his right hand, Damian sat down beside the body of the beast, unfazed by the smell of blood.

Sitting down cross-legged, just as Damian was about to begin absorbing energy and cultivating to aid and speed up his recovery, he suddenly sensed 5 figures approaching the open area he was in from all different directions.

The area he was in belonged to the Moose Beast, meaning most beasts wouldn't dare to come there and beasts would usually always act alone, especially at higher cultivation levels, which confirmed to Damian, who could only sense the presence of 5 living creatures, that they were humans.

[Damn it, they must have been watching my battle and waited for me to take down the beast before coming to steal my prey. I wasn't able to sense their presences earlier because I was preoccupied and focused on taking down the beast and they all seem to be rank 4 and 5 and seem to have used some sort of concealing technique. If they are skilled enough to use concealment techniques that even I don't know of that completely conceal their presence, then they must be capable fighters as well] cursed Damian within his mind.

He was only able to face the Moose Beast and take it down because of his skills, combat prowess and the small amount of harmony that Damian was able to achieve between his cultivation types, which allowed him to unleash more power than his cultivation should have allowed him to.

Against 5 human opponents that were all at similar or higher cultivation levels than him and were also all skilled and capable young cultivators, from what Damian could sense, he would struggle.

However, at that current moment, his body was covered in wounds, fatigued and internally injured, making it so that the chance he had of surviving against all 5 of the people approaching him, if their intention was to fight, was almost zero.

[I am surrounded and in a very weak state currently, but I still won't back down and won't be handing over this beast core. Not only because of the mission, but because Moose Beasts are rare and I put in a lot of effort to get it. Maybe I can negotiate with them and give them the body of the beast that is worth the same amount as the core if not more because of the antlers and the hooves that are very hard and durable] thought Damian to himself.