The first thing Alex did was move even further away from everyone else. It was hard to judge the beast's exact numbers, since the forest’s dense foliage could have shielded thousands, but he knew the fewer people he was near the better chance he would have to complete his quest. Unfortunately, as all the E-Grade’s realized the underwhelming scale of the threat they faced, many decided to do the same, pushing Alex further and further from Natalie’s life-saving heals.
As the frontliners made first contact, the beasts a fury of claws, teeth, and tails, Alex leaned on his acting skill to suppress his nerves, something that surprisingly worked. He supposed it made sense, if a person was a good enough actor, they could lie to even themselves. So, when a twintail leaped at him with a claw swipe, rather than the nervous deflection he was partial to, Alex dodged deeper into the animal's guard and stabbed it straight in its eye.
The creature yowled, the pain-filled cry sending a shiver down his spine as it slid across the ground. Thorn’s Touch did its job, blood shooting out of the mangled socket, and, if nothing else, the battle so far had prepared him to dodge the spray. His slight lean transitioned into a duck as Sixth Sense warned him of another strike. The panther hadn’t wasted a second, its lightning-fast tail shooting straight for Alex’s throat, his dagger still lodged in its eye. He’d managed to keep hold of the weapon by swinging with the beast as it moved, but Alex was starting to think he’d overstayed his welcome, unfortunately for him, he was correct.
Throwing all twenty-one points of strength into the effort he pulled the three inches of blade from the beast’s skull, the pain it caused disrupting the creature’s next attack. Using the time to move Alex hoped to gain some distance, but even with its missing eye leaking blood by the ounce, the beast was unstoppable. Shifting its tail with a level of speed and control Alex couldn’t properly follow, the panther turned the failed stab into a nearly invisible downward slash. The onyx-like blade cutting into his forearm.
He wanted to scream, the searing pain that followed the attack warranting a full Wilhelm, but there wasn’t time, so he settled for some muttered cursing. Only sparing his arm a glance, not wanting to look away from the beast for too long, Alex accessed the damage. The cut was deep, though from what he could tell it hadn’t reached bone. There was enough blood draining down the tip of his dagger, however, that Alex wondered if the damned feline had a bleed skill of its own. Still, it was manageable, the arm felt weak, but he’d been able to keep hold of his weapon.
The twintail lunged toward him for the second, (third?), time, and Alex moved with it, his effort sloppier as he managed the pain. Sixth Sense was trying to keep up, but by this point his sphere encompassed over eight meters. That had been good when he’d needed to find the Jarkit earlier, but fighting this solitary panther, his mind wasn’t actually processing most of the information the skill fed him. Instead, choosing bits and pieces randomly unless he focused on something specific. Managing to evade another bite from the panther, Alex brought the hilt of his short sword close to his chest as he stared the beast in its single eye.
He steadied his breathing best he could, blood was still leaking from his forearm, and the limb was getting weaker by the second. Deciding to cut his losses Alex banished his dagger to his inventory. It was better he had it in reserve then worry about dropping the weapon when he lost feeling in the limb entirely. The panther approached slowly tails lashing, it was ready to cut Alex limb from limb. When he’d stored his weapon the creature’s eye had flicked down and, seeing a chance, Alex took it.
He activated Silent Strike, the skill’s speed boost as fast as it had ever been. He’d been trying to hold the skill in reserve, mainly relying on Dodge as to not deplete his stamina entirely, but if there was ever a time, it was now. Alex closed the five-foot gap in two steps, reaching the beast’s distracted face in less than a second. The cat shot a tail toward his lunging form, and Alex was forced to cancel the attack best he could, turning to the side and gaining a score across his chest for the effort.
Sword Mastery informed him his blade was in the perfect position for a riposte, unfortunately for Alex the skill was still at its first level, and he had no idea how to properly execute the maneuver. Rather than sticking the sword through the soft flex of the beast’s under jaw, as he assumed it wanted him to do, he struck too early barely connecting with the thing. The blade of his sword splitting its nose vertically, but doing little true damage.
The beast’s full weight began pushing against his sloppy stance, Alex was starting to hate his new skill, and it took all he had not to let the beast bowl him over. The panther hadn’t lunged, so it didn't have gravity on its side, but every single point of Strength he had still went into stopping the creature from removing a limb. Alex tried to reinforce the strike turned block, but his right arm was completely unresponsive, and suddenly another tail was shooting at him.
Managing to duck the strike and knowing he needed distance, Alex pushed harder against the beast’s nose. His blade cut deeper, the panther hissing and snarling inches away from his hand as it met the creature’s skull. Unable to penetrate any further, Alex gave up on the attack leaning in slightly before halting his resistance entirely, using the beast’s countering force to push himself away.
It was enough for the moment. The twintail darted away and to the side, seemingly not ready to risk another push and Alex backed some more. The idea that the panther was even slightly scared of him made Alex chuckle. Sure he’d stabbed the beast in the eye, but that seemed to halt the creature’s advancements little till that point. It let out a deep growl as it began to circle him, tense sculpted muscles flexing under pitch black fur. Alex moved with it, using his sensory skill to assure he was still away from everyone else. There were a few people around, though with most fighters’ ability to kill multiple of the beast in seconds, none were paying him much attention. Knowing, for better or worse, he was alone for a moment, Alex lowered his mana output his sphere shrinking to only a few meters wide.
He needed to get to Natalie for heals, but he needed to kill these beasts more. There was no health bar above its head, so he couldn't know when he’d done eighty percent of the damage, leaving him no choice. The panther continued to circle him at what was now the edge of his skill’s perception, carefully studying its opponent for any tricks. Alex mirrored its movements, using the time to let his energy recover, what came next would be draining.
The beast began to close the distance slowly, but Alex backed up keeping it at an even range. So far, he’d done the most damage treating the panther like a bull; he needed to taunt it into another leap. In his sphere Alex saw its hind leg’s muscles tense, allowing him to move before the twintail had even left the ground. It dived for his torso claws first, and Alex immediately activated Silent Strike flinging himself to the side. Flipping his sword into an ice pick grip, he raked it across the beast in a long, shallow, cut. The feline nipped at him as it turned to follow his motion, but the sword's longer length allowed him to stay out of range of their jaws.
Alex rolled away, his speedy dodge causing him to lose balance on the grassy terrain. Pain shot up his arm, but he ignored it, something he was getting better at. Thorn’s Touch was doing its job, though the trickle of blood following his latest attack was much slower than the one still leaking from its eye. Alex ran back trying to get into a rhythm of sorts, he landed a cut on the beast’s other side, but failed the follow-up attempt to hamstring the creature. While still much faster than him, it was clear the panther was slowing.
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Alex’s gaze roamed across the battlefield in the interim, briefly pulsing Sixth Sense at ten mana to get a better understanding of what was happening. The beast seemed injured enough, if he just let it be, it would die within a minute, minute and a half, maybe. And with the twintails still flooding out the forest he’d be able to fight another after he got healed. So did he risk trying to kill it faster?
He was currently in the middle of a makeshift blockade, the frontline fighters taking out the panthers in droves, with only a few getting past them. Alex couldn’t tell what the back line was up to from his current position, but they didn’t seem primed to steal his kill, so he didn’t particularly care. Unfortunately, as the last of the information from his skill trickled in Alex saw he wouldn’t have time to just let the panther bleed out. A few of the beast had skirted the fighters closest to the forest, with one headed straight toward him, and unlike Alex, it was unharmed.
An idea struck him, and he cursed himself for not thinking of it earlier. Others had been doing it while he was fighting, so he hoped it would work even if he didn't have a team.
“Heal! I need a heal.” He continued to scream, as he ran in to try to finish the first beast before the other reached him. In his current condition, if the fight became a two on one, he would definitely die.
For a few seconds, nothing happened, Alex’s cries seeming to fade into the battle’s cacophony. He cut at one of the wounded panther's legs this blow connecting, though not slicing deep enough to halt its movement. The beasts’ body was all muscle, and it seemed even quadruple an average human’s strength it wasn't enough to break through.
When the second panther entered Sixth Sense’s range Alex was forced to stop his screams. It had been sprinting full tilt and, thinking he was unable to see it, dived for his back. Already knowing it’s trajectory Alex had prepared. He’d angled himself so when he dodged, the two beast collided. Getting back to his feet, Alex saw a misty white haze enter his bubble shortly followed by the warm sensation that denoted a heal.
While he was grateful, whoever was healing Alex was doing so much slower than Natalie. There was less damage however, so he hoped it wouldn't take too long. The wound in his chest was the first to heal, followed by a minor cut on his leg. By the time the sensation reached his arm, both panthers were back on their feet. Flesh knitted together as he moved, Alex deciding to focus on defense until he could retaliate fully. The injured panther was slowing even further now, its companion doing the majority of the work. Still it moved toward Alex, lunging in an attempt to take him out with it. The second feline was focused on using its tails, but as the rest of his wound closed fully, his entire body flushed with energy from the experience, Alex decided to repay their earlier charge in kind.
He dashed in again, refreshing Silent Strike as he summoned his dagger back into his hand. The dying panther swiped diagonally with its claws, but Alex had dealt with those before. He backed a step twisting his body as he scraped the sword against its leg. Fully in the beast’s guard Alex stabbed twice with his dagger, marveling at the versatility two arms gave him whilst fighting. Four tails shot down towards him and Alex dodged both of the slower ones with ease, kicking his leg off the panther’s side to push himself away. Bringing a blade up as he moved, Alex blocked the horizontal strike of the third tail letting it fly over his chest, before twisting the past the fourth.
The first panther was nearly out of the fight, clearly breathing heavy as it staggered with every step; the second was having no such issue. Seeming to have learned from the injuries the other beast had taken, the panther used mainly it’s tails, keeping Alex at range while it landed the occasional cut. Having the seen the results of being on that end of the fight, Alex tried to close with the beast, but its tails were a whirling dervish of damage, keeping him too far to hurt it. He felt the first beast die from its injuries, the levels he gained and kill counter in his vision ticking up, making it obvious. Mentally Alex cheered at the outcome, outwardly he focused.
Whoever healed him had definitely saved his life. Even if he had been able to kill the first beast without interference, they had still saved him time. Unfortunately, since Alex hadn’t needed to go find Natalie, he’d never got a break to recover, and now his stamina was running low. Dodging under another strike from the onyx spike that shot toward him, Alex closed with the uninjured panther. His experience with fighting the first panther left him more confident in reading the beast, so as its last attack before he entered striking distance came, Alex assumed it’d be easy to evade.
He backed half a step, giving himself room to dodge the strike before countering with one of his own. It was risky, but so was everything else he’d been doing since he’d arrived in the tutorial. Using the longer reach of his short sword to his advantage he swiped at its face. The beast moved its head to the side causing Alex to miss the majority of his blow, only managing to slice part of its ear off. The twintail raked at him with its claws and Alex ducked deeper into range. Now that he could actually do damage the last thing he wanted was to be forced back.
Another tail whipped out and Alex assumed, like with the other panther, the closer he was, the more difficult it was for the wiry appendage to hit him. Alex batted it away from above, ready to use his dagger to litter the beast full of heavily bleeding holes. Then he learned something unfortunate, this panther's tails were longer than the last’s had been. A tip shot out for his heart, the length something the first panther would have failed to reach. Alex managed to bring his blade up, the dagger like edge bouncing off the steel of his weapon, and directly into his shoulder. Rather than deflecting the sharpened point away from his body, as an experienced swordsman might think to do, Alex’s mind only considered making the strike miss its attended target. He’d forgotten what happened after that could also be painful, and painful it was.
More blood covered his clothes as Alex received his second shoulder stabbing of the day. Instead of the beast pulling the tail out, as he expected, he felt two further spikes of pain as the tail secured itself. His first instinct was to jerk away, but Alex knew enough about stab wounds to know he’d just start racing the panther for the first title of “first to bleed out”. Instead, he ran closer, jumping into the creature as the secure hold it had on him sent a jolt of pain through his body.
Alex propelled himself off as his legs gained purchase, his highest skill being put to the test as the tail went taut. Using his weapons like a pair of scissors he severed the appendage nearly a foot from his body, blood spurting out wildly as the beast lashed it with an accompanying yowl. He had been scared it wouldn’t work, the black blade at the end of its tail had deflected straight off the steel of his blade multiple times. Luckily for him, the rest of its tail wasn’t as durable. Suddenly, a trill of fear went down his spine as another panther enter his sphere, and midair as he was, Alex couldn’t dodge its charge.
As Alex had learned, fighting a Jarkit was very different from fighting the twintails. The most noticeable difference, Alex thought as this new panther lunged at him, were their teeth. Jarkit had two oversized buck teeth, twintails had finger sized fang-like teeth. Jarkit seemed to ignore everything in the world but their goal of moving forward, twintails hunted Alex like he was prey. And as he lacked the leverage to avoid its pounce, one of them got its first bite.
The beast grabbed his leg from behind, swinging him into the ground like a sack of potatoes. His shoulder ached, but Alex had avoided hitting his head, his leg however, screamed with the pain. Hysterically, he bent forward to beat on the animal with his dagger, trying and failing to penetrate the beast’s skull, while the other recovered from the pain of a severed tail. Another panther entered his sphere but Alex didn’t have the luxury to care as the mauler shook him like a particularly bloody toy, before flinging him away. Leg a mess of shredded flesh, Alex tried to remain somewhat defensible on the ground, but his lack of mobility made that nearly impossible. He called for a heal, voice choking on the pain and tears as three beasts now moved toward him slowly.
Out of options Alex tried to rise on his single good leg. He felt almost detached from the situation. The pain, fear, and every other emotion was present, just distant. So when both beasts looked to pounce Alex faced them ready to die. When he was instead suddenly doused by a cold liquid, it surprised him so much he was pulled out of whatever mental state he’d entered. Then someone else appeared in his bubble, this time on two legs, and a familiar voice spoke.
“Got yourself into quite the pickle, haven't you?”