The panther had strikingly blue eyes. The sleek black of the pelt made the animal look almost like a formless black void, which made the colour of its eyes all the more noticeable.
I didn’t know much about black panthers – I didn’t know much about anything aside from Flux and fighting – but from what little I remembered, I was sure that almost every picture of one that I’d seen had yellow eyes, not blue. And given the circumstances, I figured the slight change probably conveyed something important.
The panther rose to its feet as I stepped into the clearing, the bored look in its eyes morphing into a more dangerous one as it studied me. I took a step closer, and it bared its fangs at me, a deep rumbling sound echoing from its chest. The message was clear. If I stayed at the edge of the clearing, it wouldn’t mess with me. But it wouldn’t take kindly to me coming any closer.
However, I ignored the threat entirely, walking closer until I was just a bit more than three metres from it. By then the panther had spread its paws out a little, its jaws just slightly open as it stared me down, ready to pounce at any moment.
But in the face of its hostility, I simply smiled and lit my hands on fire. There was a freedom in not fearing death, I realized as I faced the fearsome panther. Only excitement burned in my chest; I was completely unhindered by fear – my mind was clear and open.
The panther eventually made the first move, ending our staredown as it realized I wasn’t about to back off. With a sudden ferocity, it leapt towards where I stood, moving like a dark bullet. I dodged before my conscious mind even realized what happened, rolling to the side purely on instinct and muscle memory.
However, the panther wasn’t done. As I rolled, the animal sent out a crescent blade made of water at my feet. I couldn’t see it, nor hear it, but I instantly switched my path and threw myself to the side, landing clear on the dirt as the blade gouged a scar into the ground I would have been. I stared in dumb shock for a moment as I realized what had happened, and what I had just done.
The panther, however, wasn’t one to let me revel in my surprise. Not a moment after I stopped rolling, the animal let loose another blade. The thing was incredibly quick, crossing the two metres in between us in less than a second. But my instincts were quicker, and with the help of the Flux running through my veins, I ducked under the blade a fraction of a second before the thing shot over me.
This time, I responded with an attack of my own, spraying a stream of flames from my palm in the general direction of the panther. The animal hissed and jumped backwards, its coat steaming as if water was evaporating out of its fur. The flames died out immediately after touching the thing, which further proved my guess.
Coupled with the water blades I’d seen, and the prominent blue eyes of the animal, I assumed that the panther was some kind of water-based beast, which made me grin. Fire was the best possible match-up for water, and I intended to use my advantage fully.
Seizing the moment, I rushed forward with my flaming hands and started blasting beams of fire at the panther, forcing it to retreat continually. Still, the panther didn’t accept being pushed back passively and began firing little streams of water at me.
The streams of water began from little drops that formed in the air around the panther, and I was forced to dodge and duck under each stream as it appeared. They were quick and definitely dangerous, if the way they bored into the ground with ease was any indication. But dodging them wasn’t very difficult, especially with the help of what I was quickly realizing was the newest of my advancements. My mind was getting better at sensing the Flux around me, even when I wasn’t focused on it. I couldn’t feel the Flux at all times, but I could sense when something entered it almost immediately.
The feeling was still a bit vague, and difficult to grasp if I wasn’t paying attention, but it was a great boon nonetheless, and it made dodging a much easier game to play.
The fight progressed little as the time passed. My reflexes were enough to keep me safe from the attacks of the panther – both the physical and the water-based – and the animal rarely stayed within the range of my flames long enough for me to do anything more than superficial damage. When it did attack physically, usually by launching itself at me while raking its claws through the air or snapping its powerful jaws at me, I was forced to duck and roll, and it would be out of my range again before I could get back up.
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Still, I was slowly tiring the animal out; I could see it. Well, drying it out would be more accurate, I corrected myself with a smile. The sheen of the glossy black pelt was slowly lessening, and with the loss of the water came the slowing of the panther’s moves. I figured that enough time spent around the heat I was generating would eventually wear the animal down enough for me to finish the job. The heat of the clearing was helping, but not as much as it could have been if it was still on fire. Unfortunately for me, there was little left on the ground that I could use to start a fire, since the previous fight had left the ground a charred and blackened mess. And the few places where embers still glowed and crackled would quickly be doused when the panther walked near them.
Fortunately for me, nothing unexpected happened over the next while, a rare blessing for me. Things progressed exactly as I had planned, and the panther grew slower and slower as my flames kept heating the air around us. The thing didn’t have as much intelligence as the gorilla I’d fought earlier, and it showed. Despite its growing disadvantage, it stuck to its pattern of water blades and streams – of which only one had caught me on the shoulder – and occasionally lunging at me physically.
Eventually, as the panther dried out more and more, I was finally able to hit it fully with a stream of flames as I ducked under it. The fire enveloped the torso of the animal, immediately boiling the water hidden in its pelt. The beast let out a pained roar as it landed on its feet and stumbled, its fur hissing and steaming.
Not wanting to let the moment go, I immediately got up from my roll and lobbed the fastest fireball I could make at the back of the panther. This time, the fire won out over the moisture in the fur, and the flames stuck onto the panther’s haunches. The now-dried black fur provided ample fuel for the flame, and the intense heat made the panther screech again in pain.
The panther finally realized that it wasn’t in a good position now, and decided to make a run for it. Seeing as the fire on its fur was dying out quickly, I figured it would survive if it managed to escape the clearing, but I wasn’t about to let my hard-fought Core run away from me so easily.
The panther was slowed with its back legs on fire, which meant I had a little time before it made it to the edge of the clearing and into the safety of the undergrowth. I could have easily followed after it, but I had a better idea.
Above my right palm, I gathered some black smoke and ignited it into a small, candle-sized flame. It was small, but it was fueled entirely by my own potent Flux, so it was much hotter than any normal flame. I kept adding my own Flux into it, letting it grow hotter and hotter while moulding it into the rough shape of an arrow.
I could feel that the precision and control I had over my flame had increased, and the arrow that I made reflected that. It looked much better than the first one I’d made, and it was done much faster as well. The arrowhead actually looked sharp, enough that it could probably pierce through human skin without needing to rely on the force of its momentum.
The panther was near the edge of the clearing by the time I was done, which meant it was almost to safety. Unfortunately for it, however, a flaming arrow buried itself just under its neck just a few steps before it could reach the edge. The arrow sizzled but kept burning, leaving the panther dead before it could hit the ground.
A rush of satisfaction hit me as the fight ended, the feeling made all the more pronounced by the sight of the arrow hitting exactly where I’d wanted. The happiness was enough to drown out the stinging pain from the gash in my left shoulder, where one of the water blades of the panther had caught me. I knew I’d have to Revive soon, to ensure that the wound didn’t turn infected, but I put that off for later. A Revive was never a tempting prospect, and I wasn’t in the mood to endure more pain at the moment.
Instead, I let out a deep breath and studied the corpse of the animal, not feeling a twinge of guilt or sadness for the panther’s death. There was a little respect in my heart – I wasn’t so far gone as to not understand the importance of the passing of any life, and the life of a worthy opponent at that, but there was little else. I didn’t know if that was a good thing or not, but it was certainly helpful. I would no longer be hindered by my useless empathy.
With the fight over came time to harvest my reward, but I wasn’t quite in the mood to rip apart another corpse with my bare hands; especially not the corpse of the graceful panther.
Instead, I made my way over to where I’d left Ren, hoping to borrow his dagger again. However, Ren was nowhere to be found, which was curious. I doubted that he would have simply wandered off on his own, and a little poking around quickly proved me right. I found him only a dozen metres deeper in the forest, wrangling a giant python with golden scales and red patterning all over its body.