“Stupid.”

I said so to myself who got carried away by a moment’s happiness.

Although right now I’m no longer starving, I still need to secure a water source first.

After all, although my body has greatly improved from before, I’m still incapable of sustaining life without the support of food and water.

I immediately strolled around the shack as I try to find a very high tree in my surrounding.

I walked in glee as I feel my body becoming lighter and more nimble while my hearing and sight becomes sharper.

After circling around for 10 minutes, I spotted a 30 meters high tree 800 meters away southeast from my position.

Without further dallying, immediately strode towards the tall tree in my sight.

“……”

Approximately about 100 meters away from the shack.

I braced myself and put my guard as I little by little approached the tree.

The wilderness is strangely silent as I tread my feet in this green forest. Only the gentle breeze grazing the nearby bushes and my cheek was heard in this calm nature.

However, the hairs on my neck stood up fiercely even though right now, I’m still about 700 meters away from the tree.

I tread my legs even softer with more caution as I proceeded towards the tree.

Upon assuming that I might be in for a dogfight, I began to observe the surroundings.

The trees around me are big, but they’re not dense like what I assume a wilderness should be. Just like the area where I fought the pack of wolves before, its density is about a fairly thick tree about three people adjoined hands thick in every 20 meters square. Although for a park it might be dense, but for a wilderness this is fairly spacious. In other words, every tree is evenly divided with a distance of four and five meters in the horizontal and vertical side.

Not only that, the trees are fairly tall too. The average is about 50 meters tall, and even the shortest is about 70 meters in front of me, about 35 meters tall.

I wonder if this wilderness is manmade. After, the placement of these trees are so neat and uniform.

Ah well.

This means, three dimensional maneuver is possible as long as my feet have the necessary jumping strength to afford it.

The density of the leaves above me can be considered good, it gives me a cool feeling despite being poured by the sun’s ray in this bright noon.

This means stamina consumption will not be affected by weather. Well, no matter the case, I intend to proceed with the most stamina-efficient movements so my initial plan will not be changed.

“Wait. What is that?”

While pointing my gaze towards my above 2 o’clock my position, I spotted something like a bird’s nest. Although it might be a bit far, about 400 meters away from where I stood, I can feel traces of prana coming from there.

Is that maybe a nest of a bird-type void creature? And it’s fairly big for me to notice it right away from this distance despite being blocked by the surrounding trees in my sight.

I should take note of that bird nest in my mind carefully.

“Amazing. I never thought my visual sensitivity has improved to this extent.”

However, feeling amazed was feeling amazed.

I then concentrate my awareness to sense whatever my prana sensing can detect.

“…..”

There are prana undulations originating from the trees starting 50 meters in front of me, and beneath the ground level 20 meters in front of me. Hm….

“!!!”

It was this many!

Calm down, Haru.

Should you make sudden movements, they might be alerted sooner, and you’ll be in for a long chase with the void creatures pack.

I inhale slowly as I focus my mind on my breath, to empty my mind of unnecessary thought.

After exhaling, and a few rounds of respiration I began to analyze using prana detection towards the prana undulation beneath the ground before me.

How many exactly was it?

“……..”

I can confirm that from the undulations, their bodies was just a bit bigger than the wolves I just fought before. However, if they are underground, I will have to think about their

overwhelming advantage in using the terrain in combat.

Yeah, that would be a problem.

I began to probe again to confirm their numbers as I realized that my thought began to digress.

“…….”

Twenty. Twenty five. Thirty?

I see. This number might not do much against another pack of void creatures, but against a single big target four times or even six times bigger than their own they might indeed hold a significant advantage. As soon as their prey is killed, a festa will begin as they eat their corpse, huh.

Moreover, from the way they buried themselves, their formation will immediately be formed as soon as they come out of the ground. And from the undulations I felt, I figured that their individual strength are not too far below me. In a one on one fight, I might be able to come out victorious, but should I be trapped inside their encirclement, I’m done for.

“……”

Sigma pattern from all four directions? You gotta be kidding me. And this formation was clearly made to suppress the target when the stepped into the very center of their encirclement.

Not only that. Five makes the sigma pattern, while the remaining four positioned themselves behind the formation and the other four covered the space between the formations.

Wait. The last two have a larger prana undulations than the others. Their positions are also buried deeper below the rest. Should I assume they are like the bosses?

No, I think it might be more correct to say that they are the king and the queen.

Just how advanced can their intelligence be? This is far too amazing compared to the void creatures I have seen before.

Hm, I wonder if eating their flesh or absorbing their prana will allow me to obtain a trace of their intelligence or battle instinct.

After all, just from this alone, I can determine that they are fairly experienced in encirclement tactics. This tactic rely heavily on timing, positioning, and unity in movements between one another.

Ah well, I can worry about that later.

Right now, what should I do?

Is there any way I can retreat and make a roundabout route to reach that tree?

Although fighting them will be a pain, and the merit I would gain from their prana and flesh might not outweigh the risk I would have to face, it’s not like killing them is impossible. Just that, having the safest route and saving my strength only for facing crisis is a fundamental reason one must abide by in this wilderness, especially when one has no backup like me.

However, retreating or not is the problem here.

Because right now, I can feel with my prana sensing that they are already keeping their guard at the ready, and their undivided attention had been pointed towards me.

I’ve been spotted already, and they had already marked me as their food.

In other words, should I try to flee too far from their formation, there is always the possibility that they will commence and all-out attack before I even got the chance to gain distance.

Which means, no choice but to fight.

If that is so, I’ll take you guys on!

Knowing their burrowing habit, I should move with the thought that they have a way to sense the happening in the surroundings with vibrations and prana. If I were to make a sudden movements, it will immediately alert them. Although I’m not right in the middle of their formation yet, I should not get carried away and deluded myself into thinking that they won’t have any other formation or engagement tactics that might prove deadly.

Should I claw my way to the branches above me again?

As soon as I think that, I reminded myself of the bird nest I took notice of before.

If I were to climb my way too abruptly, I might alert those birds who originated from that nest above. After all, although the leaves above me is not that dense I can’t get a proper lighting in this time of the day, it doesn’t give me a perfect visual for keeping out for aerial ambushes. This means, the cautious one will have the last laugh.

Let me see how skilled you guys are in battle.

Hm….

Alright. Firstly, I clawed the tree’s trunk in my right and climbed my way up to its branches 7 meters above ground. I specifically chose this branch and tree because I can reach the center of their encirclement through the routes that is available that starts from this tree. I then jumped from branches to branches till I find the optimal position I desired for the first phase of this cold war.

After positioning myself just above the center of their encirclement, I struck the branch in front of my toes till it fell on the ground. With a crack, my powerful downward chop immediately crushed the branch as it fell to the ground, carrying a significant momentum in its path.

Whether you can sense the surroundings from vibrations or not, and whether you can differentiate the vibrations or not will be revealed by this experiment!

With a loud thud sound, the falling branch made contact with the ground. However, as I wait for the void creatures lurking below to come out, they are not the slightest bit provoked by it.

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“They can differentiate vibrations of walking steps and the fall of a branch? That is way too skilled.”

 I praised my enemy in a soft muttering in amazement as I began to make another move to give me any advantages in this battle.

How did they do that? Is that because of their instinctive combat awareness, or a certain inherent skill that is unique to them?

Their formations extend to about forty meters long in each side. This means the range of their encirclement covers about 1600 meters square. Although I am just above the center of their formation, I can still sense no signs of them moving out of their burrow.

Noticing the fact that they are calm enemies, I began to start the second round of analysis based on prana detection.

I began to project a soft wave of prana from my body to every directions.

Prana is an ethereal substances, and it has a different property from sound waves which relies on air to travel so it can go through while permeating solid substances like the ground and the like.

After covering the exact same range as their formation, I began to decrease the perception range while using my utmost effort to increase its precision to its utmost limit.

My brain felt like it was fried in an oven while it wriggles like a worm exposed in sunlight as I proceed to continue in this manner. But the pain I am suffering right now is still within my range of tolerance, so I didn’t fall of the branch I’m sitting on.

After all, compared to the supercompensation and marrow cleansing I had gone through, this is nothing.

After a series of painful reconnaissance, I finally have the highest precision I can reach right now while covering the whole pack of these void creatures.

Firstly, I will analyze the morphology.

I can sense their body having the form of a bipedal…?

But the nails I can feel from their hands were…. A bit longer than usual.

No, with that form, it can only be termed as claws. And it’s a long three claws in the middle with two short ones on the sides.

All in all, their body is not that tall, and they can be considered as fairly thin.

I see, a body made for assassination, and ambush. No wonder this is their fighting style.

Just that, the shape of their heads are like…… I don’t know?

A beak? it’s round on the base but then it extends forward like a beak.

Hmmm…. Are they like moles or something? Maybe they are.

I see, they have a similar appearance with a certain ninja youth who can transform into a mole beast from that playstation game.

This is the only thing I can pick up in this situation. After all, although I’m sharp enough to analyze their bodily structure, I can’t analyze the flow and attribute of their prana that can give me a rough guess of what tricks they might use with my current ability.

The path to becoming a supreme existence is indeed, still so far away.

I see. My enemies are experts in ambush, and their starting moves are sudden attacks after clawing out of their burrows.

They can also differentiate the vibrations of an object falling on the ground inside their formation, and a living being walking right into their trap.

This wilderness is filled with wild void creatures. And most of them have prana flowing inside their bodies. Thus I can safely assume that they differentiate with prana sensing, like me.

After all, using hearing to accomplish such a feat can be considered godly as fuck. And from what I know, most animals that have the ability to dig burrows doesn’t have the specialty in that kind of aspect with superior senses.

If that is how they want to do this, I will respond in kind with my own way of combat.

I jumped from branches to branches while moving from trees to trees as I try to find the optimal spot to lure a few of them while not alerting all of them at the same time.

This is the time for a divide and conquer tactic.

Their formations are formed like ∑ with five personnel manning every key angles. The one in the back were in charge of lookout outside the formation. That will be the one I will aggro.

I will project a prana wave, as if a living being stepped on top of its head.

After the previous super compensation I can finally project my prana like usual. Although the fact that I can’t conjure my negative mudra was a bit disturbing since I still haven’t figured out the missing piece in my theory in negative mudra, I can still condense my prana like it was a profound energy from a certain character in a ninja manga where he used a ball of condensed chakra strengthened with inner omnidirectional rotation to unleash a strong attack of destruction.

After condensing them however, I didn’t give omnidirectional rotation towards the prana inside. I tore a small branch a bit above my head and threw my condensed ball of prana to the ground as I made it float on the ground at the same time, to fake the impression that I was descending from where I am standing.

Unexpectedly, the plan succeeded and the six moles finally crawled out of their burrows at the same time!

What timing!

I immediately put my utmost effort to retreat and attract them to lengthen the distance between them and the backup in their pack. I know that running on the ground while retreating will allow them to reach me faster since they are a pack of assassins specialized in killing on ground, so I jumped from trunks to trunks like a camel cricket jumping from one place to another as I kick the trees in my left and right. Leaves grazed my body as I proceed in my leaps.

The retreat is going smooth, I gain a distance of 30…. 50….. 70 meters right away.

Although I am leaping from tree to tree to keep my distance from their claw’s reach, I know for a fact that leaping from tree to tree like this give me lesser speed needed to brush them off. Although since I have no intention of brushing off their pursuit in the first place, it was rather fine this way.

And as I float midair while retreating…

I felt a tingling sensation of danger on my back.

“!!!!”

Rather than leaping to another tree diagonally in front of me, I clawed the tree to ascend and gain height to avoid this dangerous sensation.

Just as I did that, the tree where I was supposed to kick next after this one was slashed with three strong and lethal shockwaves, as if a very sharp saber lacerated the tree.

“!!!”

They can use their prana to conjure a sharp shockwave attack! It’s like they are firing wind claws!

You cheaters! Since when can Bak*ryu use G*tsuga Ten*hou Claw Version!

This is bad.

After gaining a bit higher than before, I immediately leaped again from the trunk of this tree I’m clawing on, and instead of leaping to a trunk, I leaped to a branch to get a more stable footing.

Moreover, should they try to use that move just now, I’m sure the branches I’m standing on will fall onto them. That way, I can make them think I put up a clever and cowardly fight

with them.

Noticing the intention behind my actions, they immediately use their claws to conjure the wind claws while aiming to get their positions on my flank as they began to jump and leaped from branches to branches just like I do.

Holy fuck, their coordination are superb! And not only that, the way they react to my counters are also effective and efficient!

I then began to descend from the branches and use the tree trunks on my sides for cover against the wind claws. However, since they are surrounding me, I can’t stay hidden in one tree trunk so I moved here and there using the trunks to take the wind claws.

And all of a sudden, all of them stopped attacking from this distance after seven rounds of their wind claws failed to graze my skin.

And only at this time, I can finally grasp the complete form of their body.

Their body was just like how my analysis explained earlier.

However, my analysis before didn’t detect the quills protruding on their backs.

And as they stand while surrounding me, I noticed that…

Their quills are glowing with pulsating light, as if blood is flowing within.

However, I can deduce that it is actually prana. Which means….

“!!!!!”

I immediately threw my body below and literally kissed the ground with my front in order to avoid the range of their attack.

The flying quills arced its way above me as I stay kissing the ground in evasion. The piercing sounds of air being torn resounded clearly in my enhanced senses of hearing as I let it pass….. And hit one mole after another in its wake.

However, that thought was too naïve, since their split second firing sequence and timing was too accurate and simultaneous, and was fired from the perfect distance to allow them attain maximum casualties while making the attack harmless enough with their agility to dodge it like me.

Amazing.

Looks like for a little while, I will have to make do by drinking blood in substitution of water.

Interesting enemies make significant improvement!