The blade pressed against the neck, causing the body to tense up and convulse with a small volume that belied the amount of life it contained, as if every drop of life within was about to burst out. As the warm, pungent liquid gradually dripped into the mouth, the trembling subsided and eventually dissipated. Asa squeezed the mountain rat relentlessly, paying no attention to the contents of its stomach as they were squeezed out as well. Only when the last drop of bodily fluid slowly dripped down did Asa drop the mountain rat, which had been twisted and deformed by the squeezing, and stick out his tongue to lick the blood from his lips.

"I don't want to die," he thought.

The bloody taste rose up from his stomach. His throat made an involuntary low growl, deep and ambiguous, distant and profound, not like it was coming from an organ, but from a fold in his soul.

He remembered this sound from when he was three years old, hiding in a tree and watching a group of hunters in the village capture an injured wolf. The low growl emitted by the wolf shook him not with fear, but with a feeling of resonance from the deepest part of his soul. After that, he became obsessed with understanding the language of animals.

Now he understood that the sound had originally been meaningless, but was a fierce cry for survival and a release of almost insane animalistic nature in the face of the threat of death, pouring out from the depths of his heart.

Asa was acutely aware of the gap in ability between himself and the hunter. He vividly remembered how the heads of the two infantrymen from the third squad were smashed like watermelons upon their first encounter. Now, the only advantage he could rely on was his insight into the hunter's intentions.

The hunter was not chasing him with full force. This was not a pursuit in which the hunter wanted to catch up with him as quickly as possible and risk being injured in a desperate struggle with a wild beast in a life-and-death situation. This was a hunt in which the hunter continuously pursued the prey, causing it to gradually weaken in fear and exhaustion until the hunter had a 100% chance of success. Whether in terms of physical ability or survival skills in this swampy forest, Asa could not escape the hunter's pursuit. Both the hunter and the prey were well aware of this fact.

For the past three days, Asa had acted out the desperate flight that the hunter hoped to see. His physical strength had also rapidly declined as a result. Without the ability to start a fire, he had no access to sufficient food. Any meat he found in the lizard-infested swamp was deadly to human bodies due to the parasites it contained, so he could only search for some harmless insects to eat. Although animal blood was safe and could provide some minor nutrition, it was not enough to compensate for the large amount of sweat and physical exertion lost during exercise. The scarcity of salt and food had reached its limit, and the false reality he had created over the past three days needed to be ended with a flawless action that could not afford any mistakes.

Very good luck quickly led to the discovery of three non-toxic worms on the surrounding grass and bushes. They were about the size of a finger and wriggling vigorously in his hand. As he held their heads with his fingers, he slowly squeezed out the green feces. He had to be careful not to apply too much pressure, so as not to rupture the worms and let any potentially toxic feces spill out. This was a highly skilled technique, and after several days of practice, Asa had become quite proficient.

The tender worm meat quickly turned into a thick paste between his teeth, slippery and bitter, like the sticky air of the swamp clinging to his skin. Asa carefully ground the meat between his teeth and searched the paste with his tongue for any large chunks that might have been missed, ensuring that every bit of the worms could be broken down into the smallest possible units for easy digestion. Every drop of nutrition was precious and a source of hope for survival.

He dug a hole in the ground about a foot deep with a knife and buried the body of the mountain rat. Every time he killed an animal over the past three days, he had exerted precious energy to bury the carcass.

He carefully inspected himself with the knife placed on his back, flattening out every protrusion on each piece of clothing like a vigilant sentry. He stepped onto the narrow platform like he was treading on eggshells, recently burying the mountain rat and carefully squatting down. He crawled slowly like a giant deformed worm, moving towards a puddle of dirty water beside him.

He focused all his attention on this ugly movement, controlling every muscle in his body to stick to the ground as much as possible without leaving any noticeable marks on the soft mud. Any loss of control or coordination in his movements would render his three-day plan completely useless.

Closing his eyes, he took a deep breath and slid into the chest-deep dirty water slowly, without causing any splashing. The weight of the knife kept him from floating as he moved the muddy bottom towards the direction of his memory. This pool of dirty water led to a temporary stream formed by the rainy season. He deliberately came here and chose this terrain to bury the body. Everything was planned.

He felt a slight pain in a few places on his body as leeches attached to him. Asa ignored them, knowing they would eventually let go after sucking enough blood. He would deal with the risk of infection from the suction cups left on his skin later. Now, the most important thing was to swim out as far as possible before his next breath.

This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

I reviewed every detail in my mind and felt an overwhelming joy about my upcoming survival. The only problem now was the body of the mountain rat, which needed to decay to a certain extent and emit a sufficient odor before the hunter arrived.

All I needed now was some luck in the decay process.

As Asa crawled on the sludge formed by decaying matter, like a carrion-eating lizard, he prayed fiercely.

In the afternoon, the rarely seen sun in the Lizard Swamp peeked out.

The sunlight was fragmented by tree branches and fell to the ground in patches. The damp ground turned the sun's rays into a lingering screen between the tree branches and the ground. In this hot and humid screen, all swamp life grew and died quickly, even the flying mosquitoes seemed to be flourishing.

The hunter silently watched a large group of carrion-eating lizards excitedly fighting over a mountain rat's body. He hated the mucus odor on these ugly creatures, which was too strong for his sensitive sense of smell. A larger lizard successfully grabbed the body and ran away, while the others immediately followed and disappeared into the forest, leaving only a dug-up pit and traces on the ground.

In terms of humans, this prey is quite agile and strong, making it a very good target. The hunter is very interested and confident in killing it in a head-on fight.

However, having only a certain degree of confidence is not enough. This is not a battlefield, but a hunt where a certain degree of confidence needs to gradually evolve into enough certainty. Since yesterday, the tracks have gradually become weak and indistinct.

Now the hunter feels confident enough.

But this is also a strange prey. Although it is being pursued, its tracks do not show the disorder and panic that a hunted animal should have. Its weak footsteps reveal a strange determination that is not just about escaping, but also hides something else.

The disguise and tracking over the past three days have been done quite well, but a stupid mistake was made - burying the animal's body after drinking its blood. This has had the opposite effect as lizards will dig up and eat the decaying flesh, and the hunter can almost follow the stench of the large group of lizards to track it down.

There seems to be a vague connection between incomprehensible mentality and foolish mistakes, which makes the hunter feel a bit strange. But it's just limited to strange, and there's nothing strange after catching up, killing, and cutting off the head. No animal can escape its tracking in this swamp forest. The hunter has absolute confidence in this.

However, the hunter was immediately surprised to find that all the traces ended here and did not extend in any direction. Only the strong and pungent smell of swamp lizards was left in the air. The hunter carefully examined every strand of trace on the ground, despite the fact that the lizard's crawling and fighting had made a mess of the surrounding area. But for the hunter's keen observation and experience, the prey's traces were still visible, and after a while, all the traces around were surveyed clearly.

There were some ethereal but calm footsteps that did not step back on their own footprints and only circled a few times in the surrounding bushes, probably looking for food. The hunter could even judge that the first food he found was probably a bug found under two ferns. The front half of the two footprints there was slightly deeper, showing a forward shift in the center of gravity when bending down. But apart from that, nothing was found. The footprints only stopped at the pit where the body was originally buried.

This completely exceeded the experience category accumulated by the hunter's tribe for many years. With the decline of physical fitness for running and concealing, the hunter can only rely on his own mind to connect these things in the hope of obtaining something beyond experience. But the brain lacking logical thinking ability is unable to complete this task. When the hunter feels that he is gradually falling into a strange trap as expected by this fugitive, an uncontrollable anger occupies all his thoughts.

A lizard crawled back, shaking its head and looking for some benefits around the pit. But it immediately became the target of the nearby angry one. The huge body was violently hit, flying high and falling into the sewage pool, causing a splash of muddy water and silt to splash around. Along with the mud and water falling on the shore, there were also several clumsy leeches wriggling and trying to return to the water after they were full. The hunter sensed it, picked one up, examined it carefully, and squeezed it open. He tasted the liquid that flowed out of it and a grim expression appeared on his face, which other races could not understand.

With the most sensitive sense of smell on the ground, the hunter finally distinguished a scent he hoped to find from the slime on the lizard's body and the smell of the soil. The scent extended to the sewage pool.

He needed to tear out the still-beating heart while it was still alive, tear it apart with his teeth and swallow it along with the freshest blood, letting the cunning inside turn into his own strength.

The head must not be damaged. Slowly dig out the brain from the eye sockets and eat it, stripping away the flesh and grinding the skull with the best craftsmen. This perfect trophy can be placed on the ancestral tomb as a sacrifice, a witness to the tribe's proud hunting skills reaching another level.

You are my good prey.

A long-lost excitement filled the running hunter's body. This was a feeling that had only surged through him when he chased the most beautiful female in the tribe during his maturation.