It was rather disappointing that the very first people Zoe encountered appeared to be some manner of murderous bandits.

Not inclined to repeat her initial arrival in her new world as she had not too many days prior, Zoe retreated back behind a cluster of large boulders next to a wider section of the river. Why does everyone I meet have to be completely awful?

It had only been several hours since she had left the wreck of the airship that her would-be captors had used to extract her from the pirate encampment. Not much of note had happened since she had defeated the final survivor. Occasionally she would run into one of the carnivorous sloths, but aside from that she had mainly been experimenting with her new abilities.

It didn’t take Zoe long to figure out what the restrictions were on {Sapping Strike}, the new ability that let her leech mana during combat. It was actually kind of embarrassing how simple the requirements were, given that she hadn’t previously figured it out during the incredibly long time she had spent fighting against her mirrored version during her awakening.

The only requirement was that she was no longer under the effects of one of her other new abilities, {Corrupted Spirit Shield}. Importantly, it didn’t just mean that she couldn’t recover mana that way while the shield was active. Because the shield also empowered her based on any damage it absorbed, it could take several seconds or even longer for her to be able to make use of {Sapping Strike}.

In any case, Zoe had made it to the river in under an hour. Dashing between the upper branches of the densely crowded trees once again turned out to be the most time efficient tactic. Once she reached the river, she descended to the sandy, silty bank and made her way upstream on foot.

From there, she had spent several hours leisurely strolling along. It was quite fortunate that as a demon she no longer needed to eat or drink, instead relying on passively absorbing ambient mana. Not only would she not have to hunt—more importantly, she wouldn’t have to worry about the contamination in the river. Even if she were now permanently corrupted herself, she wasn’t too keen to find out what drinking even more of the stuff would result in.

So now, as she crouched behind the boulders, Zoe mulled over what to do. Crawling over to the side opposite the side near the river, Zoe peered back out at the scene from between lush, overgrown ferns. She doubted the two men would be able to spot her even if they looked straight at her.

They were both under level fifty. Based on her accumulated experience so far, Zoe was pretty confident she could take both of them. Even though she was only level thirty four, Zoe would estimate that she was really more like a typical person with a rare class with a level in the seventies. At least in terms of raw combat power, that is. In terms of actual skill, she was less confident—even despite having trained extensively with her more powerful copy when she broke through at level thirty three.

The more worrying thing was the unawakened child that they had evidently captured. Not only did analyzing the girl fail to do anything—but Zoe’s newly acquired {Predator’s Eyes} didn’t detect any of the regal gold mana that signified a connection to the Grand Design—the system.

Zoe wasn’t entirely sure what the full capabilities of that particular ability were yet. While it allowed her to pick up on the distribution and movement of nearby mana like her previous {Manasight}, even that aspect was significantly different, and she was confident that it wasn’t all.

In any case, the girl was clearly in a bad situation and Zoe didn’t see any real downside to trying to help out. The two men probably wouldn’t present much trouble. The bigger concern was actually that the girl would get injured or killed in the crossfire.

But then again…

From what she could make out of their conversation, the child seemed to have escaped something and been fleeing from their pursuit. When one of the men slapped her hard and the other withdrew a knife, Zoe decided that it was time to intervene.

After all, while it wasn’t unlikely that the girl could become collateral damage, if Zoe didn’t do anything then she would probably end up dead, maimed, or worse anyway. So honestly, she was helping no matter what.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Darting deeper into the edge of the jungle proper, Zoe then activated {Kinetic Dash} to quickly make her way up to the canopy. From there, a combination of dashing and running along the winding branches the old fashioned way quickly brought her right over the position of the three humans.

Funny, I’m thinking of other people as ‘humans’ now.

Shaking that thought away, Zoe dropped down on top of the guy with the knife just as he was about to do something nasty to the girl’s hand.

He died.

Zoe didn’t even need to use a {Corrupted Strike}. Just her own, greatly increased biological strength was completely sufficient to crush the man’s skull in her enormous claws. The mana gain that came with it was nice but not really necessary. At this point she was still well over one-hundred percent capacity.

The other guy didn’t just stand there, of course. In the short time it had taken for Zoe to kill his partner, land, and reorient herself, he had snatched away the child, backed up several paces, and conjured a spear of water from the river nearby. Aiming the tip at the girl’s temple, he held her out in front of him like a shield.

Zoe just snarled.

As soon as the man’s brain fully registered that she was not a human assailant, but rather a four armed, heavily armored demon with lots of sharp and pointy bits, he dropped his hostage and fled. Big mistake.

Zoe had been counting on him doing that, of course. After all, what use was a human hostage against a violent, inhuman monster? From the man’s perspective, his best bet was to ditch the girl and try to run.

Unfortunately, while Zoe was inhuman and violent, she actually did somewhat care about the girl’s safety. So ironically, had the man somehow known that, he could have had a much better shot at surviving or, at the very least, pissing her off.

Well, too bad.

Also annoying was that while Zoe was now quite fast, the man was pretty fast as well, making it to the river before she could get in striking distance. Even more annoyingly, the rushing water was no impediment to him, as he simply skipped across it like he was ice skating.

Cheater!

Instantly irritated, Zoe halted. The river didn’t actually pose a true barrier to her passage—she would definitely be able to cross it safely. But it would be slow going, and at approximately seven meters, her {Kinetic Dash} wasn’t enough to bring her all the way across in one go.

So instead of continuing her pursuit, Zoe scooped up a fist-sized stone from the edge of the water with {Kinetic Manipulation}. Snatching it out of the air with her upper right claw, Zoe aimed at the back of the guy’s head and chucked it as hard as she could.

With her monstrously mutated biology, eight or so foot stature, {Kinetic Enhancement}, and properly adjusted {Kinetic Manipulation}, that turned out to be quite hard indeed. Streaking straight through the air, not even visibly affected by gravity, the stone impacted the man’s head with an audible crack.

Zoe grinned with smug confidence. When she first arrived in this world after dying, she had still been really, really bad at throwing things. But the constant violence and danger were good motivation for a fast leaner.

Also, she had a lot of time during her ascension to practice.

Interestingly, the man didn’t seem to actually be dead. He was unconscious, that was very much clear, but his chest still seemed to be heaving up and down. Also, more interestingly, {Predator’s Eyes} clearly illuminated the state of the man’s body, including his injury and various vulnerabilities.

Now that’s definitely going to be useful. I wonder if that’s the influence of {Medicinal Diagnosis}?

After all, that had been one of the original abilities that Zoe’s new {Growth Mage} class had subsumed.

In any case, Zoe decided mostly on a whim that keeping the guy alive for at least a little while wouldn’t be a bad idea, as it would allow her to question him. But he also wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon, if the feedback from {Predator’s Eyes} was to be believed. The same wasn’t true for the girl they had captured. Zoe would be really annoyed if she ended up saving the child for nothing.

Sighing, Zoe turned back around to get a better look at her.

The girl was gone.

Fuck!

Now enraged, Zoe stomped the ground, kicking up dirty sand. Clenching and unclenching all four sets of claws, she forced herself to calm down. Right, find the kid. Shouldn’t be too hard, yeah?

But first, this new development meant a change of plans for the unconscious guy. Wading into the river, Zoe dashed across once she was in range of the other side. The man had his face buried in the silt, his nose just barely not covered, the position just millimeters away from failing to keep him alive.

A single {Corrupted Strike} fixed that.

Sorry, but I have a child to catch and I didn’t feel like lugging a fully grown adult around.

So with that taken care of, Zoe hastily made her way back to the original side. It didn’t take her long at all to figure out that the kid had run deeper into the jungle. Sighing, Zoe climbed up to the canopy and set off after her.

The good thing was that her new sense of smell was quite powerful, and it also seemed to be interfacing somehow with {Predator’s Eyes}, giving Zoe a good heuristic to follow. I doubt she’s nearly as fast as me, especially if she has to trudge through all that undergrowth.

Well, Zoe certainly hoped the chase wouldn’t take long. The longer it went on, the more irritated she’d be when she finally caught up. And to be fair, it wasn’t like she actually needed the girl for anything.

It just bothered her to be saving someone for nothing.