The creature's black blood stuck out in the greenery. So Tom could easily follow the trail it left behind by it.

While Tom followed the bloody trail it became clear to him that it might be an extremely advanced hunter, but as prey, it didn't have any experience. It had chosen a speed above all else. The bloody trail went in a straight line, so even when Tom couldn't find blood near him, he just needed to keep going straight, and soon enough, he would spot new blood markings.

Of course, he was still focusing a lot on his surroundings, but he was a lot more relaxed, believing that the creature had given up.

He noticed that the trail wasn't going directly toward where he had been ambushed, but slightly to the side.

After Following the trail for fifteen minutes, he realized that the canopy was getting much thicker blocking out most of the sunlight. He could also feel how the mixture of manas was starting to have a less and less noticeable variety. There was a champion emerging from the mixture. It felt weird to Tom. It was a mix of multiple feelings shoved together. He had a hard time putting his finger on what it actually was. All he could get was that it had something to do with shadows, and maybe, being part of something bigger, like a forest?

He wasn't sure, but neither could he focus on it, as once the environment started becoming darker thanks to the canopy, he was starting to have a hard time spotting where the bloody trail went. It was almost like the forest itself had decided to devour it.

As much as this discouraged him, he didn't give up, instead, he just kept on following the same straight line it had taken here, hoping to get lucky.

However, as he continued forwards, he was getting a deja vu feeling. Were the trees starting to look similar to each other? Had he somehow made a loop and entered the forest zone? However, when he really looked at a tree, he could tell that it was different from the others. But when he just looked around, he could swear that each and every tree was almost identical. "Camouflage," Tom muttered, finally managing to put to words the feeling he was getting from the mana around him. All the trees were blending in with each other, truly being one. He was only able to see through this when he focused his mind and burned his willpower.

"There has to be a better way of doing this than just burning enough willpower that I can notice every single detail." Tom thought, as he only had one-fifth of his willpower stores remaining, and that was after he had managed to recover some while following the creature's trail. Constantly putting his mind on overdrive had been a lot more taxing than just guiding mana into his body, he could do that for hours on end, as he would simultaneously gain some of it back, but under thirty minutes of constant pressure had drained him almost completely.

However, he had noticed that his willpower recovered much faster here than in the zones, and he immediately linked it to the much denser concentration of mana in the air. But at the same time, he was sure that the mana in the air was currently one of his biggest problems, as he was sure that it was affecting him and aiding the trees in their camouflage. But what could he do?

He tried to block the mana in the air from approaching his head using his willpower, thinking of a shell on top of his skull, guiding his willpower into the shape. But he just couldn't do it. He started to feel a headache coming once he had created a fist-sized shield over his skull. He could feel how this was draining his willpower and will at a much larger speed than just focusing on the environment. It was like he was doing something unnatural, something he had no business doing. It was more like he had tried to hold multiple threads together, and his mind just wasn't created to handle such high-level multitasking.

Tom immediately gave up on his experiments and focused on the matter at hand. He was sure that there was going to come a day when his habit of letting his mind wander and pursue his momentary inspirations would get him killed. As he was even now surprised that the creature hadn't claimed his life during his laps of focus.

His little experiment had claimed half of what little willpower he had left. He knew that he could keep his mind functioning at a level where he could tell some differences between the trees. If he did that, he would be able to keep it up for a bit under ten minutes, and much less if he got into combat. So he was running out of time.

He knew that the correct choice would be to retreat and come back after a short break. But at the same time, he was sure that if he didn't defeat the creature now, he would have a hard time defeating it. It would get itself back together and enter its hunting mode, moving erratically, leaving no traces behind, only showing itself when it wanted. This was most likely his only chance to kill it if he could catch it as it was recovering.

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So Tom pushed forward, emboldened by the fact that he could always respawn.

He was surprised that he hadn't run into any other living creature in this part of the forest, but then again, it was more than likely that this creature was this area's alfa, and it had hunted every and anything that presided in this part of the forest.

After going in a straight line for a while, Tom realized that the energy was lessening, and he decided to take an educated gamble. Just like the biggest golem that had presided in the highest density area of the mana at the center of the chamber, then wouldn't this creature do the same?

Once he had his plan, he started moving in the direction that had the highest concentration of the mana.

He lowered his willpower usage, giving up on discerning the differences between the trees. He just focused on spotting movements, as it was always much easier to spot then, as that was just how our brains were wired.

The deeper he went into the area of the camouflage mana, the more and more the forest looked the same, it was like all of the trees just melted together. He didn't even want to know what would happen if he didn't have his willpower, and he couldn't discern the differences in the mana levels. He could only guess that he would spend the rest of his days trying to find his way out from here.

To his horror, after five minutes, the camouflage mana had a big enough portion of the area's mana that he actually couldn't tell the differences in its concentration, as all of the mana just felt the same. But he didn't let that deter him as he pushed forward.

Soon later, Tom looked at a tree that looked just like every other he had seen so far, but no matter how much he focused on it, it still looked just the same. He thought that maybe the influence had gotten so strong that he just couldn't beat it anymore, but then he looked at the tree next to it, and he realized that its appearance did change. Only then did he realize that he wasn't looking at another tree that was pretending to be something else. No, he was looking at a tree that every other tree was pretending to look like.

He didn't need to think twice about what he was going to do. He started approaching the tree carefully but still at a decent pace, knowing that his time was running out.

When he was at the foot of the tree, he wasn't sure what was he supposed to do. He had reached his destination, but he hadn't found his target. He started looking around the tree, looking for any place that could hide a half-meter-long creature, circling the tree without any results. Until his foot sunk into the ground, which just a moment ago looked like all the other soil around it, now it looked like an entrance to a small tunnel. The next moment, he felt a familiar feeling, something sharp sunk into his leg all the way to the bone.

He quickly pulled his leg up, swinging his blades toward where he felt the foreign object in his leg. This time his blade didn't cut through its front leg, as it had hit the front of his calf, where the bone was just below the skin. This gave the creature enough time to pull its blade out and move it in front of his blade. Then it shot out from the hole. However, Tom had two blades. His other one followed moments behind his other one, hitting its side before it could escape.

This drove it into some kind of frenzy. It didn't disappear back into the environment and instead attacked him. It aimed for his stomach, driving its blade into it, tearing a long gash into it, almost gutting him. Then it was shooting off again. Tom swung his blades desperately in the air, aiming in the direction he felt it jump towards from his body.

And as his blades cut through the air where he could spot a streak shooting through, he knew that he had basically run out of willpower, the exchange burning what little he had left, helping him anticipate its movements. He had felt a slight resistance as his blades cut the air, but it clearly wasn't enough, as the streak disappeared from his vision into the forest.

Tom was in a bad shape. He was losing blood at a scary speed, but he didn't have the willpower left to use the core. So he dug into his pockets and took out a small vile, and struggled to open its cork with one hand, while his other one was holding his sword.

When he finally managed to open it, he immediately poured its contents on his wounds.

He could see how his bleeding stopped almost immediately, and the wound started slowly closing. However, he wasn't in safety yet, there was still a predator loose in the forest.

He just sat against the tree, having dragged himself to it, observing as his wound closed while scanning the surroundings.

After five minutes, the wound was finally starting to look better. But just then, he saw a movement in a tree next to him. He immediately pointed his swords towards there, but no attack came. Instead, he heard a *thump* as something hit the ground.

After ten minutes of no other developments, his curiosity finally got the better of him. He was expecting this to be a trap, but at least he had been healed, and he rather step into a trap and end this than keep on constantly looking around, fearing that something would jump out from the trees and cut his neck.

However, once he arrived under the tree and focused the little willpower he had gotten back, he realized that it wasn't a trap. No, instead he had won on the count that his opponent had run out of blood, or at least what was its equivalent to it. The creature lay at the foot of the tree, in a pool of its own blood, unmoving and dead.