Quite some time had passed since the hunt had begun. The creature had finally come to realize that its life was truly at stake this time. Whoever this predator was, it was determined to hunt and eat it. Previously, its encounters with other predators had been brief, and it was able to disengage and escape. But not this time, this time it was truly in danger.

It abandoned all hope for outrunning and escaping its opponent on land, the human boy was too fast, and its flesh was too damaged and exposed to dig underground. It threw itself at the boy, hoping to take its life.

Rui on the other hand, felt much more pressured once this happened. It was much scarier to fight a beast that used every ounce of its mind and body dedicated solely killing you than it was to running away and fighting back in self-defense.

The two scenarios were on two different levels of difficulty, even if the latter was easy to handle, the former wasn't.

('That's if I choose to fight it head on.') Rui thought as he leaped back.

There was a very simple strategy Rui was employing in response.

Just stay away.

The creature was slower than Rui was, and was already damaged and bleeding. Being faster, Rui could easily ensure the beast was always too far from him to damage him.

Chase him with all its might it did, and yet it fell short of Rui.

Such was the brutality of nature, of survival of the fittest. It wasn't even able to go down fighting, it would go down struggling to even lay a claw on Rui.

Or so Rui thought, atleast.

SCRUNCH

Against all odds, the creature began digging once more. It dug and swallowed mud, excreting it speedily allowing it reach underground extremely fast.Content is © 2024 .

('What?!') Rui grew alarmed. Why was it going underground? At this point, Rui had hurt it so much that it shouldn't be able to withstand any long distance sub-terranean travel at all.

Rui grew prepared as he full-fledgedly activated Seismic Mapping and prepared his maneuvering Apprentice-level techniques to track and chase after the beast.

Yet what he sensed next made him sweat beads.

The creature was not running away.

It was moving straight towards him!

Rui's face grew pale as he understood what the creature was doing. Travelling underground in its current state was extremely dangerous, indeed.

But fighting the boy as it was, was even worse! It was guaranteed death.

It was unable to travel far underground without bleeding to death. Escaping was out of question. But what if it didn't need to travel far?

The boy was only five meters away. If it could use sub-terranean travel to reach him and reduce his flesh to goo, then maybe it would be able to survive in the long run!

('Fuck.') Rui cursed. This was a resourceful plan on its end. It had already resolved to kill him using everything it had, not it was willing to sacrifice everything it had to kill him, including its health.

This was bad, because now Rui had lost his biggest advantage; his superior speed. This was an advantage that allowed him to force the creature to fight on his terms, he could choose when to engage the creature, and he could choose when to disengage.

Well, not anymore. Rui braced himself for a rough fight as Seismic Mapping sensed a huge mass of angry sub-terranean flesh rushing to kill him!

LEAP

BOOM

Rui managed to leap out of the way just barely in time as the beast erupted from the ground. The beast could attack him underground and that meant he needed to be extremely careful with his timing! If he dodged too early by jumping away, then the beast would simply reach his landing location before he did, being faster, and would attack him just as he reached the ground, and that would game over. He could not dodge mid-air.

Thus, he knew quite well that he needed to dodge the attacks just a beat before it was too late. He had a very thin of error, and a very thing range of success. Leap too early and he would get eaten, leap too late and he would definitely get eaten.

He had only had one advantage here; his health. He was almost entirely unharmed, asides from some acid that had hit his skin from the last attack. But the creature's condition was truly starting to fall apart, it had already been harmed significantly by Rui's targeted striking, and using sub-terranean travelling, even if shortly, had accelerated its damage. It was starting to bleed excessively and Rui had sensed its movements growing more sluggish, its reactions dull and its attacks, weaker.

('It doesn't have much time left.') Rui realized. ('I need to stall like my life depends on it.')

And it did, quite literally. A single bite would kill him without a question. But now that the creature had more pronounced weaknesses due to its deteriorating condition, Rui had regained a lost advantage that he normally had; the VOID algorithm.

This algorithm loved weaknesses and mercilessly exploited and abused them. The algorithm ran at full speed as Rui did everything he could to stall the battle and make life harder for the beast. He even climbed trees and began leaping from tree to tree. Yet, the beast, being underground was able to uproot trees, to his surprise.

The battle went on, Rui made inaccuracies and mistakes. Each time he was splashed with a little acid, flinching as it corroded his skin. Thankfully, it didn't damage his body to the point of effecting his combat capability.

"ROOOOAAAAR." The beast screeched, as it erupted from the ground.

WHOOSH

Rui avoided the jaws of death once more, never taking his eyes from the creature even once. He could feel its desperation, fear and hatred. In some ways, he even felt some degree of sympathy, but he crushed those feelings.

It was truly the final moment, Rui could feel it. He needed to do everything he could to win. That was all that mattered.