12 hours later

After spending what seems like half a day running from Prominence and avoiding flowers that had beautiful colors but had deadly neurotoxins stored in their equally beautiful thorns. Ze Shou was panged by constant hunger and thirst. His workout clothes were drenched in saliva, blood, sweat, and some unidentifiable liquids that seem to stink more and more as they dried under the artificial sun.

The temperature which had risen from his guess forty degrees Celcius had increased to above fifty degrees Celcius and continued to climb. His body mangled from constant ambushes from carnivorous plants, and Prominence added to mental fatigue he has been accumulating from being on the run.

Ze Shou whos left arm was shredded to ribbons from a claw swipe from Prominence had luckily escaped by jumping into a river. As if to strike down on his successful escape, the river turned rapid and led to a kilometer drop waterfall. Nearly drowning from the rapids to fall a kilometer only to end up breaking his back on the rocks below, tearing his stomach open and having the wildlife come and eat what remained of his internal organs all while conscious feeling every single peck, scratch and tear as the wildlife ate him alive.

Ten minutes later, he was whole again. His body ached, his clothes torn, so he decided to toss what remained of tattered clothes. Then he jumps in the river to wash off the blood and other mater that clung to his skin. Soon the crystal clear river had a patch of red and different colors mixed in as they flowed downstream.

Ze Shou scanning his surroundings for danger can't help but put a small part of his attention to the vast view of the green sea like forest. The one Kilometer drop waterfall spaying mist as it collides with the rocks. Creating a memorizing view, a mixture of jade and topaz swirl into the scenery before him a true masterpiece and although faint just at the middle point of the waterfall an almost circularized rainbow.

He can't help but take a deep breath before running out of the water and pulling together some fallen leaves, some shaped like a banana and some shaped into a heart, winding them together to make a somewhat passable skirt of leaves to cover himself.

Ze Shou then scours the area checking for poisonous plants and edible fruits, so he can sate the hunger that's been plaguing him for the past twelve hours. The foliage around the pooling area of the waterfall does not thicken till you walk a few hundred meters into the brush; there, more poisonous types of plants and venomous wildlife start to appear.

Ze Shou, satisfied with his surroundings, decides to set up base here as a fall back point. He first starts by looking behind the waterfall to see if the erosion from the waterfall made a natural cave. To his luck, there is one the entrance to his best guess was about half a meter wide a meter tall just enough for him to squeeze through.

Though inside the cave was pitch black, so exploring it would have to be put off until he can secure a light source. With his dwellings ideally located, he then proceeds to go a few meters into the forest. Looking for any available dry sticks and thatch that wouldn't instantly kill him or put him in a state of not being able to be able to move.

During his second trip into the forest, he heard a barely audible snap of a twig a few meters away thick in the brush behind him. He instantly took a dove in a bush that seemed to have no thorns and soft leaves covering himself as fast as possible with the leaves he gathered trying to make himself look like a part of the forest as if like a chameleon.

Ze Shou finished his camouflage and then slowed down his breathing. His heart seems to accelerate as he felt a significant presence seem to get closer to his last location. There were no loud thumps that one would hear if a large animal were moving through the place. It was smooth and silent almost invisible like an owl swooping down on an unsuspecting rat, making no noise whatsoever disturbing nothing as it stretched out its talons to take the life before it.

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Ze Shou's heart seemed to still as the presence stopped a few meters away. His breathing halted cold sweat ran down his back as he waited for what would happen next. Muscles tensing like a rabbit getting ready to flee the moment the presence moved one step closer to his position. The presence seemed to move its head down as if examing the ground, giving it a smell before turning its head towards Ze Shou's hidden body.

Ready to make a break for it as Ze Shou was about to turn and dash as fast as he could, there was an animalistic roar that seemed to shake the jungle in its entirety. The presence seemed to issues a scoffing like sound before jumping into the tree coverings as the ground quaked as a new existence was approaching.

Ze Shou felt it was much bigger but less dangerous than the presence that was about to find him. He got up and quickly collected the material he was using to cover himself and started to run to his fall back point near the waterfall. The presence seems to sense him running locked onto him and then disappeared as if never having existed.

Confused, Ze Shou stopped running to turn around to scan for abnormalities as it was too sudden of a disappearance. After standing still and finding nothing out of place, he slowly made his way back to the fallback point. He covered himself in thick mud, smearing it on his jade white skin and onyx like hair, turning him into an unrecognizable mud-man.

After somewhat concealing himself he tore up some moss from the bass of a tree nearby that had a brown and greenish type color, but before putting it on himself, he tore a small part off the tree and put it on his forearm to see if it contained any paralysis or poisons in it, but on the contrary, it made him feel refreshed and relaxed. Taking note of the moss, he covered himself in it while also grabbing a few patches for later use to see what other medical properties it might contain.

Now fully camouflaged, he kept low hiding in the underbrush as an attempt to avoid detection as the two presences were excellent at tracking and stalking, waiting for the most opportune time to strike when Ze Shou's guard was at the lowest. After walking a languid pace to avoid detection, the artificial sun was now just about to hit the horizon, turning it into a sunset, but the temperature seems to stay the same as it was midday.

A few meters away from the clearing, Ze Shou felt all the hairs on his body stand up; his heart rate accelerate as if he was turning a marathon into a sprint cold sweat flowed from his body as a tsunami flowed from the ocean onto dry land. He threw his body to the ground as fast he could, but before he hit the ground an enormous amount of air pressure from something sweeping over his head flung his thin body like a rag doll into the nearby trees destroying them in the process while also breaking multiple bones in Ze Shou.

Ze Shou struggled to get up, coughing up mouthful blood looking at a deep pair of crimson eyes of what seemed to be a giant cobra coiled around the tree. The Cobra, who had a mixture of a red and gold mix of scales that seem to interlock in a pattern of a rose vine that wove across its long body. The Cobra let lose another vicious howl shattering Ze Shou's eardrums deafening him as he tried to move an arm to at least cover one of his ears.

The Cobra seeing that its prey was still alive, tightened its body around the tree, turning it into splinters under its immense crushing pressure. The jungle tree feels into a splinter sawdust-like state while the glistening Cobra fell from its place from the tree onto the soft ground, quickly creating a snake-like crater making the ground tremor. Ze Shou's teeth couldn't help clatter when the Cobra landed and stretched out its hood, jaws wide open ready to strike Ze Shou and swallow him in one gulp.