With the spider taking its escape, Clay was able to harvest the heart blood of the killed dire wolf. Fortunately, every beast so heavily mutated gave Mia enough essence for a few days, even if they haven’t awakened yet.

Thinking this, he remembered the bear and felt some regret about the lost heart blood. It would have been the most potent he got so far, but there wasn’t the time to mourn what could have been. He was glad to be even alive, after directly confronting this monstrosity of moving flesh and muscle.

Pushing this thought aside, they moved on, following the border of the dire wolves territory and that of the spiders. It didn’t take them long to stumble upon something which could only be described as a battlefield. The ground and tree were smeared in a messy picture of red and yellow, while the corpses of both dire wolves and spiders decorated the surroundings.

The nearby trees and bushes were severely destroyed in what must have been a messy fight of quick jumps and deadly attacks, which each left a mark on the landscape. In some cases, the marks were so evident that Clay was able to imagine the fight before his eyes.

Surprising was that the spiders didn’t have an overwhelming advantage like he suspected after having just witnessed a duel between the two predators. The loss on both sides seems to amount to about the same.

Looking over the corpses, he sadly didn’t find any heart blood, one of the sides or maybe even both have taken their share and left nothing but ravaged bodies. This fight also couldn’t have been too long ago, otherwise the corpses would have been picked clean from their flesh.

“Clay?” Ripped back to reality, he turned around to Mia studying one of the corpses of the spiders. She got long accustomed to such sights. It was a good thing he let her help with the butchering since the beginning.

“What is it?” Clay asked while watching over her shoulder at the corpse. Pointing at the front limbs, she said, “The first two legs have a sharpened underside, while the rest six have these claws, so it probably can only attack with these two front legs.”

Nodding, Clay sat beside her and made a few cuts around the inside of the body. “It also doesn’t seem to have any poison glads, so at least we don’t have to worry about that. Good observation, it seems like we just have to worry about the front legs and this,” explained Clay while holding up a string spun on top of the legs.

Standing up and seeing the spider as a whole, Mia remarked, “These strings somehow look like bones, as if had its bones outside its body as some kind of armor, hmm… bone spiders.”

“What?” Clay asked confused. “Don’t give me that look. You named the wolves ‘dire wolves’ so I will name these spidies ‘bone spiders’.”

“Well, that is a fair point. Bone spiders it is then, do you want to make a sketch?” Clay asked while still searching through the body of the dead bone spider. “Of course I do. I have to fill the notebook you gave me, right?”

Laughing, he wanted to pet Mia’s head, put was violently hit away by the shaft of her spear. “Not with these hands!” Bewildered, Clay looked at his hands, which were fully covered in yellow blood. “Haha, sorry, bad habit. Could you give me one of the towels in the backpack?”

Sighing in frustration, Mia mumbled, “God where is your head sometimes,” but opened her backpack nonetheless.

***

It was a chilling night later that day. Having gotten a rough idea of what was happening and having seen the massacre of the two fighting species, Clay called it a day there. Like usual, he was staying up longer to train.

Well, currently he was just relaxing against the tree where he buried Jim. He liked to just come by and sit for a while. There wasn’t really any point, it just calmed his nerves.

With the discovery of these territories, he was in quite a bad spot. In the north resided the dire wolves, to the east were the bone spiders, which as it seemed were waging war with each other for what must have been months by now.

From just today he couldn’t tell how far their territories reached, but from the little of what he saw from the web covered forest he was pretty sure that he couldn’t go either direction without encountering at least one of them.

The south was a dead end with Churchville lying there and most of it being submerged in poison. He could still cross it, but south laid nothing more than mountainsides anyway, so there wasn’t really any point in going.

That only left the west out to explore, where he already knew was the pond with the underwater creatures, so also not the best direction to go in. Scratching his head, he struggled to come up with a save hunting area.

With Mia now tagging along the patrols, he wanted to make sure that he can protect her in the worst case scenario. Her aura shield would definitely last a while, but not forever. The biggest problem was that each of these new species had one thing in common: they were fast.

Be it the dire wolves with their strong hind legs, the spiders with their elastic web, or the underwater creatures with their tongue. Each of these beasts has one way or another to attack very quickly, which doesn’t give much room for reaction.

Should there ever be the situation where Mia’s shield fails, how was he supposed to defend her if he wasn’t nearly as fast as them? That’s something he had to find an answer to at all costs. Enhancing his legs, he was able to reach quite staggering amounts of speed, but that took time and wasn’t as instant as the beasts did it. His body just wasn’t build to move that quickly in such a short amount of time.

Pushing his worries aside, he took a deep breath and looked at the blue moon, which glowed brightly above him. With the two moons, illuminating the surroundings, the night became much brighter.

Contemplating, Clay suddenly heard a rustle from behind, only to find Mia standing there. It wasn’t unusual for her to visit Jim’s grave, but normally not during these hours. “Mia, why are you still up? Couldn’t you sleep?”

Strolling over, she touched the gravestone of Jim before replying, “Yeah, kinda. I just couldn’t stop thinking.”

After spending so much time with her, Clay knew she was sulking and something was bothering her. “Mia, you know you can tell me if something isn’t right. You only have to be strong in front of the beasts, right? If it’s just us two, you can say anything that is on your mind.”

“I’m just… It’s just,” fiddling with her finger for a moment she eventually said, “I think I’m lonely?”

Patting the ground beside him, he invited her to sit, which she did. “I can understand that, it's normal to feel lonely, especially in our particular situation. I’m surprised you were able to hold on for so long without saying anything. I often left you alone for hours, which I wish I didn’t have to, but you know there wasn’t much of an option.”

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I know. I just miss my friends, my parents, my brother…” resting her head on her knees she explained, “I just wish it was like before, where I can play with my friends, learn at school, annoy my brother, spend time with my parents… Instead, I learned how to fight, butchered animals and had to be strong.”

Tears started to roll under her mask as she spoke with a broken voice, “I never wanted any of this, so much time already passed, but it's all just a long blur of a nightmare I just can’t seem to wake up from.” Looking directly at Clay, she asked desperately, “When does this end? When does this nightmare stop? When can I finally return to how things were?!”

Putting a hand on her head, Clay pressed her against his chest, which only increased her cries, as she let everything out that accumulated over the past few months. Caressing her head he wanted to say something, words of comfort, but when he opened his mouth the only thing that came out was a hoarse squeak.

He didn’t know what to say, as he himself teared up. He never took care of a child before and had little to no life experience, he was in no position to give advice, as he didn’t know what would happen in the future. When does this nightmare end? Will it even ever end? He couldn’t tell, and he couldn’t bring himself to lie, so he just sat there holding Mia, while trying to appear strong, masking his own worries behind a mask of bravery he didn’t actually have.

Strength is what he required both physically and mentally, he had to be strong for her, to ensure their survival. He promised it, and he sure as hell intended to keep it.

***

It was a sunny day, and for once weren’t there any trees to obscure the warming light. Clay was currently standing in the clearing, not far from where the bear had lived. It was a few dozen meters wide and stretched for a few hundred more through the forest. It was one of the few places without tress and was thus the best place for his training.

In this place, he couldn’t get easily ambushed, as both the dire wolves and the bone spiders relied on trees to quickly accelerate. It also lied in the west, far from their territories, the only close threat were the creatures dwelling in the pond, but even they were quite a bit out so he wasn’t too worried.

Normally such heavy precautions weren’t needed, but he wasn’t quite sure how dangerous his idea was. Hell, it may be a really stupid idea, but he was getting desperate. Beating his own fear and relying on his regeneration to win fights wasn’t enough. He needed a way to quickly overwhelm his opponents.

During his rigorous training in controlling the flow of his essence, he noticed one particular thing. He already knew that essence always moved and never stood still, so when he was enhancing his body, it was natural to circulate it around the part where he wanted the enhancement.

If he for example wanted to strengthen his right arm, he would form a circulation which started at the heart went to his right arm and ended again at his heart. During this process essence is gradually given of which strengthens the body part.

This gradual strengthening made sure that his body was able to withstand this new power. It wasn’t just as simple as gaining more power, his arm literally becomes for this moment stronger in every aspect. Otherwise, his bones could break, and his skin rip after every move.

His idea was to guide the essence into his arm like usual, but instead of circulating it, he intended to hold it in place. This went against the nature of essence and caused it to become violent and uncontrollable. He knew this because he long ago tried to do the same with his aura, when he freshly awakened it.

In the case of his aura, it began to move uncontrollably until he couldn’t keep hold of it and violently dispersed in every direction. So he was wondering what would happen if this happened inside his body instead of outside. His aura had the space to freely disperse into the atmosphere, but inside his body?

Shaking his head, he sharply exhaled. This may be really stupid, but he had to try. With one last breath, he focused inwards as he started to guide his essence into his right arm, but once it filled his arm, he didn’t guide it back. He held it in place.

As soon as the essence stopped moving, felt Clay’s mind like he was carrying a heavy stone. As the amount of essence increased inside his arm, so too increased the weight and size of the stone. Only the thought of growing this stone, kept his mind in place, as sweat trailed down his brows.

Unknowingly, he was biting his teeth until he tasted the iron in his mouth. He held on for dear life, but when he suddenly felt his vision blacken for a moment he knew he couldn’t hold on for any longer, so he let go of the stone.

At once, as if a dam erupted, surged the essence forth and spread violently in his arm. A rush of energy spread through his arm that felt like it was ripping it apart from the inside, so with his last clear thought he punched forward into the tree, before his vision went black for a moment.

The moment he regained his vision, he saw the tree before him slowly fall, as the trunk was ripped into pieces. In the point of impact was a clear hole and surrounding it was a spiraling pattern that spread outwards, which shredded half of the tree away.

Slowly he heard the sound of wood cracking and breaking, as the trunk slowly fell forward, or at least that what remained of the trunk. Breathing heavily and still in a trance, Clay just stepped sideways before the tree crashed with a thud before his feet.

The following rush of wind cleared his mind a little, and he suddenly felt a stinging pain on his right arm. Bewildered, he looked down only to see his arm completely covered in blood, his bracer was completely shredded just like the tree and nothing more than a few straps of leather remained which stucked to his skin.

The skin itself was also completely ripped open in the same spiraling pattern, as if he had plunged his whole arm into a meat grinder. With another passing breeze, he finally felt the pain.

“AHHHH!” Holding his arm, Clay’s mind was jolted awake, as his breath quickened. “Fuck! Goddammit! Shit! Stupid! Ahhghhrr” Trying to calm down, he groaned in pain. You would think that pain gets better if you already experienced being pierced through the stomach, but hell no.

With ragged breath and non-stop cursing, he grabbed hold of the essence inside him and guided it into his right arm, this time forming a circulation back to the heart. As soon as the steady stream of essence spread to the wound, he could feel his pain lessen as a new pain replaced the old.

The familiar burning sensation of his healing flesh caressed the wound, as Clay watched in awe as first the blood began to stop flowing before his flesh squirmed and moved, as he felt his bones being pushed pack into place, which he didn’t even know were damaged.

Feeling the jolt through his arm, he knew his bones were back in place. Followed was the flesh, which quickly shifted and wriggled over the open wound. Lastly, slithered the skin back into it’s place, returning to its pristine state.

Opening and closing his fist, he moved and shook his arm a bit, causing some last bone pops and cracks. His arm was fully healed again and the only thing that was left to indicate the wound were the leather pieces which littered the ground of what used to be his bracer.

Laughing to himself, Clay smiled. That wasn’t what he was expecting, it exceeded every expectation he had for this little experiment. It felt like he was holding his essence for hours, but that wasn’t true in reality, just a few seconds passed between him holding his essence and releasing it to punch the tree.

The pain was of course unpleasant, but the damage was manageable. How long did the healing just take? It couldn’t have been long, maybe a dozen seconds? It didn’t matter, the point was he could totally use this in a battle with a bit more training.

He just had to train his mind hard enough to be able to hold essence while still being able to move. Looking at the tree in front of him, he couldn’t stop himself from smiling. This wasn’t just some small tree he just punched into oblivion, it was a full-grown oak tree.

There was no question that everything without an aura shield or extreme mutations would either instantly die or at least get severely injured by an attack like this. This was the first time since learning how to use essence that gave him a real advantage over the mutated animals.

Up to this point he always had to rely on tools like swords, or his wit by using traps or poison to survive. Apart from his regeneration and endurance, he was always outclassed by the beasts, but this power? It was not only enough to rival them, he finally had a weapon that he could use to completely overwhelm them.

The attack needed time to charge up, he needed to time it very precisely else it would miss, he sustained severe damage afterward which rendered the limb near useless for a few seconds, but all of this didn’t matter. With enough training, he would learn how to manage these limitations. No more running away, it was time to take the battle to these beasts head on.