The deeper the boy and crow went, the more the forest seemed to change.
The colors drained, sounds quieted, as though the woods themselves were holding their breath.
After venturing far off course, Damon quickly noticed there was no trail or markers to be seen. Just the rustle of wind and the faint crunch of leaves beneath his boots.
'Where the hell did that damn rabbit run off to...?' He hissed, clearly irritated.
He kept his back hunched, trying to compress his spiritual energy as the air clung to his skin. Then he slowed his steps to survey the area.
Shing!
Suddenly, as his presence grew lighter, an intense pain flooded his brain.
'Dammit, it cut through the leather!'
Damon looked at his shoulder and grunted, noticing the deep cut in the material and his skin. Just then something had streaked through the air from a nearby shrub and attacked him from a blind spot.
As his heart began racing, he clenched his teeth and held up his guard, anticipating a follow-up.
However, that very attack never came.
His head swiveled left to right. Around him, the forest seemed to morph into a death trap. As he stood there waiting, every angle he looked in sent shivers down his spine and goosebumps across his skin.
Shing!
Once again, too fast to react, the second strike finally came, cutting across his thigh in a precise, shallow wound.
'How is it moving that fast!' Damon grumbled as he heard the third strike in the wind. He sensed it was headed for his back and swung the blade without restraint.
Yet when his gaze snapped around, the weapon glided through the air, hitting nothing in return.
'A feint!?' Damon's pupils shook as he realized this.
But then a thought occurred to him. If the beast was capable of such speed and agility, then why didn't it simply maintain that pace all the time? The encounter with the white tiger would have ended much sooner if it had.
As if answering his thoughts, three shallow slashes swept across his back without warning. A second later, his body was engulfed in heat.
Damon didn't pay it much attention. He hastily pushed spiritual energy toward his hands, feet, ears, and lastly, his eyes. Because the answer had suddenly dawned on him.
'It's not that it doesn't want to; it likely just can't without burning through its stamina.'
Following this line of thinking, Damon, as a human now empowered by spiritual energy, would easily be able to keep up with enough focus. Among the beasts of the land, humans were said to possess elite levels of stamina.
'Let's see which one of us runs dry first.'
He quickly silenced his thoughts as a burning sensation spread through his eyes. They were the most difficult to reinforce, but then, as they took on a crimson hue, it was like a veil had been lifted.
Before his eyes, the forest took shape in deeper hues, veins of energy trailing through the grass, and branches trembling with an unnatural rhythm.
And there it was.
Wounded and steeped in a thick misty cloud of bloodlust, the hare took a feral stance, lurking with its long ears pointed upward and sharply clawed fingers dripping crimson.
Recognizing that it had been spotted, the six-foot beast swiftly changed position. It leapt from the ground to the trees, colliding with the bark and deforming the surfaces as if they were flexible. The beast began ricocheting from tree to tree around him, building momentum for its next strike.
'Right, left, behind, front, left.' Damon spun around and silently prepared for the assault, tracking the beast with his eyes and ears. He swung his blade to the left, sensing the hare was ready.
Bang!
An array of sparks flew from the collision as the metal clashed against the beast's claws. They were both pushed back from the impact, but Damon recovered quickly.
He steadied his footing, then leapt toward the beast to strike before it could react. But as he closed the distance, the beast performed a backflip, countering the attack with the claws of its feet.
Landing on its hind legs, the beast capitalized on Damon's surprise and leapt toward him for a piercing attack. Its reflexes were exceptional, but the boy wasn't far behind.
Ding!
Reversing his grip on the blade, he managed to parry the attack in time by reinforcing it further.
"Not so tough now, huh? Coward." He scowled. The words were obviously hypocritical coming from someone who had chosen to flee earlier. But they infuriated the hare to no end.
Clink! Clink! Clink!
At once, the beast increased its speed, releasing a flurry of slashing attacks.
Damon's stance remained firm as he parried each strike with precision, feeling the spiritual energy building. He could tell it was preparing for a powerful strike.
Nevertheless, he wasn't about to let it succeed. He swung his blade toward the beast's torso, hoping to disturb its concentration.
Taking the bait, the beast dodged further to its right and swung a reinforced slash.
Whoosh! Damon hastily ducked, his eyes widening in shock at the power behind the attack. 'That would have been bad news if it hit,' he thought.
In quick succession, he struck back, slashing across the beast's torso, and a splash of crimson landed on his face.
The beast recoiled from the pain.
"Raaah!" Now even more enraged, the hare let out a fierce roar, raising its spiritual energy output once again. It then followed up with a downward slash.
However, Damon instinctively jumped back, easily avoiding the strike. Just as he regained his footing, he felt the sudden sensation of danger scratching at his nape. He quickly realized he had made a mistake.
'Shit, that attack wasn't reinforced!' He could only look on in horror as the beast fired a blast from its mouth toward him.
Bang!
Intense pain flooded Damon's chest as the blast connected, leaving him no time to react. Blood spilled from his mouth. His head grew lighter for a few seconds, and his ears started ringing as his back slammed against another tree.
'So it was controlling the air!'
Damon exclaimed internally. 'To think it still had another trick.'
The pain was intense, but slowly his vision began to steady as he saw the silhouette of the hare charging toward him.
Jumping to his feet, he dodged the charge, weaving to the right.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The sound of the collisions rang through the forest as the beast tore through several trees, and Damon wove through them, dodging each strike.
'With that wound, this should be enough to wear it out. I need to end this in the next attack... but how? Maybe I should try that.'
Sensing the beast's energy efficiency drop, Damon made his move as its movements grew sluggish.
With the dust clouds stirred up from the impacts as cover, he began to compress his spiritual energy. This left him vulnerable as the reinforcement faded from his limbs and eyes.
'With this, I can evade detection in between every move I make,' Damon thought to himself.
Taking a deep breath, he leapt to the nearest intact tree, launching his body to another and building momentum. He sought to replicate what the beast had done earlier in the battle.
The beast's rage hit an all-time peak as it realized its prey's energy presence had vanished. Its remaining eye wandered in all directions, searching, and dread quickly set in.
Finally, having built enough speed, Damon launched himself without hesitation. He twisted in the air, his reinforced body turning with the flow of his dagger.
The blade doubled in size, extending to a length of twelve inches as he flew forward.
Sensing the looming spiritual energy too late, the beast was too stunned to react in time. Its stamina had been mostly exhausted.
The world became a blur for a few moments as reinforced steel swept outward in a clean arc, slicing through the dust cloud.
Shing!
In the end, the blade met its mark mid-spin, as flesh parted under the motion, painting the ground in scarlet.
Huff...
Damon dropped low, breathing heavily as his boots struck the bloody dirt with a thud. The cut was cleaner than expected, but the landing was not so great, and he felt the shock travel through his legs.
But sure enough, behind him, the body of the beast faltered and fell as its head landed at his feet.
'Luckily, the beast didn't have the energy left for another mouth blast. I couldn't handle another direct hit like that,' he mused inwardly.
"You actually pulled it off!" Kuroushi exclaimed.
"Huh?" Damon gave the bird an inquisitive look with crimson-colored eyes. "You didn't think I could...?"
The crow gestured its small head toward the head on the ground and replied, "It was hard to see the outcome since neither you nor that one was an amplifier."
'Amplifier?' Damon repeated inwardly, his brow twitching. But he didn't voice the question. Instead, he replied flatly, "My spiritual energy control must have just been better."
At the same time, a thought crept into his mind. The crow could potentially report their conversation back to Tomoe. He decided it was better to play it safe by getting the bird to reveal the information without direct probing.
Kuroushi nodded at his words, its feathers settling. "This one suspects you may be a spiritualist. They possess better compatibility with amplification than elementalists like the hare."
'Spiritualist? Elementalist?' Damon filed the terms away, his mind already churning. After a moment of thought, he asked, "Couldn't experience or biology close that gap?"
"The quality of one's soul matters more than either." The crow tilted its head, its beady eyes glinting. "If you don't need any rest, you should grab the beast's head so we can head back."
Damon waved a dismissive hand and plopped down to the ground. "You should return to Tomoe first and report the result. I want to recover my energy a little."
Kuroushi was stunned. The bird's feathers ruffled as it wondered if the boy wasn't afraid of other beasts coming to the scene after smelling the blood. But then it noticed the bloodlust hadn't fully faded from the creature's body.
A lingering pressure still clung to the air like weights on a scale.
"Very well," the crow said, beginning to flap its wings. "Do not leave from this spot until this one returns."
"I'm not going anywhere." Damon sighed dramatically, closing his eyes.
Kuroushi took flight, its midnight form disappearing through the canopy.
Immediately after, Damon reopened his eyes.
A smirk tugged at the corner of his lips.
'I could go back to Tomoe's, but I'd rather not do that before I can figure out what her intentions are.'
'I don't have much usable energy left after that last attack, but it should be enough for enhancing my ears to find those other visitors she mentioned.'