In the days that followed, the Magical Beast Mountain Range ceaselessly honed Loa with its own particular cruelty and wildness.
Fighting became as routine as breathing. Whether in chance encounters or deliberate hunts, his opponents ranged from cunning venomous insects to packs of low-level magical beasts and solitary predators. His leather armor was already covered in scratches and tears, forcing him to strip material from other sections to make rough repairs. On his exposed skin, fresh wounds overlapped old ones, new bloody marks appearing before the scabs had fallen away. His arms, shoulders, back, and even his cheeks bore marks both deep and shallow. Some came from raking claws, others from scraping thorns, and more were the price of battle that he could never entirely avoid.
He had long since grown used to moving through pain, keeping calm amid the smell of blood, and forcing himself onward when he felt tired enough to die. Thinking about how to "stay alive," how to carry prey out of this man-eating forest while keeping himself intact, became his sole concern. His initial tension and lingering fear gradually settled into an almost instinctive caution and decisiveness.
The rewards came as well. He had killed no shortage of level-four magical beasts. With increasingly practiced combat skills, more flexible use of the terrain, and his initial grasp of "Listening to the Wind," he successfully hunted several level-four magical beasts that were alone or that he could maneuver into one-on-one fights. Several more valuable level-four Magic Crystal Cores joined the others in the leather pouch at his waist, weighing heavily against his hip-both wealth and proof of his strength.
He deliberately intensified his training in sensing the wind. Whether traveling or lying in wait, he tried to shed some of his reliance on sight and devote more attention to detecting the subtlest movements of air. The wind's moan through the treetops, its rustle over blades of grass, its eddies around rocks... He worked to distinguish whether any discordant "noise" mingled with these "sounds of nature." He did make progress; his ability to detect surprise attacks from the sides and rear improved markedly. Yet Loa always felt something was missing, as though he were peering through a thin veil, able to see an outline but unable to make out its true appearance.
That night, he ran into real trouble.
It was a Shadow Cat, a peak level-four Dark Element magical beast. It seemed to be the darling of the night itself, its sleek body wrapped in glossy, pure-black fur that almost merged with the dense darkness. Only its slit pupils, glimmering with an eerie green phosphorescence, remained coldly fixed on Loa.
The encounter came without warning. Loa did not even see clearly how it sprang from the shadows. He merely felt a chill along his ribs as his tough leather armor tore as easily as paper, followed by searing pain-three claw marks deep enough to expose bone appeared, and blood swiftly stained his clothes red.
So fast! Loa's heart jolted. His longsword instinctively swept backward, but cut only air. The Shadow Cat retreated after a single strike, twisting unnaturally before melting into the darkness again, as though it had never appeared.
The intense pain quickened Loa's breathing. He immediately realized that relying on sight to track this nocturnal killer in such darkness was practically suicide. Watching those flickering green points and indistinct black shadows too closely would only interfere with his judgment and breed fear.
Stop looking with my eyes... "listen" instead! He forced himself to close his eyes for an instant. When he opened them again, his gaze no longer searched urgently but grew still, and he devoted almost all his concentration to sensing the airflow around him.
With his mind intensely focused, the surrounding sounds seemed amplified and separated. Insect calls, the friction of leaves, his own heartbeat and breathing... These background noises gradually faded. He strove to catch the wind-the omnipresent movement of air.
Here it comes! On the left! He had not heard a sound, but "felt" an extremely faint disturbance that ran counter to the natural wind, like the almost imperceptible ripples raised by a tiny stone on a still lake!
Without time to think, Loa trusted his instincts. He abruptly slid half a step diagonally backward to the left, simultaneously whipping his longsword upward in a swift rising slash!
Rrrip!
He felt the resistance of his blade passing through flesh, accompanied by a brief, piercing hiss of pain. In the faint light from the sky, Loa glimpsed a pitch-black shape dart past his blade, and several drops of warm liquid splashed onto the back of his hand.
Hit! It wasn't deep, but I definitely wounded it!
That strike seemed to enrage the Shadow Cat, but also made it more wary. It no longer approached lightly, instead circling rapidly at the edge of Loa's perception, roughly three meters away, its eerie green eyes flickering unpredictably from left to right. It seemed to have noticed the limits of his unusual perception as well, and began deliberately prowling just outside that range, using darkness and speed to exert pressure while waiting for his concentration to slip or his judgment to fail.
Loa cursed inwardly. What a cunning beast!
Several probing feints came as swiftly as ghosts. Loa focused all his attention on sensing it, barely managing to determine its general direction, but he could not accurately predict where its attacks would land, much less counterattack. Cold sweat soaked his back. This could not continue. Maintaining such intense concentration was enormously draining, while the Shadow Cat clearly had greater patience and stamina. I have to break the stalemate, lure it into attacking first, and finish it within the range where my perception is clearest! Loa thought.
In a flash, Loa's thoughts raced. He deliberately shifted from a two-handed sword grip to holding it in his right hand alone, its tip drooping slightly as though prolonged combat had exhausted him. At the same time, his footwork grew slightly disordered, and he turned his body a little, subtly exposing openings along his left flank and the back of his shoulder.
He presented this opening with exceptional naturalness, as though it were an unavoidable lapse amid rapid movement and a tense standoff.
The eerie green eyes instantly locked onto this "opportunity"! The Shadow Cat moved! Instead of attacking head-on, it hugged the ground like a true shadow and rushed in at astonishing speed from the blind spot behind Loa's left side that he had deliberately exposed! Its claws drove straight for his heart from behind!
Yet the instant it moved, Loa's intensely focused perception finally caught that decisive "abnormal airflow"! It was clearer than any time before-behind him to the left, close to the ground, rapidly approaching!
Now!
Loa's right hand remained motionless around his sword, as though he truly had noticed nothing. But his left hand had already clenched silently at his side. Battle-qi from the Thunder Rush Art and Weapon Combat Battle-qi compressed furiously over his knuckles, building and faintly rumbling like thunder.
"Hah!"
He exhaled with a shout, twisting his waist and hips! Loa's left fist shot out like a bolt loosed from a fully drawn bow, without flourish, nothing but pure speed and explosive force, smashing straight toward the attacking black shadow! "Crushing Thunder!" Its target-the face!
Bam!
A dull impact rang out, accompanied by the faint crack of breaking bone and an utterly agonized shriek! His fist struck the Shadow Cat squarely in the face! One eerie green eye burst instantly, spraying blood mixed with an unidentified fluid.
The devastating blow nearly threw the Shadow Cat off balance with pain, abruptly halting its pounce. How could Loa let such a rare opportunity pass? The longsword in his right hand finally moved!
"Tempest Sword!" He no longer sought a single killing strike, instead pushing his speed and offensive to their limits! Sword light poured down like a violent storm, instantly engulfing the wounded Shadow Cat! Slash, slash, slash! The sound of steel tearing through fur and flesh rang without pause as bloody blossoms kept blooming in the darkness.
The Shadow Cat went utterly berserk, ferocity blazing in its remaining eye. It knew escape was hopeless, and desperation awakened its most primal savagery. It stopped trying to break free of the net of sword strikes. Instead, it shrieked, disregarding the wounds multiplying across its body as dark elements surged violently around it. Its form abruptly blurred, as though about to become a true shadow-
Dark Element magic: Shadow Ambush!
At that instant, Loa's intensely focused perception caught a warning of unprecedented danger! It was not a disturbance in the air, but a stranger, more direct "chill," like an icy dagger pressed straight against his throat! Its target-his throat!
Danger!
On the brink of death, Loa's mind instead became incomparably clear. The essential principles of the "Breeze Caresses the Willow" movement technique flowed through his mind-feel the wind, become the wind, move with the wind, borrow force and deflect it!
His footwork remained steady, but his waist bent sharply backward and twisted sideways with incredible suppleness and coordination. His whole body seemed to lose its weight, or become a willow branch tossed by a gale, following the cold, razor-sharp "momentum" rushing toward his throat as he lightly "swayed" backward!
Whoosh!
The vicious rush of its claws swept almost flush against his Adam's apple, its icy chill raising goosebumps across his skin.
A hair's breadth!
The Shadow Cat's desperate strike missed, and its body inevitably stalled and lost balance for an instant. A trace of incredulous shock even flashed through its remaining eye.
Meanwhile, using the momentum of that backward "sway," Loa had already adjusted his center of gravity and gathered his strength as his body bent back and twisted sideways. His longsword turned like a venomous snake, its tip tracing a dazzling arc as it thrust swiftly upward from below!
Its target-the Shadow Cat's sole remaining eerie green eye!
"Gale Thrust!"
Squelch!
The sword tip plunged precisely into the eye socket, driving straight into its brain! He followed through with a twist!
The Shadow Cat's mangled body convulsed violently once, releasing a barely audible whimper before going completely limp, without another sign of life.
Loa held his thrusting stance, panting lightly as sweat mingled with blood and slid down his temple. In the darkness, there was only the sound of his own heavy breathing and the gradually cooling touch of the Shadow Cat's corpse on the ground.
I won.
He slowly withdrew his sword and looked at the magical beast's corpse, which had nearly taken his life. He felt little joy, only the cold sensation of having survived disaster and a deeper understanding.
Listening to the Wind... perception... movement techniques... adapting and unleashing power in desperate circumstances...
He had gained more from tonight's battle than from any before it. He walked over to the Shadow Cat's corpse, cut open its skull, and extracted a dark crystal deeper in color than the other level-four Magic Crystal Cores, seemingly capable of absorbing light.
After wiping the Magic Crystal Core clean and putting it away, Loa did not dare linger. He quickly treated several of his worst wounds and swallowed some medicinal powder. Looking up at the still-dense darkness of the night, he determined his direction and disappeared once more into the forest's shadows.
His body bore another wound, but the sword in his heart seemed to have grown a little sharper.
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