Cat

I wasted no more time and headed straight to the clearing. Since Raidha was almost healed, she couldn't stay still, so this time she came with me to help... and by help I mean yelling at me what I had to do sitting on a log...

"You're slow! At this speed we will never finish!"

"You should say that I will not finish... You are not helping much that we say... If you don't like how I work, do it yourself..."

"I can not do this! Your power isn't even magic!"

Saying those words, she crossed her arms and turned her head to the side, looking annoyed.

"I came to that conclusion alone ... I really don't understand why it bothers you so much that I have this power..." I whispered as I kept trying to fix the mess.

It was hard work, but as it's said, practice makes perfect. As I spent time using this power, I began to notice that it was getting easier and easier to control. Using it was still quite complicated and exhausting, however, it was no longer at the level of not being able to do anything unless I put all my conscience into it.

The next thing I discovered was that I could control plants more easily than soil itself. Slowly, I managed to fill in the holes and replant the trees. I left it just how I remembered it was. One would never say that a disaster had occurred the day before.

"I'm done," I said with a satisfied sigh.

"It was ti…"

Roaaaaaaaaar!

Raidha's sentence was interrupted by a loud cry coming from the edge of the clearing.

"Was that an animal?" Raidha asked.

"A pretty big one..." I replied as I swallowed, completely tense.

Raidha came to my side and grabbed my arm. Silence reigned in the clearing. There were no footsteps breaking twigs or the sound of something crawling through the bushes. A heavy environment, caused by not knowing what was stalking us, continually pressured us.

"There!" Raidha yelled as she desperately tugged on my arm.

I looked at the place she was pointing at. Some kind of white tiger slowly made its way into the clearing. Seeing it enter so calm made it difficult to know its intentions, but something in me warned me that it was very dangerous. Maybe it was what people call animal instinct or it was just... that damn thing was over four meters tall!

—In the end, a real predator appeared.

"Damn, do all the animals in this forest take steroids or what?" I said as I stepped back.

The tiger advanced a little and stood still watching us both. It looked directly at me for a second and then at Raidha. A moment later, it ducked slightly. Noticing that subtle movement, I reacted practically on instinct. I jumped on Raidha and pulled her with all my strength. We both fell several meters from where we had been, where the tiger had just passed at full speed. It turned his head back, giving me an annoyed cat glare... Apparently, I took its food.

"It's going for you... You seem to be tastier than me," I told Raidha as I stepped between her and the tiger.

"This is no time to joke!"

That animal began to circle slowly around us without showing signs of wanting to attack again. That behavior made me terribly nervous. My whole body warned me of the great danger we were in. However, I was not as scared as I had been previously. Perhaps because it was an animal, because I had become slightly used to the danger, or because I had already learned my lesson after everything that had happened, but I was able to think more calmly.

"Raidha, stay behind. I will deal with this."

I pulled out the gun and prepared to fill that big cat with holes. At that moment, its size was an advantage for me. It was easier for me to hit the mark. I raised the pistol with both hands, holding it firmly, and aimed at its head. I put my finger on the trigger, ready to squeeze it. However, as soon as it saw me raise the pistol, the tiger took a great leap. By the time I pulled the trigger, it was no longer there.

I kept firing, following its sprint across the clearing, but I couldn't hit the target no matter how hard I tried. It was moving too fast to fire a precise shot. The ammunition clip emptied without being able to pull a single hair from its tail.

"No way... how can something so big be so agile?!"

I looked at Raidha sideways, she understood what I wanted to convey without having to say a single word. She took a little distance walking backward, not losing sight of the tiger for a moment.

"I will distract it, you immobilize it," I told her at the same time that I changed the clip.

"Got it!"

Despite being almost healed, she was not completely recovered. I couldn't let her get into a direct fight. I held the pistol in my left hand and pulled Vurtalis out to face the tiger closely if necessary. A quick look at the size of the blade made me sweat. The claws of the animal were practically as long as the sword blade. In the melee, it had the upper hand.

Finally, the tiger attacked again. I trusted Raidha, I knew she would give me a chance. I held my position and, as I thought, she protected me with her magic from the attack. The tiger was somewhat confused when it found something that it did not expect. It roared loudly in our direction and its claws dug into the ground, leaving deep grooves. It picked up momentum and charged back towards me. In less than a second, I had it already on top of me.

"As you wish, we will cross claws!" I yelled and stepped forward with Vurtalis in hand.

The sword flew straight to its neck, but after a halt and leaping diagonally to the side, it avoided my slash. From that position, it counterattacked and its claw crossed in front of me. I had time to take a slight step back to avoid being completely ripped. Still, its long nails dug painfully into my chest. Four marks ran horizontally across my belly and blood shot out from deep cuts. Luckily it was not a bite, otherwise, I would already be in the other world.

I endured the intense pain that was spreading through my chest and belly with difficulty since that attack did not end just with that. Its paw kept moving toward me indiscriminately. I could barely avoid the next blows. A few minor cuts filled my arms and legs. Luckily, Raidha managed to push it off me. All my clothes become tattered and bloody in seconds.

"Are you okay?!" Raidha rushed over.

'No way I'm fine! This hurts a lot!'

Raidha kept it away long enough for me to recover a bit. It took just a minute for the blood to stop coming out. The pain lessened even earlier. The wounds hadn't closed yet, but I was able to return to the combat.

—If you continue this way you will never do anything to it.

"Well, so tell me what can I do..."

I also had the power of the earth, but I didn't master it enough to use it efficiently in combat. I also had two weapons in my hands, but neither seemed to be of use at the moment.

'What I wanted was not to play sand castle building.'

The tiger approached Raidha. Scared about if it would hit her, I shot again desperately. Due to it being focused on her, a bullet hit it in the leg, making it stop its attack and turn to look at me. I automatically put Vurtalis in front of me, but it didn't look like it would protect me from the massive claws.

'If only the blade were longer...' I lamented, looking at the short sword with a bright green gem on the hilt. 'Wait... The gem... why is it green?'

It seemed strange to me that it had that color since the day we arrived in this world, but as the days passed, I stopped paying attention to it.

'It was red that day...' I remembered when I first saw it.

My eyes widened as I faintly remembered Raidha's explanation of the sword, which I half ignored at the time. It was a sword that absorbed energy and adapted to it.

I firmly squeezed its hilt and poured the natural energy into it in the same way as I did previously with the same earth. As I did so, the gem gained intensity in its green color. A second later, that glow spread across the hilt and then the blade.

'Come on... transform into a sword that can deal with something so big!' I pleaded in my mind.

A strange connection was forged between me and the sword. It stopped being a simple piece of metal to literally become a part of my own body. The hilt changed color to bark brown and the cross spread out on both sides like two branches sprouting from a tree. The blade turned green as it rounded and elongated like a plant stem. From there, diamond-shaped blades began to sprout a couple of centimeters apart. What I had in my hands went from a small and shabby sword, more like a ham knife, to a rather peculiar sword.

'It was by chance or did Vurtalis react to my will?' I smiled slightly.

With renewed determination, Vurtalis in one hand and pistol in the other, I threw myself back into combat. I brandished the sword with a horizontal slash. As expected, the tiger avoided it just by jumping back. I smiled when I saw the direction it moved.

"Let's see if you were expecting this."

The blade lengthened and bent like a whip. I somehow knew that it could do that and that I also could control it at will. I directed it towards the tiger, who was still in the air. Unable to move while its feet were not yet on the ground, the extendable blade struck it squarely, like a saw, making a deep cut that covered its white fur in red.

"Did you kill it?" Raidha asked me.

"I don't think so... I cut it, but it didn't go very deep," I replied as I looked at my hand.

Something similar to touch was also transmitted through the sword, so I noticed how the blade did not sink completely into the body of the tiger. In addition to being agile, it was also quite tough. Like the other animals in the forest, this one also seemed to have properties of earth, and in much greater quantity than the others.

Following my expectations, the tiger stood up like nothing, staring at me with hatred. At last, it seemed to consider me somewhat dangerous. The bad thing was that from that moment on, it would go to kill with everything.

"Raidha, come to my side."

She quickly followed my instructions and stood next to me. I extended the sword around us forming something like a net of blades to protect us. Without a doubt, that tiger was quite clever, since it began to walk around, analyzing that weapon that had just wounded it at the same time that it was looking for an opportunity to attack.

The atmosphere was terribly tense. I was expecting an attack, but neither of us could make up our minds to make the first move. Tired of waiting, I fired from inside that makeshift cage. I emptied absolutely all the chargers on the tiger. Raidha joined the offensive with her magic attacks. The wound I had inflicted on it had not been for nothing. Thanks to that, and combining our shots, we managed to wound it a lot more.

After roaring with all its might, it charged towards us again. With its claw in front, it pushed down the sword and opened a hole in the net, through which it managed to enter inside. Some blades grazed his back and a slight grunt of pain was heard. Still, it did not stop charging towards us.

"It took you too long to decide to attack," I whispered.

During all the time it wasted circling around us, I concentrated my energy on the earth around me. At the same moment that it crossed the net created by Vurtalis I already put my concentration on the ground. With all my strength and fury, I lifted the ground and locked it in at the same time that I lifted it slightly in the air so that it couldn't keep running. It began to roar furiously and scramble to escape... and it would probably succeed in a few seconds.

"I won't give you time," I said as I pulled Vurtalis back to turn it again to a sword instead of a whip.

I held the sword with both hands and pointed at the animal with its tip. As soon as I got to the right distance, I enlarged the blade at full speed. The sword's blade flew towards the unprotected animal's chest and sank into its huge body. After a roar of pain, which could probably be heard from across the forest, it finally stopped moving.

"We did it," I sighed.

Raidha also sighed in relief before approaching to take a close look at the sword.

"Vurtalis... what a strange form it has taken. I had wanted to see it again in its full splendor for a long time... Although now it looks quite weird," Raidha said, staring at the sword that was still retracting from the animal's chest.

"Yes, yes ..." I replied.

However, before I could fully remove it, my heart raced. My body got hot and I started to feel very uncomfortable.

"Ugh... now what's going on?" I said, clenching my teeth.

As soon as I managed to say that phrase, an explosion of pain assailed me. A large amount of energy overflowed from all the pores of my body as if it was on fire. The energy that the tiger released was absorbed in the same way as those of the other animals, and apparently, it was more energy than I could bear. I had exceeded the maximum amount in the container and all the excess was poured throughout my whole body, which was not able to hold it either. The yellowish-green liquid spurted from my body as the pain intensified more and more.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"

My agonizing cry filled the silence of the forest.