White Crimson Hunt (5) Clash

A smile stretched across Tyr's face, slowly turning into a chuckle before erupting into a full-blown laugh. "Huh...haha... perfect. You're perfect to be my first pet," he declared with a confident tone.

Hanzo raised an eyebrow in disbelief. 'He isn't scared at all?' he wondered, puzzled.

Despite the beast's fierce presence and intimidating demeanor, which would incite devastating fear in most people, Tyr was exhilarated. The more powerful the creature, the better.

"I won't fail," Tyr proclaimed, charging forward with determination. "I'll tame this thing and correct my mistakes."

The tiger didn't hesitate to move as it noticed Tyr's intentions. The boy wasn't scared, so it took this as a clear challenge.

'Fighting it head-on won't suffice. I already know this.' Tyr mused as the tiger lunged at him with lightning speed, ignoring Hanzo who was in front. Its claws slashed through the air with a thunderous roar.

With a practiced motion, Tyr rolled to the side, narrowly avoiding. He felt the gust of the beast's nails brush against his skin.

The jungle grass beneath Tyr's feet was smeared into a paste as he sprang away, his heart pounding with adrenaline-fueled urgency.

'Instead, I'll need to focus on its weakest points and slowly batter it down.' Tyr exclaimed, abruptly feeling a stinging pain on the side of his torso.

He quickly brushed his hand against the pain, the palm coming back up with dark blood.

Without him even noticing it, the tiger had managed to barely graze his side-abdomen.

The beast was on his tail, pouncing into the air with both hands extending out toward Tyr.

Tyr saw this--his head turned behind his shoulder to observe the tiger's movements as he ran.

'Perfect!' He exclaimed, abruptly pushing the heels of his feet into the ground.

Tyr had practiced this move many times before on other predatory creatures.

Whenever they attacked with both hands and were in the air, it prevented them from moving anywhere but forward and also made it difficult to attack anything that wasn't in their intended range.

This was obviously because they had extended both hands out to aim for something, leaving no backup attacks.

After halting in place, Tyr pushed his feet into the ground and jumped backward instead.

Hanzo furrowed his brows in confusion as he saw this. He was worried at first, but the confident look in Tyr's eyes assured him that the boy knew what he was doing.

Tyr flew below the large beast who was in the air, balanced himself to the ground by hand-standing, retracted his feet in like coils, and finally propelled himself out with maximum speed and power--digging them into the belly of the beast.

'Legs aren't to be underestimated. The strongest of humans can hold and even lift over 4000 pounds with their legs alone!' Tyr thought to himself, pushing the tiger up and over him.

It began to nearly flip forward due to the misbalance in momentum, but landed normally and turned around with malicious intent.

In other words, all that did was piss it off.

But Tyr wasn't too disappointed at that. He smiled slightly: 'It now understands that it can't just kill me whenever it likes.' He knew that to a certain extent, this was also a mental battle.

Not just for the tiger to respect him, but also for him to prove to himself that he was worthy of this fight.

Hanzo chuckled, 'Good on ya, kid. I doubt I'll have to intervene at this point.'

Tyr pushed himself up, running away from the beast and toward the large stones. The tiger leaped forward without delay, right on the boy's tail again.

'My Blink Step cooldown is still 5 seconds. I can't afford to waste one if I use it. I can't Blink Step near it, since it's faster than me without that spell. I need to be able to use the speed of Blink Step not to be faster than it... but to be invisible.'

Tyr jumped behind a large boulder with dozens of the same kind all around it--the tiger mere feet away. Just as Tyr had anticipated, the beast attempted to swipe its claws at Tyr without running around the stone.

However, as its paw got to the other side of the boulder, it found that there was nothing there except for air.

Out of nowhere, Tyr jumped out from behind a boulder that was next to the one that he had first jumped behind--thrusting his spear right into the middle of the tiger's paw and thrusting it a foot deep into the stone.

He had gone behind the first stone and then used Blink Step to blitz over to another one to the right. Although there was still the risk of the tiger being able to see him move, in the heat of battle when the beast was so close behind him, Tyr was confident in his chances.

Tyr's 30 points in strength along with the Glassback Alligator's teeth made stabbing the tiger's palm feasible.

Now that it was also dug into the stone, Tyr let go of the weapon and jumped backward, instantly turning and beginning to run away.

'That will have cut some nerve endings... its right claw will be close to useless now, especially if it--' As though on cue, the tiger did exactly what Tyr wanted.

Furious, it pulled its hand away from the boulder at a quick speed, allowing the sharp spear to shred right through it.

Even though the tiger's paw was removed, the spear was still lodged into the boulder, covered in blood, skin, and flesh.

The tiger exclaimed loudly in pain, but didn't stop its relentless pursuit. However, it was now limping slightly after each lunge.

Tyr continued to move forward, sprinting around all of the boulders.

'One hand down... this might be enough to slow it down enough to where I can Hypnotize it without worry, but I'd like to be more cauti--' At that moment, the tiger landed 15 feet in front of him.

Tyr stopped on the spot, using his spear to push himself backward slightly.

'Damn it! I shouldn't ignore the intelligence of this beast. It's going to be unpredictable.'

At that moment the tiger lunged to the left--bouncing off of a boulder and straight toward Tyr with its left paw ready to slash.

Tyr sharply inhaled, blocking himself with the spear as he turned his head to the side.

He imagined himself blitzing 10 feet away behind another boulder: 'Blink Step!' He urgently exclaimed.

[Blink Step is still on cooldown...]

'Fuck...'