First fight

That night, with Lucras fully packed, he started to move towards the river. In other places, traveling by night would be terrible, but here the fog helps illuminate the forest as the fog itself glowed. The fog wasn't as bright as the sun, but in the dark the fog made everything more visible. Without the need to squint at the sun, it was harder for monsters to ambush him unless he walked into it.

The river seemed to be the only constant thing here, as the fog doesn't touch the river. Most likely in this shifting maze of changing space, this river could lead him out of the forest.

As he continued down the river, he started to notice small signs of other life, like paw prints. After several minutes, some fog started to move into his area. At first he didn't really notice, the only difference was it was getting minutely harder to see.

After a few more minutes he started to notice the temperature dropping. He started to look around and saw the frost again, He looked around and behind him he saw something that terrified him.

A huge wall of fog was coming down the river, ice seemed to spread out in front from the fog. Fog so dense that it seemed like a portal to a new realm, with a sharp visible change in visibility where the fog was light and this new fog.

Realizing he was in danger, he started running, but when he looked back he noticed that the dense fog was following him, and when he looked forward again he saw more dense fog blocking off the next part of the river. The fog that usually avoided the river slightly, was now making it hard to even see the water. Without a choice, Lucras gritted his teeth and ran into the least foggy area, which was directly away from the river.

Running that way for a few minutes, he looked around and found that the fog seemed normal again. Sighing at the fact that he lost his quick escape ticket, he started to check his surrounding and found that this new area had some monsters that thankfully were not alerted by his panicked running.

He quickly hid and asked, 'Hey Ava, Is our ghost friend awake, I need to know what these monsters are…'

[Unfortunately for you, he is still unconscious. He really gave you a great gift with that breathing technique. And even more, unfortunately, I was able to look into his memories, and he has seen very few monsters, and they are all very common ones. He will be helpful with giving information about environments or…. Never mind you would never be able to learn that. Anyway, from how the monster looks, I would go with the one with the least amount of mana circulating inside it.]

Lucras sighed, he half expected that to be the case. Now he had to solve the problem of how to find one with the least amount of mana. After a solid few minutes of looking at the monsters he could choose to fight, being a wolf-like creature, a bear-like creature, and a lizard-like creature, he couldn't figure out which one was the easiest. In the end, he decided to go with the wolf-like monsters due to it being the farthest away from the other two monsters.

Slowly he approached the wolf thing, as he got closer he could see more details about this monster. While it originally looks like a wolf, its canine teeth looked longer, and some patches of fur were missing. Its eyes were also green, and he felt like they were glowing slightly.

As he was about to strike a voice reminded him, [Put your stuff down away from you, so when you fight you don't lose your poor possessions, also remember this is a fight to the death, no backing out…]

After placing down his backpack, with his heart thumping in his chest, he moved closer. Closer and closer he moved he felt like his chest was compressing again. He quietly checked his stats and saw his stress stat at around 45, which was worrying because of the debuffs it gives. He was about 2 seconds away from the wolf if he ran at it, so he took a minute to calm himself down and make final preparations.

As he was doing that, the wolf monster's nose started to twitch. And while Lucras was focusing on himself, the wolf quickly spun around and charged at him. Surprised Lucras leaped back and thankfully landed on his feet.

As the wolf ran straight for him with its mouth wide open, Lucras quickly lifted his sword to block. As the wolf's front teeth hit his sword, he almost dropped his sword and had to take a few steps back. Thankfully, after taken those steps back he noticed that the monster lost all of its momentum.

Quickly he lunged slashed at the wolf but the wolf ducked down, causing a small cut to appear on the back of the monster's body. Seeing such little damage made Lucras panic as he tried his best with that slash. In that small moment of shock the monster got close enough to try and bite him, and successfully got him on his left arm. His left arm felt like all of its bones were broken and acid was poured in all the wounds.

Stress filled him, and as reality seemed to zone out for Lucras. He hacked at the monster since it was close and still biting his arm. This time the cut was better, as more blood came out and it caused the monster to yelp. Quickly the wolf tried to back away, but with the injured arm, he quickly punched the monster's side and made it lose its balance.

Lucras then swiftly stabbed it into the monster's body at it shoulder, which quickly sank deeper into the body. Mana seemed to flow out of his sword as the stab sank all the way in. He decided to quickly jump back with the sword in his hand. Large amount of blood flowed out of the wound on the monster, as it seemed to be on its last legs. But instead of going quietly, it lunged at Lucras again, as Lucras was still close enough that he couldn't block this surprise attack.

Its teeth sank into his thigh, as intense pain filled him again. And in rage, Lucras stabbed again right into the neck of the wolf, and it went in completely and came out the other side. The wolf monster's eyes lost all life at that point and it dropped to the ground.

As reality seemed to come back into focus, Lucras was welcomed by a sharp increase in pain coming from his arm and leg. Blood was flowing out of the holes in his arm and leg that was a main issue at the moment.