Chapter 11

Daniel unfolded his contorted body all the while remaining eye contact with the humanoid bug in front of him never daring to blink .

This beast was fast, like superpowers fast. Not only did it have a way to traverse rear distances instantaneously, but it's raw speed was to the point humans should never be able to catch up to.

Daniel only managed to evade instant capture because he saw it coming. He always saw it coming his awareness and ability to predict actions have grown with his power.

But the fact that the monster wanted to capture him rather than end him instantly spoke volumes of their intelligence , and individuality.

Daniel was calculating his options. He didn't know what would happen if he caught the monster.

It was strong , far beyond what he was . It was fast , terribly fast . And it was tough, covered completely in its blueish carapace (exoskeleton), and most importantly it has an ability that Daniel was unaware of. More than one was a possibility, and he'd rather overestimate his opponent than underestimate it.

But Daniel didn't underestimate himself. With every moment that passed he would adapt to the best way suited to end up victorious .

What mattered was that he didn't die .

Daniel thought about diverting his opponents attention to other humans , but that would be impossible. Not because he couldn't, but their location was not the most condusive for this plan .

Not only were they 15 fights of stairs high with no humans on any floor apart from himself on the sixteenth , but even on the ground all survivors were grouped at the meeting area which was four blocks away.

Daniel could run , but not only was he slower by 5 times, but he had to account for the ability used by the opponent that let it traverse miles within a second through the telescope lense.

There was a third option though . Communication, but Daniel had long crossed it out in its entirety. He swore to avenge his parents by eradicating these extraterrestrial beings to extinction.

So when it came down to it , he chose to fight the damn monster!

It seemed the monster was waiting for Daniel to make his decision. Because it gave Daniel a whole second.

But the reality was that it wasn't

The bug was gathering it's saliva for that second it remaind stationary . Daniel only became aware of it before the saliva was spat out .

Just looking at how that fluid fizzed while in midair Daniel knew it was acidic but he was mentally prepared for many surprises.

He'd also drawn up on all knowledge of insects and arachnids , scaled their varying unique physiology by a couple of hundred tiers.

Gliding. Wall walking. , flying , high jumping smoke screen , poison ,venom and even acid.

Daniel unlike the bug was of a human body on average it was soft, squishy, and easy to damage compared tothe bug .

Daniel was really weak in comparison to his opponent. This cannot be highlighted enough . It should be impossible to even conseptuslize Daniel getting out alive. The only thing that Daniel had over the bug was his potential. But if he died here , that potential will never be realized.

Daniel used his underfoot to lunch himself back with a spring.

The opponent seeing the opening dashed at him ignoring its own acid . Clearly it was no threat to itself. But he'd underestimated Daniels foresight and planning because the second projectile a solid pebble no more than 2cm was shot straight forward even when the bug hadn't moved yet .

This was because Daniel was aware he could not be responsive in this bout . The opponent was faster than him by leagues.

On a 400 meter race track , his opponent would have lapped around it five times before he got to the end of his first lap!

So he used any opportunity he got to lure his opponent into his trap.

POW !

Even the sound of the impact was tiers above all previous times he'd unleashed this attack. This was a result of two factors.

* The material. Before, Daniel had been unleashing leaves , soft flaby tiny leaves . Even though his technique made it deadly , the base form was still a leaf.

In fact Daniels mind connected this occurrence to himself/others.

Humans were like a leaf. Weak . But with proper techniques a leaf could do much much more.

In the second step of perfecting oneself, Daniel will change his baseline , ridding himself of being a leaf and becoming a rock!

* Daniel was always improving . Even when doing nothing his mind worked out how he performed and if there was a better way .

At this moment, Daniel shut down all stray thoughts , and put his whole heart and brilliant mind into this battle . Ever since the moment of his manifestation he hadn't shut down other thoughts . But his life was hanging in the balance , the least he could do was give it his all.

The carapace dented in , and small cracks formed as the creature staggered back.

"Shriek !Shriek ?!"

" Daniel didn't spare brainpower to try and understand his enemy. That ship has sailed

The bug reached into the dent and plucked out the stone as it began to study it . Only to be amazed that it was a regular rock .

But when it came back to continue tormenting it's prey it was met with a vertigo as it felt a sharp pain throughout its body , and it's senses went haywire .

Using the distraction of his opponent to his advantage, Daniel fished out two rocks and fung them even harder , with stronger penetrative force.

His target was the antenna atop it's grotesque head.

Two hands flung the rocks as his body flatten onto the ground by intention .

The bug grew erratic , as it's senses deceived it . Up became down , let turned right and all was wrong with the world.

It felt fear after loosing it's senses , but unlike those who would try to remain calm and readjust , which were the minority.

The bug grew more and more erratic as it swatted its clawlike arms , trying to kill the human who injured him.

And that's when Daniel got a taste of what exactly he was dealing with. Each swipe by the bug towards what it assumed was him literally caused sound to shatter . Or the wind since it was the medium through which sound travelled.

But you could hear intimately the shattering. Not like glass, but more likplastic infused porcelain.

Thankfully Daniel inferred such an occurrence taking place , and he didn't sit still.

If he could kill the bug without injury he would. The human regenerative potential was abysmal, and he didn't want a stump .

POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW POW.

From one shot every three second to a shot every second . From slightly Damaging to almost fatal.

Daniel skittered across the ground and walls

Daniel wouldn't have survived if he played fair. No this wasn't his way . He'd have loved to match himself body against body punch against stab , speed for speed even if it had put him in danger. But he was not satisfied with what he was at this moment. And moreover the strength gap was so insane he would have achieved nothing. Maybe he should have used this as a werstone to improve his martial prowers .

Then like always in recent times it clicked.

As long as he brought the bug as close to death as possible, it might be possible to sharpen himself!

It might be dangerous, but he was willing to trust the process.

Any normal person would realize that Daniel was mad. They'd beat him up for staking his life to prove a point , but To Daniel this was important.

When else would he get a human opponent who could draw more potential out of him . In an hour he'd learnt to smack a trained soldier who had probably spent a better part of two decades training to get to where he was. He was fired up to know how long he'd manage against such a formidable for.

While he was a leaf , his opponent was a rock , a boulder to be precise.

In a normal match up he would die instantly after all apart from his genius , all physical attributes were pretty much standard human.

But by using object projectiles, he seemed to decrease the beings sturdiness, after which he'd face off again , this time as a martial artist.

Even then his success rate hung abismally low.

He will not even cause injury or hurt. However , he'd learn how to reactively face off a faster opponent. Increasing his maneuverability .

More passion went into his attacks. In fact had the bug not proudly shown off it's weakness, Daniel would be in an entirely different situation. Hence his mind drew up conclusions. Strength isn't the only factor that goes into winning a battle exploitation of weaknesses and utilization of advantages were also key.

And it seemed the bugs ability to traverse distances couldn't be used in battle. Or maybe it was a feature connected to his antenna? In any case it seemed to be off the table for now .

The bugs initial gleaming blue carapace had been brutally married with imperfections. Numerous dents of varrying intensity littered it's form . and it's antenna were now gone.

It had finally realized it's erratic attacks were useless. It needed to approach it's problems with a different solution than before.

This was also when Daniel had decided he'd brought it close enough to engage .

His fist clenched in order , and his stance ready to pounce at the slightest movement.

There was a short lul before the bug with a readjusted sense of the four directions and two elevations attacked. But it hesitated , wondering if there were any flying projectiles.

But none came Daniel tried to deflect with his arm , but it didn't budge.

His strength really was too low in comparison. He might be able to deflect the frontal attack, but it would take all he had in him ! .he'd have to expebd so much energy walking crawling or even laying down will be difficult.

He was really beginning to second guess his approach.

It felt like batman fighting superman without kryptonite . His kryptonite was short ranged projectiles that had an almost 100% accuracy.

But he'd started something he couldn't end now . The bug seemed to have seen hope, and so it clutched onto it !

Instantly afterimages of frontal punched rained down on Daniel ! Conceptually Daniel did not have the speed to evade this kind of attack. It was supposed to be impossible!

But not only was Daniels mind processing all punches and calculating the most optimum path of movement in advance, but he was also using his brain power to constantly improve upon the physical forms best suited to evade, the connected body structure most optimums state of positioning, and tying down all body movement that would execute that , and the movements to come after , in response to the possible future attacks.

Some of this though was based on luck. He could determine the future with 99.99 percent accuracy by collecting enough data to process .

But there was always that 0.01 percent chance something would go wrong. A factor not previously known , a fault / delay in the bug due to varying biological makeup, afterall Daniel was not aware of whatever creature this was' anatomy or resource needs.

One punch . Just one punch / attack landing on Daniel was enough to kill him outright. His life literally hung in the balance.

Periodically Daniel noticed an opening which he exploited to release an attack. He refrained from using elaborate movements . Those took time, and it was something his opponent had in excess in comparison to himself.

With each punch and kick he could deliver, Daniel set the goal for using simple punched to disrupt the fabric of space.

Each following attack from him never got there, not even close by 0/100% but that wasn't the point.

Daniel was aiming for the sun , and if he didn't get there at least he'd land on the moon.

Each punch not only had more power packed into it , but the method was consistently reviced to adapt to the creatures outer anatomy, what was visible to Daniel and what could easily be perceived.

Whosh whosh whosh whosh whosh.

In rapid succession went the bugs flurry of punches. It has no martial arts, only it's combat instinct and strength .

pow Pow POw POW

Daniels attacks went from hardly sounding against the creatures carapace or natural defense, to making sounds of heavy impact. But none caused damage to the bug , unlike his projectiles.

But Daniel wasn't the only one learning throughout this spar. The more the creature faught Daniel the more it went through a couple of changes in attack style , pattern, or pace . Looking for what exactly would work against it's weak but pesky adversary.but with every learning it performed, Daniel was multitudes ahead of it .

" Hahahahahahahaha, hahahahahahaha, hahahhahaha, yes yeS yES YES! More MOre MORe MORE! Daniel seemed to have found ecstasy in this exchange. The exhilaration, the heart thumbing, and the realization that at any moment he might meet his end. It excited him all so much . This was how it should feel . This was his life or death battle ! .

Daniel realized that moment that he was mad. He was insane , he had screws loose, but so what ? He loved it .

' let's try killing this thing with only martial arts!' shacking space with a punch was unrealistic, killing this monster with his level of martial and physical strength, was also unrealistic. Though on completely different tiers , unrealistic was still unrealistic.he calculated it all himself.

But Daniel seemed to have an obsession with the impossible.