Survival Of The Fittest

However, the clones assault didn't stop. It didn't care for any of Nei's thoughts, the only thing it desired at that moment, was to rip him to pieces as fast as possible. It wasn't of importance if Nei fought back or not.

But when success was so near, it's vigilance was at its lowest too. It didn't notice the weird looking weed in its path and continued to run in a straight line.

Till its foot suddenly sank into the hollowed-out earth.

The speed and power it was running with, made the backlash it received only worse when falling into the trap.

"ARRRKHH… " A powerful, with agony filled screech was let out and echoed through the yellowness.

Which forced it to a stop. When it was only meters short before reaching Nei's neck.

The fearful sound gave Nei the opportunity and time to finally get his mind composed enough to react.

Without the traps help, his head would have been split apart by now. The small window of time he got through it, was worth all the effort he put into. If he didn't have the idea of building one, Nei would be dead already.

'I have to calm down! Don't think about questions! Right now you have to fight, or you will die!'

Scolding himself for getting carried away and not being able to use such a good chance to attack, where the beast couldn't react.

Nei prepared for the retaliation of the beast. Because even though its legs got injured it wouldn't be long before it got up again. Nei was sure that it wasn't so weak-willed as to give up to hunt him with only this small amount of pain.

The most his trap could influence the upcoming battle was to slow down the beast speed.

But that wasn't enough to make it a sure win battle for Nei, he didn't even have the advantage. He only brought both of them to a fairer level to compete.

As the beast slowly crawled out of the hole, with one of its legs painfully bend into the wrong direction, it focused its bloodthirsty with hatred filled eyes on Nei and growled deeply.

However, Nei didn't back off. He just stood still, not leaving his sight from the beasts body.

The fight was unstoppable, one of them had to die and whoever made the first mistake, was sure to be the dead one.

After awhile of confrontation, the beast finally lost its patience and made the first move.

In the end, it was an animal. Even with the appearance of a human, its patience was not on the same level as the one of an intelligent race.

Jumping up with its powerful legs, it shot similar to a bullet through the air.

Luckily Nei was already prepared from the beginning. A part of the inherited knowledge from earth was about martial arts, so it wasn't like he didn't know how to fight or position himself.

The stance he had taken was meant for exactly this situation. Where he had to face an opponent with superior strength to his own.

When the beast was stretching out its arms as if to squeeze his neck, Nei had to do nothing more but to take one step to forward and one to the side, to get out of its hands reach.

The beast was completely unprepared by the fast reaction of Nei and his strong martial arts. Which made it grasp only empty air in the end.

It was too arrogant, the faith in its own strength made it never consider a lose or setback. That's why it didn't think about what an easy target it would be in the air if its attacks failed.

Nei, on the other hand, wouldn't let off another good opportunity like this and hit the beast into its ribs. Breaking bones and generating internal bleeding in its body.

When the beast fell to the ground a few meters further from Nei, he didn't instantly try to follow up his attack, he knew his limitations.

Without the injury to its leg, he would probably have died in that jump attack.

'Don't get anxious, you have the advantage now! If it doesn't attack it will slowly bleed out.'

Comforting himself, Nei observed his fallen enemy in more detail. He noted, that even though it had the same appearance as him, the aura it was emitting was completely foreign from him. It was bloody and cold, with a tinge of metal.

It's not me, I am still me. It only has my appearance but not my will! I should have seen this from the beginning. Why was I so shocked? To have such a big weakness in my mind, it's not good.

Analysing his own faults, Nei resolved to fix his flaw as soon as possible.

The beast, on the other hand, was still lying on the ground breathing heavily, but Nei knew it was just a farce. Animals would often act weak to lure their prey to come closer. Then they would attack and kill it.

The beast too understood that its trap had been seen through, it didn't bother to keep up its play and just pounded once more at Nei.

How could Nei not know what it had in mind. As an intelligent being, he had already prepared for what was to happens next. Taking out the hands from the pockets of his robe, Nei threw two handfuls of dirt into the beast eyes to blind it.

The beast even in its panic didn't stop the attack, but that was a grave mistake and miscalculation. Because Nei had already anticipated its behaviour and moved right behind it, where he wanted to put both his hands around the human-like monsters neck.

However, something different from Nei's expectations happened at this moment. The monster that should have been completely blinded by the sand for at least a few seconds more, felt his threat and threw its elbow with great power into Nei's stomach.

Nei could have evaded the attack, but if he had done, he would have lost the chance to kill the beast. In the end, he had to decide; trade a maybe fatal injury for the win, or give it another try.

Nei choose the hard win, he didn't know if he would ever get such a good chance again and he didn't want to bet on the monsters bleeding.

So he continued on, retreating was no option anymore. Grasping around the beast neck with his fingers, an elbow hit deep into his abdomen, injuring him.

Even with the pain, however, Nei still didn't hesitate. This was his last stand!

Squeezing tightly with his hands at the rough skin, a sound similar to a breaking vase resounded through the foggy endlessness, followed by a long-lasting silence.

Till Nei and his clone dropped to the ground, one dead and the other on the brink of death.

He had won, but he had to pay the price.

Breathing hastily for more air, Nei was lying right beside his enemies corpse. Looking into the dead eyes of it, he felt as if something important that he was missing, existed inside of the beast's body.

But Nei couldn't move anymore, he had underestimated the strength of the blow. His organs were bleeding profoundly inside of him. He was sure that he didn't have long to live anymore, nothing could survive with such injuries.

Suddenly, as if everything was just a game, Nei noticed that the corpse was slowly evaporating similar to many pixels floating into the air.

Lying in his own blood and looking at this fascinating scene, Nei wondered if he would soon vanish in the same way.

But with the disappearance of the last pixel, something changed in the world of fog.

As if it was freed from its shackles, the distant lighting and fog became less, so that you could see more than 50 meters into the distance.

"Hahaha! What in the world… " Confused but happy, Nei laughed foolishly with blood spurting out of his mouth.

When a painful stream of new memories flowed into his mind. This pain was a hundred times stronger than the one he experienced beforehand.

Knocking him out instantly, but not before he heard a familiar-sounding voice coming from deep of his mind.

[Beep! Memory Chip is activating. Scanning host… ]