I Hate Leopards

There wasn't much time to think, in fact there wasn't much time to do anything at all. Connor had basically done the first thing he could think of when he saw the leopard, he knew that predators like that usually liked to go immediately for the kill by targeting the neck. He also understood that the leopards reflexes would be much better than his so he just wanted to obscure his body using the snow so that it might miss.

And he was lucky that he had that stroke of genius because otherwise even in a best case scenario he would be on the ground under a 100 pound animal right now. 

With the incredibly short window of time he had bought himself he tried to get past as many trees as he could and make it into the free clearing behind his home. He just barely might be able to escape if he got far enough away for the leopard to lose interest. 

Unfortunately though the leopard seemed to be catching up to him quickly. It was moving almost twice as fast as him and he was only able to stay away due to ducking and moving around trees. 

After just a short time in the chase Connor had realized that he wouldn't be able to get away once he made it to the clearing anyways. The leopards straight line speed was just way too high so he decided on another plan. 

He was going to try and wear down the leopard in the forest by making it run around in circles to capture him. He was banking everything on its stamina running low enough for him to actually do something useful. 

But honestly the chase was breaking him down too and running in the snow certainly didn't make things easier. The adrenaline going through his body made it manageable though and as he ducked behind a tree he finally got a better look at the leopard.

If it wasn't trying to murder him currently he would call it quite a beautiful creature. its pure white pelt was unmarked and its paws were very large, looking into its blue eyes though made Connors body shiver.

once the leopard tried to get behind the tree Connor aimed his body in the opposite direction until the Leopard started to shift its body before faking it out and going into the other direction buying him a larger gap. 

***

Connors legs were covered in cuts after just a few minutes and there was he a scratch going through his shirts the left a small gash on his side. He had been through too many close calls.

'This damn leopard just wont leave me the hell alone! There's no reason for it to be this desperate to kill me.' On the upside though it was slowing down quite a lot while Connor was just out of breathe. He needed to make use of this advantage soon before he lost the rest his energy so he decided to just go for it.

He slowed down partially and let the leopard catch up then ducked behind one last tree. Raising the rock with both of his he tried his best to time things and just as the leopards head poked out from the front of the tree Connor surprised it with an attack and bashed the rock into its skull. 

Thankfully the leopard didn't think Connor would try to attack back and lost all its weariness after minutes of chasing its prey. And with a loud crack the animal crumpled on the spot and started pulsing on the ground with its skull split open. Connor took this chance and ran with it. 

He got on his knees and repeatedly bashed the leopard in its skull over and over even after it was dead. He just didn't stop and he kept going until he was screaming and crying. Until the strength left his arms and he collapsed onto the side of the tree breathing heavily. 

"oh.. oh god I'm alive." Connor looked back over to the corpse of the Leopard, compared to its beautiful appearance just moments ago it gruesome. It looked more like its roadkill that had been ran over by a truck now than a fearsome beast and Connor almost gagged at the sight of it and the blood covering him. However a noise sounded into his mind

[A difficult enemy has been defeated.]

[2 essence has been awarded.]

Connor Elysium

"A strange brutal little oddity."

Soul: N/A 

Essence absorbed: 2

Connor felt something very strange go on with his body as if he had just taken a day long break in the span of second. In fact it was more than that, his body felt better than before the boost wasn't massive by any means but it was noticeable his breathing was smoother and when he flexed any muscle in his body they were stronger. He felt like there were other difference's but so far he couldn't tell. 

avoiding his gaze from the corpse of the leopard he tried to see where he had come from and thankfully his shoe prints were still marked in the snow. 

"should i try and take the corpse with me?" 

regardless of his un-comfortability around the thing he had to think if it had any uses. The meat would be rather useless since he didn't have a fire, he would probably ruin the pelt instead of skinning it if he even tried. There was one part he thought might be nice though and that was the claws, they were extremely sharp and he could think of a few uses for them so he decided to try and take them.

carving out the flesh around one of them was hard with a blunt object but eventually he got one out of the paws and that speed up the process quite a bit as he could just cut them out using the other claws. He eventually managed to get out 8 good quality claws before running back to his home.

On the way there though he noticed the changes in himself more deeply. His speed was probably a good 10 percent better and it took him a while longer to run out of stamina on his way back. He also didn't feel as cold as he was before even with the small holes in his clothing.

Overall if he had to say something about it, it would be along the lines of an all around boost. If he was put into the same situation with the leopard again.. well he would die. But if he was just as lucky as this time he would definitely have an easier time and he might not have even gotten scratched.

Honestly out of this whole encounter he was thankful to his rock, And thus he decided to give it a name.

"Yeah i think Dwayne would be a good name for you huh?" laughing at his own joke he finally made it back inside his room. and promptly dropped off all his extra clothing and got into bed holding Dwayne on his chest. 

"All things considered today actually went fairly well i guess. At least i figured out how to get essence and that makes things a lot easier, i also got the leopards claws." He had laid them on top of his dresser and after testing their sharpness against the wood he was impressed, they were as good as a knife.

'Let me check that trial now.'

[9 moderately difficult enemies left]

'Hmm when i killed the leopard it just said difficult enemy. That should mean that it was stronger than what i should be killing for the trial but at least it counted for one of the ten. Oh yeah that's probably why it gave two essence instead of just one.'

He was certainly happy that he didn't have to kill 10 things on that level of difficulty though. But there was one caveat to that, difficulty apparently brought greater rewards and from his understanding he would move on to the next floor once he completed his task.

What exactly did that mean? Well if he just did the bare minimum he would only have 10 essence by the time he got to the next floor. But if he did things the hard way he would have 20 or potentially even more, making a massive difference in strength that would make the second floor easier. 

'And obviously the second floor should be more difficult than what I'm currently going through. Going for perfection would be way too dangerous especially since there might be more difficult predators than the snow leopard was.'

"I'm just going to do my best and stay alive."