Chapter 13 - Third Death

Finishing inspecting his body, Spencer started swimming to the surface as he got what he wanted from the beginning.

Sensing something moving towards him from behind, he turned around to see another fish, similar to the one he killed rushing at him. Watching it approach, he evaded its charge by swimming to the side once it was close enough.

"What is this all of a sudden?"

The creature changed its trajectory and went back after Spencer, opening its jaws to bite into him. Not wanting to receive its attack, he evaded it again, but this time he extended his claws and sliced its underbelly open, spilling the guts of the creature, turning the water red.

Quickly absorbing it, the traits he gained from the creature enhanced, making Spencer feel stronger under the water than he did before.

Swimming around, Spencer was observing the environment to familiarize himself with his soon-to-be new domain. Looking around, he noticed a creature much bigger than the ones he had just killed rushing in his direction, not only was it bigger but it seemed to be much faster as well, closing the distance within mere seconds.

Snapping at Spencer, the creature tried to bite a chunk out of him in its initial charge. Grabbing its jaws, he tried to keep it from connecting on his torso. Crumbling under its jaw strength, Spencer was visibly straining; this creature was much stronger than the ones he had confronted a few moments ago, and potentially on land.

Giving into its strength, Spencer tried to force his way out of this situation by morphing his arms into his demi-human form. This proved to be helpful, as he managed to pry its mouth open just enough for him to maneuver out of the way.

Not giving him the chance to recover, it swung its tail at him, causing Spencer to put his arms up to defend himself. The hit sent him rocketing several meters in the water towards a boulder.

Seeing the boulder rapidly approaching, he flipped around, contorting his body and positioning his feet on the rocky surface of the boulder to return to the beast. Reaching the rock, Spencer crouched on its surface and transformed his legs into his demi-human state.

Launching himself, he began rippling through the water, similar to a torpedo towards the side of the creature, trying to tackle underwater.

The creature observing Spencer's charge effortlessly shifted its massive body and swam to the side, causing him to completely miss his intended target.

'Damn fish!' He grumbled inwardly.

Spencer decided that the fight was dragging on longer than it should have, transforming completely into his demi-human form, with the additions of his new traits. His tail was similar in appearance to that of a modern-day crocodile, except for having a pointed tip at its end.

With the formation of his tail, Spencer's speed underwater had increased exponentially. Using his tail, Spencer slithered through the water towards the creature bearing his claws.

'DIE!!!' he exclaimed inside his head.

Zooming towards the creature, he swung his claws.

*SWISH!*

The creature swiftly swam out of the way once again, effortlessly evading his attack. Spencer was growing angry as the creature wasn'T even fighting him, it seemed as if it wasn't taking him seriously. It appeared to have been playing with him since the beginning.

Spencer began to savagely swing his claws at the creature trying to tear it to pieces in his anger. The creature unamused, only observed him while dodging all his attacks as they came, not paying that much attention to Spencer as they fought.

In Spencer's uncoordinated barrage, the creature countered one of his attacks and swung its tail into his chest with more force than the last, sending him flying back but not before causing him to spit out a mouthful of blood from the sheer force of the impact, shattering his sternum.

Trying to reorient himself, Spencer was in a lot of pain from the creature's attack. This pain only fueled his rage.

"AAAAAAAARGH!!!" He yelled out, the water enhancing the vibrations; the anger in his yell could be felt by the surrounding fish, causing them to flee.

In his anger, his body began to heat up, boiling the surrounding water. Spencer's body started to expand greatly in size, building up pressure in the water. His claws elongating and his teeth grew in length increasing in its sharpness.

The creature was becoming wary of Spencer's sudden increase in size, getting minor danger signals from his changes.

Immediately swimming at the beast, Spencer opened his jaws to clamp down onto its body. Approaching it, he increased his speed. The creature quickly evaded to the side, dodging Spencer's attack once again.

As it did, Spencer swung his tail into the creature's side, as it evaded his jaws. He then followed it up by jamming his claws into the stomach of the creature latching himself onto it.

He used his claws to continuously stab the creature's abdomen in his fit of rage, not wanting to let it go no matter how hard it was thrashing around in the water.

The blood of the creature was bathing the water a bright red color. Growing desperate from the loss of blood, the creature bit Spencer's arm that he used to puncture its stomach and began to lock its jaw. The force behind the bite was placing pressure on his arm, causing a great deal of pain.

*SNAP!* The muffled sound of bones breaking was carried away by the water.

"AAAAAAAARGH!" Spencer screamed in pain, magnified by the liquid.

The creature had snapped his forearm bone and tore through the flesh of his right arm completely, while simultaneously forcing his shoulder joint out of place.

Spencer had let go of the creature after its desperate attempt at escape working. The creature kept thrashing with his arm swaying in its mouth, pulling it out from the socket and tearing it off completely.

The immense pain of losing one arm made Spencer let go of the creature and back away. Despite needing to let go, Spencer had already done a considerable amount of damage to the beast and it wasn't going to live much longer.

Spitting out Spencer's arm from its mouth, the creature was visibly enraged by his actions. Realizing it didn't have much longer left to live, it rushed at Spencer who was still disoriented from the loss of his arm.

Reaching him, the creature opened its jaws and bit towards his right side, clamping its jaws deep in his flesh. Spencer was unable to respond to the creature's attack and was slowly losing more and more of his blood. He desperately began using his claws on his left hand to stab it into the side of the beast repeatedly for it to let him go.

The creature gave in and released Spencer from its bite, but not before tearing off a chunk of his flesh in the process, making his organs visible from the outside.

Now, both the creature and Spencer were on the clock, running out of time to finish this fight. Both of them were in critical condition.

Even though Spencer's body was slowly healing itself, the rate of healing wasn't fast enough to recover the grave injuries in the timeframe needed.

Deciding to end this in one last charge, Spencer swallowed the pain and swam at the creature with full force. The creature seemed to have the same idea as Spencer, it began to swim at him with everything it got as well.

*SWISH!*

Both contenders cutting through the water approached each other at high speeds.

*BOOM!*

An underwater explosion rang out releasing huge ripples through the fluid medium.

The creature had sunk its teeth deep into Spencer's neck, his razor-sharp teeth deep within his gullet. Spencer, on the other hand, had sunk his claws into the creature's lower jaw, piercing into its brain, killing it.

Realizing that he won the fight, he retracted his claws and pushed the huge carcass off of him, letting it float in the water while he reverted to his human form.

After straining to stay transformed from the loss of blood and the critical damage he sustained in the battle, he struggled to keep himself conscious.

He descended towards the creature's corpse to absorb it and aid his body in his recovery.

However, before he could reach it, he felt something from behind. Turning around, he saw the same creature he had just fought with and almost died too. But this one was different, different in every way. Its sheer size was many times greater than what he just fought with, its skin looked thicker and its teeth were many times larger than anything he has seen before.

"Was that thing I just fought with only a baby?" He said in fear.

Spencer couldn't react as the creature opened its massive jaws, biting him in half within seconds. The last thing on his mind was the realization that what he had almost died to wasn't even fully grown; and if it would have been, he wouldn't have stood a sliver of a chance against it.

This information sunk deep within Spencer's mind as he drifted into the darkness once more.