Thud…
The wolf, unable to bear the searing pain from its behind, fainted; tears still flowing from its face. Unknowingly, it ended up coughing up some blood and died on the spot. After Ran had cut its neck, blood started to fill its lungs, suffocating it to death. Meaning that stabbing its bum was completely unnecessary! If the wolf had known of it, it would have surely risen from the dead to stab Ran in the bum to show him how that feels.
Ran, seeing it dead on the floor, did what any fellow would have done. He skinned the poor bastard, ate its flesh, and had good nights sleep while wrapping himself in its fur. The bones that were laid off to the side weeped seeing this scene. Ran had what was probably his best night of sleep in over a week. In fact, when he woke up, besides some soreness in his muscles, he felt much more energetic than before. This, of course, was due to the meat he ate yesterday. The meat of a spiritual beast, even a low ranked one, can still offer benefits like an increase in energy recovery that can nourish one's body.
***
Ran walked outside the cave and walked to a nearby stream. He decided to make this cave and area his shelter for now as he had a place to stay and water nearby. And where there's water, there's animals of course! Not only that, seeing such serene and tranquil scenery, he decided to train here as well. The quietness and the noise of the water flowing allowed his mind to enter an enhanced state. Having figured out his path, he immediately decided to focus on his encounter with the cheetah again. Its superb ability to spring into action and change directions immediately afterwards shows its agility and mastery in it's own skills.
Since he wanted to focus on having his blade make contact with his opponent as much as possible, and the fact they wouldn't stand idly by and would be on the offensive instead, there was only one direction left to go in…
ABSOLUTE VERSATILITY!
In simpler terms, Ran just needs to be in full control of his entire body. If he needs to block an attack from behind, then he just needs to bend his arm backwards enough to defend against the attack! Now, a normal human wouldn't be able to do this, at least effectively, but it isn't impossible. If he needs to dodge an attack that would slice him in half, then he just needs to fold his body in half. Again, not something that a person should be able to do, but he needs to be able to do this. Now how he's going to be able to do this is the real question.
Ran decided to first master his own skills. Well, not master, but at least know what he can do with his ability. Like this, a whole week had passed by as he finally got familiar with himself.
He at least can use his sword okay. And in terms of swordsmanship, he found out that because of his chisel-edged blade, his sword was extremely good at chopping.. He could chop a small tree in half if he used all his power, but anything less and it would've only left an incision. Meaning that it is actually similar to an axe because it's meant to wedge apart things rather than slicing things apart. Like how you use an axe to chop firewood although most swords would be sharper than the axe and thus "should" be able to cut the wood more effectively even though it can't.
This further correlated to his thoughts of weakening the enemy first before chopping them in half in one go. He was still far away from mastering any techniques yet, but at least he could fight average people in the same rank as him with just his swordsmanship. He won't get anywhere further until he fights real people or monsters. But on this day, something unusual happened.
While he was roasting some fish in his cave, thumps could be heard at the entrance. Obviously some monster was attracted by the smell of food and came to check what's for sale. But what was even weirder was that an extremely familiar figure appeared. A black Cheetah had appeared and stared at the fish for a while before looking at Ran for a second. This couldn't be the same Cheetah could it?
"What?!" Cold sweat appeared on Rans face as he looked at the Cheetah. A huge white scar was on its head. It stared at Ran and immediately pounced at Ran with reddened eyes. It had not forgotten the pain it had felt for the past week! It would get headaches all the time as the wound healed and the skull no longer became visible. But for some reason, the scar remained white.
Ran summoned his blade and also immediately rushed to the Cheetah. He couldn't let it attack him again or he would soon lose too much energy and die to this fiend. So, he chose to go on the offensive and aimed at its neck. The Cheetah was in the air with its claws drawn out so it can't dodge so easily. Surprising though, it twisted in midair and dodged the attack as it grazed it's back instead. A fine streak of blood leaked but no more than that. It hissed at him and chose that if its claws wouldn't work, it would chomp him in two. In fact, it mobilized its soul juice as well as the skills from countless ancestors were passed down from generation to generation. Instantly, a fine layer of black energy surrounded its paws, effectively doubling its speed.
It raced towards him like a train ready to split him in half, and Ran immediately cursed in his heart. It was already hard enough just to react to its moves as it's very presence was overbearing, threatening to crush his heart. Seeing he couldn't dodge the fierce bite, he decided to block it. This was not good though as his blade could only handle so much damage and an attack like this would surely cause serious damage to the blade. As he held it with both hands, one had coincidentally grabbed the blade and the blade sucked on him hard. As if it had felt its own existence was in danger it sucked on almost all his energy in an instant, causing his face to quickly pale and his breathing hastened. The hole where the pommel was light up as an immaculate pommel slowly appeared, like a resin filling up a mold. It was arrow shaped with multiple layers, but the most important part was that it wasn't corporeal. Suddenly, Ran felt as if the blade came alive as it quickly gained some heft. Before, it was relatively light and could be moved around easily. But now, it felt heavy enough for him to almost drop due to the sudden change in weight.
He looked ahead and at the charging animal, and his instincts were telling him that if he didnt do something now, his head would soon be missing from his body. Feeling the weight, he quickly decided to follow what his heart was telling him. It was telling him to fight! To fight and keep fighting until you win! He gripped the handle and with both hands, he struck downwards.
The Cheetah, feeling something was off, decided to instead counter the move with both its claws. Clearly, it didn't want to block something with its head as it had already seen what that blade can do. As both forces collided, something strange happened. The sword had actually been off-course and had only cut off the claws, but otherwise, the Cheetah was fine and ran straight into Ran.
I guess he wasn't used to the added weight, whomp whomp.
What's worse was that after they were both carried away by the Cheetahs force, a cracked wall was just behind and if they didnt stop, they would surely crash into that wall. And that's exactly what happened! The Cheetah didn't expect to complete its attack and had put its everything into the attack thinking the blade would stop some of that force… alas!
Boom! They both crashed into the wall. Since it was already cracked from Rans previous encounter with the wolf, the wall and cave completely collapsed! But what's crazier is that behind the cave, is another cave! Both Ran and the Cheetah looked around with a blurry and darkening vision and saw a stunning image. The cave was some kind of old temple, with pillars here and there and stunning paintings imbued onto the walls. There were several paths that led into the darkness but that's not what caught their attention. Directly in front of them was a glowing pond of liquid. Around it were glowing plants and mushrooms! It had its own ecosystem with fish even though it was not exposed to the outside for an extremely long time.
But it ended there as they found themselves losing their consciousness quickly. The last thing they saw was the extremely capitaving pond and its fragrant smell. With the cave behind them having collapsed, their both stuck here now! And who knows for how long!
Oh, what a tragedy… a tragedy indeed…