As I watched the thing eating I wanted to run, but in the next moment I was back to my normal state of mind.
"What the fuck am I doing?!"
Why would that thing even attack me? It's not like I would even be a match for the thing it was feasting upon right at this moment. It probably can't even see me, because in comparison I would be nothing more than an ant to that thing, so I regained my composure and began to think about what I would do.
My precautions I made, trying to learn a new technique, which could hide me. They were basically useless now, I mean I never thought that the thing in these mountains would be something like this.
"That thing shouldn't be here."
"Yes exactly."
Wait?! I followed my instincts and activated my magic while simultaneously jumping back into the darkness of the trees around me.
"That's and interesting technique you got there."
I could feel the wind behind me being pushed aside by the sheer speed the person used to get behind me. Who was he and why couldn't I feel his mana. Normally I should be able to feel mana even from the weakest creatures, so there are only two possibilities, which could explain why I couldn't feel his.
"Are you my enemy?"
I didn't dare to turn around, but I was almost sure that he wasn't here for me.
"Oh I am just here to take care of something, you know. But you didn't even try to really attack me, although you were extremely fast to run away."
"Oh so you followed me for quite a while didn't you?"
It was honestly pretty easy to see through his intentions. After all the only possibility that could be correct would be that he was just too strong for me to see his mana, which should resemble his strength. The other possibility should be connected to the first one and would be that he had a way to hide his mana flow from me, but that would mean that he would either be rich or just strong enough and one thing is certain. He's stronger than me, I could easily tell just from a few seconds of his presence near me.
Either way I turned around to take a look at him.
"You are pretty smart, aren't ya?"
"Well it would really have to be an extremely big coincidence for you to come here at the same time as me and then show yourself to me exactly at the moment I see a thing that looks extremely strong."
"Well I guess you're right, well I didn't follow you all the way to here, but rather I was in the area, when I noticed you."
He looked totally like he wasn't supposed to be here. I could tell that he was human or at least he looked like a normal human. He was a bit taller than me, probably around 1,90 m tall. He had dark blue hair, which was tied to a ponytail and kept his hair at the back. He wore clothes like I would thing a typical Japanese swordsman would wear, his outfit looked like the colour of his hair, a dark blue and his black hiyori geta complemented the outfit nicely as his footwear. I could see a katana at his weist, elegant and although I couldn't see the colour of the weapon itself the sword sheath already looked extremely valuable and well made, so I could only assume the same to be the case with his sword. When I looked him into his eyes I could see that he had already experienced a lot of fights and I had a feeling that he could be one of the strongest swordsmen in this whole world.
He looked at me with his dark brown eyes and didn't look all that ready to kill me, rather like he was interested in me.
"So you're here to take care of that thing?"
He looked at the direction I pointed my finger at, right behind my head into the distance of a few kilometres.
"You think I would be able to kill that thing?"
"Yeah."
I knew that he could kill me every second with probably only one finger, but I just had a feeling he wouldn't.
"Well at least you know how strong I am, oh he's coming at us!"
What! I turned around and indeed I could see the gigantic thing rushing towards us with a way higher speed that I would've guessed. The closer it came, the more I could feel the incredible pressure of it's mana, which was pressing me down onto the ground.
"Well should I help you out?"
He looked kind of amused at the sight of me struggling to not get squashed to death by the pure pressure of the tree like beast coming at us.
"Well it's coming here because of you isn't it?"
"Well, I suppose you are right about that. Let me take care of that big boy in front of us."
He walked in front of me and looked like he wasn't affected by the pressure at all. I could feel a relief and the pressure seemed to get weaker just by him standing in front of me. He turned his head at the beast and grabbed his katana.
"If I were you I would look really clearly at what's about to happen."
As it came closer and closer I began to notice his muscles beginning to ready themselves and his veins were clearly showing now.
It was at most one second upon that beast would run into us and then the mysterious swordsman pulled his sword.
I concentrated fully on that one sword swing that was about to happen right in front of my eyes. The exact angle at which he held his sword, the speed, the strength, the angle of collision with the monster, I wanted to clearly see everything.
But when he drew his sword it was less than a second and I could only witness the last moments of the beast, I could feel it's fear, the fear of such a strong beast that could kill me only by standing close to me.
It tried to somehow evade, but then the sword had already completed the swing and the sole pressure of the swing was enough to split the air in front of us, the gigantic beast and the clouds in the sky in two.
With one swing The mountain, which was miles away was cut in two and the top part had been cut so cleanly that I was not able to see any inconsistency. The same thing happened with the monster in front of us, the top parts were slowly sliding off.
It was such a beautiful, I would even dare to call it a perfect slash that I was almost unable to realize what had happened.
"With this my debt to "him" should've been repaid."
He turned around to look at my face, but after a second his calm expression changed for a minuscule amount of a second into something he was... afraid of?
His hand moved to his sword, but he immediately regained his senses and stopped it and his expression also got back to normal, but he still had a drop of sweat on his face from before.
"And what do you say, was that impressive?"
He acted like before again, calm and composed as if nothing had happened.
"That one slash... it was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen. Thank you for showing it to me."
I didn't lie or anything it was something that changed my view on life for a few moments, not even the most beautiful human or animal or anything else up to this point could compare to it.
"Well it was nothing special and by saving you the debt to "him" should be repaid."
"Saving me, what do you mean?"
"Huh, you want to tell me I didn't save you right there, come on."
"Well, who's fault is it that this thing suddenly wanted to kill me, or rather you, huh?"
"Well I guess you got me th-"
"But still I don't know about the debt or who you were indebted to, but I see it as repaid. Just for showing me this one sword slash."
I was not kidding, nor was I being delusional, I was just extremely happy to have had the chance to experience this one slash.
"Well boy, then I guess my business is done here."
He was looking back at me deep into my eyes for one last time, just to make something sure.
"I am grateful to you and I am sure that we'll meet again."
"Sure, maybe you'll be able to fight against me then."
And then he was gone, again I couldn't even feel anything, just the wind pressure that resulted in his pure movement speed, which probably wasn't even his full speed.
-Thousands of kilometres away at the barrier-
"Huh, that boy. It's not just, because of "him". His talent and his... eyes. that's not the eyes of a teenage brat, who is still growing."
The mysterious swordsman, who had saved me crossed the barrier and then he was gone.