A mouth full of teeth and a fist full of claws came hurtling at her throat faster than anything she had ever seen before.
"Mother f-" Was all Leta got out before she stumbled backwards, her foot catching on an uneven patch of dirt like a cliche side character in a horror movie.
A second later, she registered the sharp, agonizing pain as the monster shaped like a man bit deep into her left shoulder as his dagger length claws embedded themselves in her arms.
A blood curdling scream ripped out of her throat as the monster tore out chunks of skin and muscle. She could practically feel the tendons in her shoulder ripping apart as her arm was practically ripped from its socket in the attack.
[FOREIGN CORRUPTED NANITES DETECTED. FILTER FEEDER SOFTWARE INITIATED. CORRUPTION AVOIDED.]
'The system!'
As the monster dove back in to take another bite out of her, Leta pushed her good arm towards her attacker and focused Electrica Misconduct.
Tiny sparks of lightning snaked through her veins before making contact with the monster's face. A soft 'zap' followed the monster as it was flung some feet backwards, yowling in pain like a wounded animal.
[HOST HAS TAKEN SIGNIFICANT DAMAGE TO EXTREMITIES. NANITES ROUTED FOR EMERGENCY REPAIR.]
Leta took a heartbeat to glance at the damage done as she scrambled to her feet. While the claw marks hurt and would weaken her arm strength, she'd survive. Her shoulder was a grotesque mess that colored her gray cardigan crimson, leaving a wound so deep she could see bone.
As she watched, the gushing blood from the bite slowed and then stopped all together, like a gushing pipe that suddenly stops after a valve is tightened.
Leta didn't have long to marvel at the wonders of her nanites as the monster rolled onto its back, shaking its head like a wolf that momentarily got clocked in the nose on the hunt.
Its baleful yellow eyes locked back on her as a deep, rumbling growl seemed to vibrate the trees around them.
She only realized that five inch claws were poking out of the monster's sneakers a second before it launched itself towards her again like a torpedo.
Leta lifted her right arm and focused, not realizing her dark blue eyes seemed to shine with inner light as she went on the offensive against the charging monster. Fingers splayed wide, she pushed with telekinesis hoping to send the monster flying backwards.
Instead, her heart sank with dread as the monster merely stumbled in the dirt, its speed barely affected as it louped on all fours towards her.
[MAGICIAN'S HAND INEFFECTIVE. TARGET'S WEIGHT IS GREATER THAN 70 KILOGRAMS.]
"Oh, for f**ks sake!" Leta shouted in agitation before throwing the telekinetic push at the monster again, doing what she could to buy herself time as she started to backtrack towards the road and potential witnesses.
As with the first try, her attack barely slowed the monster down as it hurtled towards her. Desperate, Leta looked to the side and saw a tree that had fallen into the woods away from trail. While it didn't take a genius to guess the thing weighed more than her 70 kilos limit, she bet that the thick branches that had broken off in its fall were manageable.
Reaching out with a mental fist, a large branch almost two meters long and almost eight centimeters wide lifted into the air.
Aiming the thing was like targeting a stuffed animal in a claw machine if the toy was possessed and moving around. She was proud of herself for getting close enough that the monster had to make a hard dash to the side to evade.
Leta threw out her mental arms and started grabbing any branch that she could, not bothering with finesse in an attempt to pepper the charging monster until she did some kind of damage.
A branch the size of her arm got the monster in the cheek, cutting deep and slowing it's advance long enough for her to focus her wooden missiles.
Another branch about a meter in length rammed into the monster's stomach, lodging itself deep and doing some serious damage to its intestines.
The monster howled as the pain of the deep wound and the weight of the branch pulled it to the ground, where the makeshift wooden spike pierced even further.
Praying that the wound would slow it down long enough for her to make an escape, Leta ran.
The woods had grown dark by now, obscuring the monster's attack from mortal eyes and making her hopes of someone seeing the attack and calling for help nonexistent.
While her new night vision made it easier for her to avoid the dips and divots in the dirt that would have stumbled her, she was sure the wolf-like monster also had keen eyes in the dark.
Between the swaying trees, Leta could just make out the twinkling of street lamps up ahead when a heavy weight tackled her to the ground.
The sudden impact into the dirt knocked the wind out of her, leaving Leta gasping like a fish out of water as the monster's claws tore into her shoulders.
Inches away from her face a bloody muzzle growled, hot breath wreaking of meat and the tang of iron huffing at her ear.
Leta closed her eyes and braced herself for the monster to rip into her neck as it reared its head back, its razor sharp teeth red with her blood as it lunged for her.
Suddenly, the monster gave a high pitched shriek in pain that thundered in her ears. Leta took in great gasps of air as the weight pressing down on her disappeared.
She could barely hear the 'splirt' of metal piercing flesh and the screeching of an animal in pain over the sound of her own coughing as she choked on air.
Something gave a heavy thud in the dirt near her and Leta looked up to see the head of the monster rolling towards her hand.
A few feet away, blood squirted from its neck as its body went limp and fell at the feet of a dark figure.
He was dressed in all black, mercenary-esque attire: black tactical pants, combat boots, long sleeved black jacket tucked under matte black vambraces. A military shaved head and hazel eyes were the only discernible features due to a black face mask covering his mouth and nose. Everything save for the two short swords only slightly too long to be considered daggers in his hands seemed to absorb the light around him, making him seem as if he had manifested from the shadows themselves.
'Men that control people with their minds, strangers that turn into wolf-like monsters, and now ninjas. Can this day get any crazier?' Leta thought as she rolled onto her knees.