While the village of Karragin was undergoing its greatest ordeal since its founding, Ikaris was fleeing in the opposite direction with dozens of Crawlers on his tail.
All of a sudden, the bushes swished to his left and right, but also in front and behind him. The teenager froze and jumped two meters high to grab a tree branch. Using his momentum, he swung on it to catapult himself onto an even higher branch.
Just as he reached the top of the tree, another pack of Crawlers poured out from the direction he had been running towards less than a second earlier. Seeing his close call, Ikaris' hair stood on end, but he didn't linger here any longer.
Running and leaping from branch to branch, he made it past the barrage of Crawlers and after landing on the ground right behind them he began to dash even faster. The monsters kept looking for him for a short while, but as they sensed the boy's presence drifting away, their heads snapped in his direction and they broke into a gallop with a furious roar.
'Damn it! I can't lose them.' Ikaris cursed inwardly, braking hard as a third pack with hundreds of Crawlers burst out of the bushes ahead of him.
Their telepathic link allowed the Crawlers to sense his presence, but it was mutual. Because of this, and because his intelligence and tactical sense were superior, he was able to maneuver between them for a time.
Only for a time.
Abruptly, Ikaris halted his run and his lips twitched.
'I'm surrounded.'
Because of this vigorous physical activity, his hunger and bloodlust that he was barely keeping under control threatened to flare up again. Using the passive of his Appraisal Spark, he could vaguely gauge his opponents' strength at a glance. He knew which Crawlings he could afford to fight and which ones he absolutely had to avoid.
'If I choose my targets well, I may be able to get through this new containment circle, but that doesn't solve the basic problem. As long as they can locate me, I have no chance of escaping them.'
There were millions of Crawlers roaming the jungle tonight. It would be a tragic night for the natives and local wildlife, but for him it was an absolute catastrophe. Every time he managed to shake off a handful of monsters, thousands more would join the hunt.
Barring a miracle, it was impossible for him to escape them indefinitely if he didn't quickly find a way to hide from their perception.
'I guess I have no choice. I must sever this telepathic link or learn to erase my presence.' Ikaris pondered in an agitated manner.
It seemed obvious, but it would cause him trouble in more ways than one. It was a spell he had never performed, so the corresponding Secondary Spark did not yet exist. The fatigue would certainly be severe.
Second hurdle, even if he had no doubt that he would be able to pull it off with his current Stamina, he also had to consider the spell's duration and the context in which it would be cast. His enemies would surely not give him time to focus and he could not hope to erase his presence from their telepathic network for more than a few seconds or minutes.
"Very well then, whatever I do, I'm going to have to risk my life." Ikaris resolved to have a bloody and traumatic night that he would remember for the rest of his life.
At that moment, the Crawlers emerged from the darkness before him in droves and like a school of hungry piranhas pounced on him. Ikaris got into a fighting stance and concentrated with all his brain power on the spell he wanted to cast. When he no longer had a choice, he thought sternly,
'Stealth.'
The Crawlings coming at him from all directions crashed into each other where his presence was last felt. At least a dozen monsters were knocked unconscious and two small Crawlers were trampled to death by their brethren.
Hanging from a tree branch with bated breath, Ikaris mopped the sweat from his forehead with his heart racing as he realized the horrible death he had just avoided.
Stealth, an all-encompassing spell. Rather than simply disconnect from the Crawling network, he had chosen unconditional stealth. As with the Black Veil, he felt it was the kind of simple spell that wouldn't require too much energy expenditure as long as the intent was properly stated.
Ikaris didn't know how to scientifically explain a perfect Stealth Spell, but he could make some guesses. To make himself invisible, all he had to do was reflect the light hitting the opposite side of his body, while to erase his presence he could imagine neurological disruption or even psychic jamming comparable to that used by stealth aircraft to counter enemy radar.
Even if a normal human knew all this, taking all this data into account to cast a spell would have been a very difficult task. Such a complex and comprehensive visualization could have taken months of training. But Ikaris was able to do it, thanks to his cleverness, but more importantly his game-breaking Soul Strength.
Unfortunately, he had underestimated the difficulty of the spell. Hanging from the tree branch, he felt his body quickly become heavier and his breathing quickened, becoming more and more difficult. Taking advantage of the confusion of the Crawlings clustered below him, he turned off the spell and pulled himself up onto the branch before running away again.
As soon as he reappeared on their radar, the bewildered Crawling army looked in his direction and humiliated roars rang out behind him. Soon after, the earth shook and he heard the thousands of monsters charging after him.
[Stamina: 12/17.9]
This was the first time Ikaris felt the need to check his Stamina after a spell. Before, he always ended up exhausted after his training.
When it came to stamina, there was one inescapable rule. When one' s stamina was high, one recovered quickly, especially if the effort was of low or moderate intensity. A marathon runner could run at a decent pace for several hours.
However, if a sprinter was asked to run ten kilometers and only sprint that distance, even if they were the most athletic person in the world, lactic acid and muscle tetany would cause them to collapse long before that. If they succeeded, the aches and pains would undoubtedly be horrible and would last for several days if not directly ending in muscle strain or tendonitis.
At the moment, the effort required to maintain the Stealth spell could be compared to lifting his maximum weight in a deadlift for several minutes. Even with his current Vitality and Stamina, his body was feeling it.
'And now I'm starving...' Ikaris grumbled as he ran.
With his path clear, he dropped from the tree he was perched on and landed on a straggling Crawling the size of a fox. With a hungry gleam in his eye, the boy swooped down on it, knife pointing at its neck.
SCRREECH!
The bone knife shattered against the monster's back cartilage plate and the teen realized he had screwed up. Still, the little beast was pressed to the ground by the boy's weight, half-stunned.
Undaunted, Ikaris kicked the belly of the creature to turn it on its back, then instinctively planted his half-closed clawed hand in its chest. When he withdrew his arm, the creature's warm heart was between his fingers.
Without thinking, he gobbled the organ and swallowed without chewing. His stomach thanked him and his Perfect Digestion trait went to work. A flood of nutrients surged through his bloodstream, replenishing his cells.
Hearing the Crawlers approaching again, he grabbed the slain monster by the leg like a piece of game and took off again. Stifling his reluctance, he devoured the creature raw, breaking off one leg after the other to facilitate the swallowing.
Soon he was surrounded again, but his Stamina had recovered sufficiently.
"Stealth."
Just like the first time, Ikaris played the tree branch trick on them and the monsters collided with deafening savagery. From where he stood, he could hear bones cracking and jaws snapping.
This time the Stealth Spell didn't wear him down as quickly and he could also feel the effectiveness of the spell had increased a bit. Based on his previous experience, he deactivated the spell right away and started running again.
A few hours later.
Huff... Huff...
A boy with raven black hair drenched in sweat and gasping for breath slumped down against a tree with a stitch in his side. His wheezing couldn't settle down anymore. Several deep lacerations covered his back and arms, the largest one gouging his back from his right shoulder to his left hip.
This mangled boy was none other than Ikaris.
His luck had finally run out. From a few hundred Crawlers, the encirclement had grown to several thousand, then tens of thousands. The rank of the monsters had also increased considerably. In the end, he was fighting almost exclusively against Crawlings comparable to Demonic Beasts.
Demonic Beasts meant Secondary Sparks. But as challenging as it was, with his new Steath Skill he still managed to outsmart them despite their sharpened senses.
Until a Glenring arrived.