Five months had passed and Havok had trained like a madman. The improvement in his strength was proof of his dedication and skills.
Havok was currently darting around a cave trying to dodge incoming attacks. Webs covered in some green substance were shot everywhere he went. They followed him like a shadow. Havok tried to attack, but he ended up getting stabbed in his left shoulder.
He was in tremendous pain, but his instincts kicked in and he grabbed the axe that was hanging from his waist and slashed down on the leg.
As the axe came down the edge of the axe became black as Havok coated it in darkness to strengthen it again after filling it with mana just to make sure that it wouldn't break when clashing with the body of such a strong mana beast. The beast that Havok considered the fourth strongest out of all the rulers of the forest, the black widow.
"Kwweek!"
The spider shrieked and jumped backwards in pain from it losing the lower half of one of its legs. Havok was equally pissed the leg was going to hurt him getting pulled out just as much as it did when it went in. He saw no point in delaying it and just ripped the leg out of his shoulder.
"Gah! Shit! The green shit on those damn webs in this cave is fucking slowing me down. It's forcing me to make sure that I don't get any on me because I am pretty sure that it is poison, based on how it is slowly dissolving everything it touches besides the webs. I have to make sure it doesn't touch me because I don't know if I need an antidote to survive if I get poisoned. If I get struck by one of them, I will be killed as I become immobile just waiting to be eaten like the rest of the mana beasts that get caught in those poison covered webs.' Havok thought to himself.
"Now it's my turn you shitty spider!" Havok yelled as he was infuriated that he allowed himself to take a major blow like this. He needed to somehow disable the black widows' other legs because it was just as fast as him, the only reason he had not taken more damage was because it had bad aim. If the black widow was more accurate, he would have been killed by now.
Havok said, "Conductor of the Night," and activated the new techniques he created during the past 5 months. After he activated it, the javelin that he had across his back flew off and flew towards the black widow covered in darkness. Havok stood there waving his hand back and forth, up and down and side to side as the javelin continued to strike at the black widow. Unfortunately for Havok he was not able to land an attack.
Although he improved his control by a large amount, that wasn't the problem right now. He was missing because the black widow is just too fast and agile. The black widow continued to dodge and everywhere it landed it left a web. After a while there was an intricate weaving of poison covered webs around the cave. Havok knew that his mana core was draining rapidly while the technique was active, so he brought the javelin to his hands and deactivated his technique. He kept it coated in darkness and dashed towards the black widow. The widow seemed relieved that it was no longer being chased and charged at him.
They met in the center of the cave. Havok swung the javelin like it was a baseball bat and clashed with the legs of the black widow as it lunged at him and attacked at the same time.
Boom! Whoosh! Whoosh! Bang! Bang!
They were blasted apart and Havok slammed into the wall as his javelin exploded when it clashed with the widow's legs. The black widow also spat some poison on his chest which was rapidly eating away at the fox pelt. The black widow was also flung into the wall and screeching in pain as Havok gave it a surprise when they clashed. He knew that the javelin would not be able to handle the impact. That was just a tool for him to get close to the black widow.
Right before the impact, Havok grabbed two of his throwing knives from his hip, coated them in darkness and threw them at the spider's eyes. It was rather sloppy because he had to rush, so only one of the knives landed and destroyed a couple of its eyes, but the knife that landed managed to just barely stab into the black widows' brain.
Havok's vision was blurry as his head smacked into the cave wall, but he knew that time was precious right now. He peeled himself out of the cave wall and his chest was burning as the fox pelt was completely dissolved by the poison. He ripped the remaining scraps of what was left of it off and threw it on the ground. He saw the knife still lodged in the spider's head. He said, "Conductor of the Night" and he waved his hand and a throwing knife from his hip was coated in darkness sped towards the knife that was still in the spider's head.
Splurt!
The second throwing knife smashed into the butt of the knife in the spider's head and that knife exploded, sending shards of wood everywhere and the other knife shot straight through the black widow's brain, killing it.
Boom! Splurt!
Its body fell from the cave wall onto the floor, Havok collapsed onto the floor taking deep breaths once he saw that it was dead. "Hah. Hah. Hah. Good news is that I won. The bad news is that it destroyed my pelt, and I can't replace it with the spider pelt because it doesn't have one. Damn it! Wait, I still have that cougar pelt that. That solves one problem. My shoulder is fucked up, it was stabbed through earlier and healed enough that I was able to move it, but after slamming into the wall its dislocated. Now, my arm is just a dangling bloody mess." Havok looked at his left shoulder that was bleeding again and most certainly broken.
"Just letting my arm dangle will just increase the pain and it will just flop around and get in the way. I need to make a sling. I did get some poison in the wound. Will it slow down the time it will take to heal? Guess I will find out and I will also find out if the meat from the black widow is poison too." Havok got up off the floor and retrieved his tattered pelt and used the parts that were not corroded by the black widow poison and made a quick sling.
Having secured his arm, he grabbed the axe off the ground and made his way towards the widow's corpse. He chopped off the seven remaining legs.
The head was blasted apart earlier, and the brains and blood were splattered all over the abdomen of the spider, Havok swung the axe hitting the abdomen trying to crack it open.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
After a few hits and seeing that there was very little damage done he dropped the axe. "Fuck this." said a frustrated Havok as he went over and picked up one of its chopped off legs.
He stabbed the abdomen with it, and it cracked open with little effort.
Crack!
"Fuck! Finally, now to get its beast core and heal up. There is no rush to leave this cave before I am able to at least defend myself. The surrounding mana beasts must have heard the noise from the battle, and they probably won't enter this cave because they know the black widow lives here, but that does not mean that they won't wait outside and ambush me when I am leaving. It's best to play it safe." Havok retrieved the beast core, it was red with green streaks through it. He sat down and began to absorb its mana.
Once he started, he noticed that it wasn't harmful like he thought it was going to be. The poison that was in his body was extracted by the beast core, which was surprising to Havok. "Does every core with an affinity absorb their affinity back? Does it only absorb the affinity from that specific core, or does it absorb it from any core as long as they have the same affinity? Anyway, my arm is not fully healed, but the bleeding has stopped. Although I still can't move it, this is good enough for now. I'll keep it in the sling until I am able to move it again. It's time to head back home." Havok wrapped the body and legs in darkness, tossed it over his shoulder and carried it like a bag. He activated 'Darkness Dash' and sped out of the cave.
Like he guessed there were mana beasts stalking the entrance of the cave waiting to attack. He was definitely noticed as all the beasts there felt a strong gust of wind blow by them, by the time they looked towards the blurry figure all they saw was a silhouette moving at a rapid pace.
'Hidden Presence' was damn near a passive technique, now that he kept it activated at all times except when he was asleep and that was only because he had yet to reach the stage of the technique where it was completely autonomous like breathing. He always kept it active because the mistake he made last time when the cougar nearly killed him had been seared into his mind and he was not afraid of making mistakes but repeating them is something he considered to be unacceptable.
A few minutes later Havok arrived at his home and tossed the spider towards the butcher area. "Phew, that bastard sure is heavy. I am exhausted, it is time for a long soak in the bathtub." Havok got the fire started under his bathtub and used a bucket of water to clean all of the dirt and blood off of him while waiting for the water to heat up. Once it was hot enough, he got in and instantly felt a sense of relaxation. "Haaah. Now that's what I'm talking about. I need to do this more often. I can feel my muscles relax and stress from the battle melt away." Havok closed his eyes and slept for about an hour.
Havok woke up feeling refreshed, "Mhhhm, now it's time to see if that spider has any edible meat" Havok got out of the bathtub and stretched as his bones popped. He didn't have anything to dry off with so he just air dried. He went over to the butcher area and inspected the meat, "I wonder if these legs have any meat in them." Havok picked up the axe that he kept just for butchering and began to smash the black widows leg a few times.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Crack!
"Oh, that's a nice surprise, there is indeed some meat. I can crack the rest and roast them over the fire pit." Havok cracked a few more legs, he knew how much he could eat in one sitting, and he didn't want to waste any meat. "Now let's move onto the abdomen. There is enough meat here to last a few days, great! I wonder if the meat of a mana beast with a poison affinity will taste any different or will it poison me? I am hoping I don't die from being a glutton."
He skewered the leg meat on a long branch and roasted them over the fire pit. It was a good amount of meat, and it gave him time to break down, clean and trim the meat from the abdomen and store it in a cabinet he made for meat that has yet to be cooked.
By the time he was done with all of that the smell of the legs flowed into his nose. It was not like the other mana beasts he smelled up to this point, the smell made his nose tingle. Havok took leg meat off of the fire and let it cool down for a few minutes. His mouth watered in anticipation as he picked up the stick. Then, he finally took a bite.
"Damn. It sure is different from the other beasts I have eaten. It's slightly burning my mouth, but it tastes even better than the other ones. Is it because it has an affinity or is it because it was stronger than them? I will need to figure that out, but the only way to do that is to face the three other rulers and they are all stronger than the black widow. The coyotes have a pack and numbers can make up for a number of deficiencies. The falcon can fly which is a tremendous advantage and the black bear is strong enough to fight both of those groups at the same time. It must be whatever is in that pond over there because mana was just introduced and there is no way that a beast gets that strong in such a short time without some sort of treasure being involved." Havok said as he finished off the rest of the meat.
"Tomorrow, I will go scout the other three rulers. First up is the falcon since I am in its territory, it should be the fastest to scout. Haaahhhhn" Havok yawned as he plopped down on his bed and fell asleep.