Havok activated 'Darkness Dash' and went back to his home and grabbed a few extra berries, then left for the northern region.
Havok, who was supposed to be on a break for a few days, was actually looking forward to fighting and this was his first time fighting in the dark. He wanted to test his abilities against the strongest in the forest. The best way to improve his strength was to risk his life.
Havok was on the edge of the northern region, and he could hear battles happening all over the region. He took a deep breath; he was slightly nervous as he knew that one mistake would cost him his life. There was also the possibility of running into the black bear, so he had to always be on guard against that and prepared to run away in an instant.
He was ready for battle as he made his way into the northern region, what shocked him was that there were more mana beasts here than he thought. It was still not even close to the population of the inner region, but it was not much less than the eastern and southern regions. Also, the mana beasts here felt stronger, he jumped up in the trees just to avoid running around the region blindly. "Damn, the fight I saw in this region the last time seems like child's play compared to this. There are even several mana beasts that have affinities. I have already seen beasts using fire, wind and water affinities and I have not even seen the whole region. This makes me wonder how strong the black bear has gotten. The beasts here feel about as strong as the wildebeest I saw in the southern region. I am getting excited." Havok put his hand on his heart as he felt it pounding strongly as his excitement for battle grew.
This was a first for Havok. He didn't particularly like fighting even before he became a ranker, but he did it because it was necessary. The same was true after he became a ranker. However, that was beginning to change the more time he spent in the forest, getting stronger, creating new techniques and eating new mana beast meat were among his favorite things now.
He didn't dwell on it too much because he was enjoying himself for the most part, getting injured wasn't his favorite thing, but it was a by-product of fighting, so he accepted it was always going to happen. He discarded every thought aside from fighting because he knew that being distracted on the battlefield, which is what the northern region currently is, would get him killed.
Havok was now dashing from tree to tree searching for an opponent that he could fight in an isolated area so that he wouldn't get surrounded. He knew that mana beasts liked to eat humans, but he was not sure if they preferred humans over mana beasts. He did not want to find out the hard way while fighting a mana beast that all the beasts nearby would join together and devour him.
He stopped as he finally found a lone mana beast. It was a large dark brown grizzly bear that was currently devouring its dead opponent. It was a mountain lion that had been sliced in half. Havok wasted no time and decided to strike, he activated 'Darkness Dash' and grabbed his axe made out of moose antler off his hip. He filled it with mana and coated it in darkness, which had become second nature to him. He swung the axe with all his might down on the neck of the grizzly as it was still messily devouring the mountain lion.
Bang!
The grizzly's head was slammed into the ground and the axe opened a large cut. Havok was yanking on the axe trying to free it because it got stuck in its head. Blood sprayed out as he yanked back on the axe finally releasing it from its head and spraying blood all over Havok's face and upper body. Havok quickly wiped the blood off his face as he knew that the grizzly was not dead, and the battle was just getting started.
Just as Havok expected by the time he was done freeing the axe, the grizzly was standing up, albeit unsteadily. Havok pressed his advantage as he said, "Conductor of the night, Myriad" and three throwing knives covered in darkness flew towards the dazed grizzly. Havok began attacking the grizzly's head injury, while its eyes were beginning to regain their clarity.
The night had just begun, and this was going to be one of his many fights, so he wanted to end this using as little mana as possible. The knives continued to strike at the grizzly's head.
Roar!
The grizzly roared in anger, which sent a wave of wind towards Havok, blasting him several feet backwards and sending him through a tree and he smashed into the ground. It also deactivated his technique as he lost focus due to being blasted away. "So, it does have the wind affinity." Havok said as he got up from the ground wiping blood from his mouth. He assumed that was the case given how the body of the mountain lion looked. All of the cuts were clean, not rigged like you would expect from a bear ripping apart a mountain lion.
The grizzly's head injury was closing slowly, and it was enraged as it charged at Havok. "Bring it on, you big bastard," Havok said as he activated 'Darkness Dash' and grabbed both of his axes, then coated them in darkness. He swung them as hard as he could at the grizzly's claws that were bearing down from above as it was taller than him and trying to flatten him.
Bang! Krck!
They both grunted in pain as they felt the recoil from the impact as the ground below their feet was blasted apart sending bits off rocks and dirt flying everywhere. Havok's body was not nearly as strong as the Grizzly's, his shoulders were both dislocated and he could feel some fractures in the bones in his arms. Havok quickly popped his shoulders back in place, "Ugh, fuck! I really need to find a way to make my body tougher. Having my arms get injured every time I collide with a beast is a pain in the ass." Said Havok as he grunted through the pain.
Roar!
The grizzly roared in frustration, seeing that Havok was still alive, and it was in some pain due to their collision. However, neither one of them backed down. They were still close to each other and this all happened in a few seconds. They clashed again over and over again as Havok started to use more of his mana as darkness and wind were being blasted all over the place.
Bang! Whoosh! Bang! Bang! Whoosh! Bang!
The area became a wasteland as they continued to cause major damage to it.
The grizzly and Havok both began to accumulate injuries as the fight continued. Havok's injuries were more severe than his opponents, but his darkness was a problem for the grizzly's internal organs. Every time Havok landed an attack he would inject darkness in the grizzly's body. Havok jumped backwards as he knew that fighting a beast with such a tough body in close quarters is not a smart choice. The only reason he did it until now was that he wanted to test if his body had become tougher as he got stronger, and it did. Which was good news and his injuries healed much faster, the bad news was that he was still nowhere near as tough as the grizzly.
Havok hung his axes on his hips and when he felt he got enough distance from the grizzly and said, "Conductor of the night, Myriad." Three tentacles of darkness jetted out and connected to the knives that he used earlier. They were on the ground after he took the first attack from the grizzly, and they suddenly came back to life. The three of them swarmed the grizzly.
The grizzly did not just wait for Havok to kill it. It was continuously charging at Havok, swatting the knives that were attacking his eyes. It roared in anger and kept charging at Havok who was using 'Darkness Dash' trying to maintain his distance from the grizzly, in order to give him injuries time to heal.
The grizzly started using its wind affinity as it swiped its paws at Havok from a distance, sending a slash of five wind blades each time it waved its paw towards him. Havok was able to dodge most of them without getting injured, but he was cut a few times. His lower legs were injured as he got cut when an attack blasted dirt and grass into his eyes slowing him down just enough for the grizzlies next attack to connect.
Havok looked down as he grunted in pain. His lower leg was damn near severed; he could see the bone the cut was so deep. This injury slowed Havok down considerably, even though he was using 'Darkness Dash', it was a struggle to run fast enough on one leg to escape the pursuit of the grizzly.
His mana was draining rapidly, but he was hesitant to use 'Eruption' because there was no telling how many mana beasts were waiting in the surrounding area to kill whichever one of them was left standing. He would need to use a significant amount of mana and if he didn't kill it, then he would most likely end up dead before he could escape.
'I wanted to end this fight quickly, but that didn't happen and now I am covered in injuries and bleeding all over the damn place. I might as well risk it. There is no use in conserving mana if you are about to be killed.' Havok thought, as he used 'Darkness Dash' to its full potential and was almost instantaneously fifty feet away from the Grizzly, just to make sure that he would not injure himself like last time. If he did get caught up in this time he was surely going to die as he was already injured and was struggling to fight the grizzly.
He sent the knives towards the grizzlies' eyes, while the grizzly was swinging its claws around defending its face, as slashes of wind went everywhere. This went on for about a minute before all three of the knives were right in front of its eyes. Seeing that he would not get a better opportunity Havok shouted, "Eruption!"
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The eruptions were slightly staggered in order to cause the maximum amount of damage. Havok decided to use a lower amount of mana for 'Eruption' this time and when the dust cleared, he saw the grizzly on its back wailing in pain as it lost both of its eyes and its nose was partially blown off. Havok was not out of mana, but he was close, so he activated 'Darkness Dash' and grabbed an axe off his hip and swung the darkness-covered axe right to where the grizzlies' eyes used to be as that was the best way to destroy its brain.
Bang! Splurt!
The grizzly's head was blasted apart, Havok sighed in relief. "I need to grab its core and leave as fast as possible. Also, I want to grab a decent piece of its meat to eat later." Tentacles of darkness went through the now easily accessible hole left by the head that was destroyed. Tentacle tunneled through the grizzly's stomach and grabbed the core and Havok pulled his hand back, revealing a shiny red core with white streaks running through it. He knew his time was limited so he grabbed one of his axes and chopped at grizzly's body trying to gut a decent size of meat from its body.
After about a minute he managed to achieve his goal, he wrapped it in darkness, held it in his arms and activated 'Darkness Dash' to leave the area as quickly as he could.
As he left, he could feel that there were indeed several mana beasts in the area, and he dashed towards the area that didn't have any. His eyes darted around as he searched for a place to heal his injuries. He couldn't see anything, but trees. "Fuck this. I can't keep running around on this bloody leg. Not only am I slow, but I am leaving a trail of blood. I am basically leading them right to me." Said an exhausted Havok. He took off his pelt covering his upper body and wrapped it around his leg to contain the bleeding. He used his tentacles of darkness to scale the tree in front of him. He found a spot that had a bunch of branches that were covered in leaves, high up in a tree that could provide him some extra cover.
"As long as there aren't any mana beasts in the area that can fly or saw me come up here, I should be safe for now." Havok said as he sat down on the branch with his back leaning against the tree trunk.
He sat down the chunk of grizzly meat that he brought next to him. He took his backpack off and started to eat the berries he brought by the handful as his mana core began to fill back. After he finished half of what he brought his mana core was full again. He kept scarfing them down as he circulated his mana to heal all his injuries. He stopped the bleeding and all the minor cuts and scrapes healed.
He looked down at his leg that was still bleeding, and he started to focus his mana on his leg, he began to worry that he would have enough berries to heal his leg. His stash was running low as his leg finally stopped bleeding and the gash that was all the way down to the bone was very slowly closing up. He ended up running out of berries before the wound closed.
"Damn it, I should have focused on healing my leg first, that was a bad decision. Now, I can only sit here and just absorb the natural mana here, which will take a while to heal my leg. On the other hand, I could eat a piece of this grizzly meat. I really don't want to eat raw meat, but it's the better choice. Ugh!" Havok said looking dispirited, as he grabbed a knife and sliced off the chunk of the grizzly meat. He hesitated for a second before he ate the piece of meat as fast he could, trying not to taste the blood.
It was not as disgusting as he thought, but by no means was it good. However, that didn't really matter because he was not doing this for the taste. This was all about absorbing its mana. He kept cutting off slices, until his leg was finally healed thirty minutes later.
"Hah. I am finally fully healed, and the night is still young. There are still more opponents out there that can help me improve. I can see why the stronger mana beasts stay in the northern region, even though it is extremely dangerous. I had one fight, and I can already feel my control and techniques both improving. This is a paradise for the strong and this is where I will spend most of my time training." Said an energized Havok, as he jumped to the next tree searching for an opponent.