Jacob realised at that moment that he had miscalculated. The beast's leisurely pace made him misjudge its max speed, which just so happened to be fast.
Very fucking fast.
Jacob turned around in haste, making a snap decision to head up the stairs to the second floor of the building. His decision wasn't exactly rooted in logic, more in an instinctive desire for higher ground against a stronger opponent.
He took the stairs 4 at a time, for about 3 seconds.
That was all it took for the beast to reach the home from over 50 meters away.
As far as Jacob knew the fastest human time for a 100m sprint was about 10 seconds. And the beast had covered half that distance in a third of the time.
In addition, it was a 3-meter-tall bundle of claws, jaws, and madness.
*CRASH*
The sound of splintered wood filled the house as the massive beast ripped down the area around the door, creating an opening large enough to fit through.
[Overclock: 8x]
Jacob dove for his life as he had managed to cover the majority of the staircase. Doing so saved his life as a massive claw brushed past the space his head had just been.
He rolled back to his feet and immediately made for one of the further rooms, not pausing for a moment to look back.
He quickly made up his pace as he got back to his feet, only to realise he had fallen for the beast's trap.
There was only one door opposite the staircase the beast was climbing, well destroying was more accurate considering it was forcing itself through the small building with sheer strength. Regardless the chimera had noted this and had swiped both its claws simultaneously, knowing full well that one blow to Jacob would end their game of cat and mouse as quickly as it had begun.
Jacob was currently running overclock at 8x, giving him enough time to notice his impending demise before it happened.
Sadly…
"Ghhhuuu, ffffFUCK" Jacob groaned as he pushed off the ground after his last-minute spin.
It hadn't let him dodge the blow but instead of the claw striking directly against his body, it had only grazed his side.
Despite avoiding the majority of the blow, the chimera's claws cut through him easily, leaving 4 large gashes on his side.
The only silver lining was that the chimera had used both claws too quickly and needed a moment to be able to charge forward again.
But it was still only a moment.
Jacob had made it to the room at the top of the staircase, an officer's quarters from what he could tell.
Hell, it might be the room of the captain he had spoken to earlier.
'How the hell am I getting out of this?' Jacob thought.
The Chimera was much faster than he expected, forget dodging around it and dragging the battle out, he had barely survived 2 casual attacks from the feline-looking bastard!
He had temporarily overclocked to 10x before lowering it back down to 8x. he knew the difference wasn't much, but it gave him time to formulate a basic plan and he would need every bit of mana he could spare.
He would have liked to turn Overclock off entirely but without it he knew he wouldn't last a second much less pull off his Hail Mary of a plan.
The room he was in was more spacious than the others of the barracks, a large desk was centred at the room, it faced the door with a comfortable chair placed towards the back wall.
What was more important was the presence of a window on the back wall. Normally it would serve as natural back lighting to whoever was seated at the desk.
Now it would serve as his escape route.
He didn't bother closing the door, the giant bastard had ripped half the front wall down, the hell would a door do?
Instead, he launched himself onto the desk, grabbing the backrest of the chair on the opposite side as he did so.
At the same time as he did so, the beast stuck its head into the room, already ripping open the frame of the door, warping and snapping the wooden beams to make a larger entrance.
Jacob did something unexpected then, he took the chair by its backrest and tossed it at the beast.
That in itself did nothing, the beast simply slashed its claw, decimating the wooden leather chair in an instant.
Then it paused.
Jacob had taken out his pistol, using the brief moment when the beast's one good eye was occupied by the chair to pull it out.
At this point, a question comes to mind.
Wasn't Jacob out of bullets?
Yes. Yes, he was.
Did that matter to him?
No, of course not.
He never planned on killing the beast, but he was counting on something else.
Its intelligence.
The soldiers had said the chimera had better intelligence than other beasts, if that was right then wouldn't it be able to recognise the weapon that had left it half blind?
The chimera froze.
Only for a second but that was all Jacob needed.
He tossed his body backwards at the window, his eyes never leaving the chimera.
By the time he crashed through the glass plane his startled adversary had recovered with renewed vigour. Enraged that its quarry had once again gotten away.
Luckily It was once again stopped by the small opening of the window.
But just like the other times, Jacob knew he only had seconds before it was out.
His eyes dashed about madly, this was where his plan ended. Originally, he had wanted to use his superior reaction speed (thanks to overclock) and new body to dodge around the chimera with the help of the building's small size.
Now he was outside the building, and he had only distracted the massive bastard for about a minute, probably less!
His eyes landed on a few corpses of fallen beasts, killed by the warriors at the start of the attack no doubt.
In that second Jacob made a decision, the benefits of him being revered by the warriors were not worth his life.
He ran to the dead beasts, sliding the last part of the way as he wedged himself underneath a particularly well-maimed beast.
His plan, if you could call it that, was to hope the chimera wouldn't be able to find him.
'Seriously, this is less of a plan and more of a vague hope with no evidence to back it up' he thought.
Then the beast came down landing on the ground with a thud, its head moving around slowly, searching for its prey.
It sniffed the air as its tails swayed about.
'No fucking way….' Jacob thought, astounded.
His plan was actually working!