Jack was starting to find himself in a precarious situation. While he had the ability to regenerate his injuries, the fox had the strength to match its large size. Very quickly, almost all of Jack's ribs were fractured, while dangerous cracks began forming on his spine.
In fact, it was getting to the point that Jack was starting to lose control over his lower body.
Jack was starting to get a bad feeling, one that he rarely felt. Although he very much found solace in pain, he also knew that he was starting to come close to his death. And it was deeply ingrained within his mind that death was a bad thing.
His father practically told him that fact every other day.
Jack wanted to get off the fox's head but was no longer able to move his legs, as a part of his spine was too damaged. Without a second thought, he got a knife out from his storage deck and directly slashed off both legs from a joint at the knee.
His body tumbled down, plopping down onto the ground as the fox continued to slam its head into the tree trunk despite the thing it was trying to get off was already gone. In the end, Jack just remained there, unable to get up since he was quite literally missing his legs.
As he waited there, blood began splattering his face from the fox's self-injury. It appeared that the pain had already gotten so intense that it couldn't actually process that Jack was no longer digging into its eyes.
All it knew was that everything still hurt and that this was the only solution it could think of.
So it kept beating the side of its head onto the trunk. Not stopping even when cracks began forming on its skull. As it continued on, a howl came from the distance. Seedy had already lost most of his grip on the tree roots. It was agonizing that it was going to fail in holding them off, but they suddenly lost all their power, leaving Seedy baffled.
At the same time, they began to decay, albeit slowly.
As for the fox, it continued to bash its skull against the side of the tree trunk, causing chunks of flesh to fall down onto Jack. Though he didn't mind. In fact, he was feeling happy for the fox, thinking it was just having fun.
The leaves of the trees far up in the air were all rapidly decaying. However, the actual trunk of the tree was still as strong as ever. And just as bashable. In the distance, there came a howl of a coyote.
Seedy saw its figure slip past him, and reached out his vines in an attempt to stop him, but was simply too slow.
After the leaves all wilted, the top of the tree trunk turned black, which started to spread to the base. At the same time, Jack could start to feel shrapnel of bone falling down onto his face. Then he let out a yawn before picking at his ear.
As for the coyote, it did everything it could to go faster, neglecting the proper footwork and slamming into the sides of trees regularly. But no matter how bruised it got, that wasn't enough to discourage it from hurrying on.
The trunks of the trees rapidly blackened, quickly reaching the bottom.
In just a few moments, the part that the fox was hitting had decayed as well, no longer as hard as before. In the distance, the coyote saw this and let out a howl. However, the fox did not understand anything and still threw its head at the tree with all its might, directly snapping the tree off its base.
And at the same time, Jack felt a mass of brain matter and bone fragments landing over him.
The fox's skull directly caved in. And even if that wasn't the case, the brain had already taken a severe amount of damage from how recklessly the fox kept bashing its head.
After taking one step backward, the fox slouched down before falling down on its side.
Almost as though copying the fox, many of the other trees also fell down, but were nowhere near their former glory, breaking into ashes the moment they came into contact with the ground.
The coyote's originally fervent pace slowed down.
Until it stopped one hundred meters away. For a while, it just silently looked at the corpse. Then, the coyote raised its head in the air and let out a pained howl. Hearing that, Jack held himself up with his hands and looked over.
"Ah, you want to play too? Hm... but it's a little hard for me to play right now."
Ignorant of the grief that the coyote was feeling, Jack suddenly let out a gasp.
"Oh! I thought of an idea that might work!"
He then pulled out a red bead from his storage deck.
[One-time Basic Monster Summon (1hr)]
[Summons a basic monster that will listen to your commands for 1 hour, after which it will die, or if it is killed through other means.]
But a frown soon formed on his face.
"...Um, how do I use this thing?"
As he contemplated, Jessica who was watching from a distance let out a small gasp.
"I-Is he still alive? I think I still see him."
The man in a suit was still on a tree next to them and let out a sigh.
"If he truly died, then I already would've moved on to the next person."
Emma put a finger on her chin and let out a soft hum before muttering to herself.
"It looks like he's still holding himself back. That's rather boring."
What happened at the start of the battle was fairly clear. However, once all the giant trees shot up from the ground, the only thing that the spectators could see was the occasional shadow slipping by.
The main thing that told them a fierce fight was still going on was the bangs that were so loud that they could hear them from far away.
This caused great concern for Jessica and Mia, as in their minds it was probably Jack just receiving a one-sided beating. And they weren't even that far off in that assessment given all that happened.
It wasn't really Jack that killed the fox, but the fox that killed itself.
Mia was originally sitting, but couldn't help but stand when she saw the corpse of the fox.
"Woah! Jack was able to get the fox! How in the world did he do that?"
Jessica had also stood up, trying to get a better look.
"But why isn't he moving? W-Wait... does he still have his legs?"
Mia narrowed her eyes, trying to make out the blurry figure in the distance. Although it was hard to make out, she did eventually notice that Jack was indeed missing his legs.
"Ah! Part of his legs are actually gone!"
The man in the suit let out a stern reminder.
"Remember, no outside interference. Don't try anything. That goes for you too."
He glared at Emma, who only smiled as though she was oblivious. In the end, Jessica and Mia could only worry. The two of them reluctantly accepted that fact.
As for the coyote, it could not accept the fact that the fox was dead. After letting out a howl of grief, it glared at Jack with hatred. It let out a growl while baring its teeth. However, Jack didn't sense the hostility at all.
Instead, he let out a laugh.
"Sorry! Just wait one second, I'll get this thing to work, then I can play with you!"
He was getting anxious not out of fear, but because he didn't want to keep his new playmate waiting. That frustration caused him to squeeze the red bead harder, causing it to glow and eventually break.
Jack let out a gasp, thinking he broke it. However, actually turned into a completely red version of the monster he had fought a while ago. The one with many different hands poking out from its body.
Seeing this, Jack raised his hands up in excitement.
"Ah, carry me and run around so that I can play with my new friend!"
The monster did as told, grabbing him with its various hands, and began running. At the same time, the coyote let out a roar as it chased after him.
All things considered, the monster wasn't slow. In fact, it could be considered impressively fast as it was also carrying Jack. Unfortunately, the coyote was faster, and by a decent amount too.
The rage-fueled coyote let visible divots into the ground with each step it took and rapidly caught up.
When it was just a few meters away, the monster suddenly turned to the side. The coyote was running far too fast to stop itself or violently shift its direction. However, its claws still had quite a wide reach, slashing the monster's side, leaving three rather large wounds in the shape of lines.
Still, the monster continued on caring little about its own condition. But that didn't mean it could run forever.