After I finished my morning exercise, and considering I had a large wolf carcass to eat, I took it easy for the rest of the day and let myself fully heal before deciding to enter the forest. Well, although I said, 'Take it easy', I still ended up doing my usual exercises for the day, which all felt easier compared to yesterday.
"If I continue to get stronger at this rate, I will need to find a bigger boulder." Remarked Diddy lightly as he did a few stretches after finishing his last exercise for the day.
'Still, I'm curious, did I really happen to get stronger all because I fought that wolf? I find it hard to believe I got stronger from a simple fight.' Thought Diddy with a thoughtful expression while resting in the hammock.
'No, it couldn't have been the fight; when I fought against that old lion, I didn't notice any improvement in my strength the next day. So, it can't just be from a simple fight, then maybe it's from all the injuries I sustained, and when they healed, I got stronger? No, that wouldn't work either; I've been injured in the past and didn't notice any improvements to my strength.' Pondered Diddy with furrowed brows while shifting about in his hammock.
"Well, I'll figure it out eventually." Muttered Diddy with a yawn as he slowly drifted to sleep.
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Just like that, a few months passed by, and luckily or unluckily, nothing special happened during that time; I did engage in several fights during those few months, mainly because of the battle with the wolf, which was my first fight to the death, was exhilarating. Now, I don't consider myself a psycho or anything, but engaging in such a battle is addictive, especially since my strength improves when I heal from every battle.
Of course, I wasn't just fighting various beasts just for the hell of it; I was also trying to figure out how come, after every battle, I get stronger, and after tens of battles, I believe I've come to a conclusion.
It's not from my injuries, and while my battle IQ and senses may be refined after every single battle, my raw strength doesn't improve all the time; the reason for that is because most of the battles I fight, my opponents aren't capable of forcing me to use everything I have.
For me to improve my raw strength, I need an opponent to push me to my limit, similar to how that wolf did, at least for his last attack. Now it took so long for me to figure this out because whenever I'm against a dangerous opponent, I usually end up injured, so I would mistake my growth in strength for the number of injuries I heal from. Because of that, I decided to do something stupid; I purposely injured myself; it wasn't just a minor injury either; I had allowed a deer to pierce me with one of its sharp antlers.
When I healed from that injury and noticed I hadn't gotten an ounce stronger, I realized my assumption about finding a powerful opponent must've been correct. Though, all that ended up was me ignoring the weaker beasts and hunting the stronger animals, which explains the situation I was just in.
"Haa, haa; that was… very close." Said Diddy, leaning against a broken tree riddled with injuries while breathing heavily as he eyed the dead and mangled lion a few meters before him.
Looking up at the sky, I took a few seconds to catch my breath, and even though I wanted nothing more than just to close my eyes and rest, doing so was akin to signing my death; so, with the help of the broken tree behind me, I stood up, yet even that was a struggle. Unsteadily approaching the dead lion, which was quite hard to do as I'm pretty sure I was hallucinating from the blood loss since I'm currently seeing two dead lions beside one another.
"I told you… Next time we meet… I wouldn't… Let you go." Remarked Diddy with a smirk in between his ragged breathing while wobbly pointing his finger at the ground as the actual lion was to his left.
'I'd prefer not to waste food, but given my condition, there is no way I'll be able to carry him back home; hell, I don't even know If I'll make it back home.' Thought Diddy as he began slowly walking back home, though that wasn't for long.
While attempting to walk back home with my injured body covered in blood, I quickly realized that I wouldn't make it back home before I passed out from blood loss; I was pretty deep in the inner area of the forest, and I'd be lucky if I could even make it to the outer area before collapsing. That's not even considering other beasts that roam the inner area since, with the amount of blood covering me, I might as well be a beacon to them all.
'If I continue heading home and I happen to encounter a beast, I'm dead; I'm in no condition to fight again; I can hardly walk, let alone participate in a battle.' Thought Diddy as he stopped walking and turned around, returning to the battle scene.
With the chances of me surviving the walk back home being simply too slim and nearly impossible, I decided to take a chance as I headed deeper into the forest, intending to enter the center area of the forest. My decision was a gamble; even if I wasn't injured, I still didn't have any confidence in being able to survive in the center area for an extended period of time; my instincts told me it was too dangerous; however, I didn't have much of a choice if I continued walking to my home, I'm quite confident I'll end up dead, and while I don't feel much better with my current decision, at least no beasts from the inner-area dare to enter the center-area.
'Since I'm here again, let me take some food for the road.' Thought Diddy as he approached the lion, which took some time as he was still hallucinating.
Finally locating the lion, with some of the slight strength I've managed to regain, I stabbed my nails into the side of the lion and began ripping out strips of his flesh; when I acquired a few pounds of meat, I started heading north as I ventured deeper into the forest.
While walking, I ate some of the raw meat I had ripped off the lion's corpse, and although it didn't taste good, I just wanted to have something in my stomach that my body could use to heal my injuries. Thankfully, since I was quite deep into the inner area, not many beasts were in the vicinity, so my walk was relatively uneventful, something I'm pleased about. Though I could feel the desire to sleep growing stronger with each passing minute, it was starting to get difficult to resist; I knew I didn't have much time remaining.
'C'mon! Just a few more minutes, you're almost there.' Thought Diddy with meat hanging on his shoulder as he leaned against a tree while breathing heavily, blood dripping from his chin.
The next few minutes felt like the longest minutes of my life, and shortly after I entered the center area, I tried to find a place to rest, but I couldn't resist the desire to sleep any longer. The last thing I remember before collapsing was approaching a tree with a hole in it.
'Fuck!' Thought Diddy just as he blacked out, his body collapsing on the ground below, dying the grass beneath him dark red.
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"Ugh, my body; I feel like I've been hit by a plane." Muttered Diddy as he grabbed his head while lying on the ground.
While lying on the ground in pain, the memories from before I passed out came flooding in, causing me to widen my eyes as I began to stand up, which was quite difficult as my body was still a wreck.
'I need to get out of here; I've been lucky both times I've been here; I don't wish to test the extent of my luck today, maybe another time.' Thought Diddy as he stealthy exited the center area, not wishing to grab the attention of whatever beast or beasts live here.
Once I finally made it out of the center area, I sighed in relief before deciding to go and check on the dead lion, since if for some reason he is still there, I don't mind trying to take his corpse, though of course, when I arrived, other than the scenery looking like a battle had just happened, there was no lion.
"I figured as such, but damn, not even his carcass." Remarked Diddy quietly as he eyed the battle scene from the top of a tree before heading home.
Since I was still heavily injured, I opted to stay out of sight by navigating through the canopy of trees like Tarzan, and other than the occasional snakes I passed by; I didn't see any other animal during the whole time in the Inner-area.
Landing on the ground once I reached the outer area, I quickly hunted a small deer and hauled it back home, and thankfully, nothing happened to my beach home.
I threw the deer on the ground and did what I usually did; skin it, butcher it, cook it, and devour it. Once I had eaten my fill, I returned to sleep; believe it or not, I was still exhausted.
"Hehe, I can't wait to see how much stronger I've gotten once I have fully healed." Stated Diddy with a feral smirk as he looked at the sky from his hammock before quickly drifting to sleep, his ample stomach standing out.
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Elven Legacy (Chapter 126: An Asura's Muscles) || Hero of Harmony (Chapter 8: Recurring Nightmare) || One Piece: Chaos Kong (Chapter 10: Center-area Excursion) at [patreon.com/Ozonelayer691]