The Beginning After The End novel Chapter 114

Chapter 114

ARTHUR LEYWIN’S POV:

“Finally,” I whispered, too quiet for the silver panther to hear.

There it was, cautiously sniffing around as it approached the raptor squirrels I had killed and placed carefully to lure it out. My ever-so-elusive target.

My eyes locked onto the large, gray cat that I had named Clawed because it had four, long gashes across its back. Clawed and I had gotten close during the time spent trying to hunt for silver panthers. This particular oversized cat was by far the most cunning of the silver panthers that I had come across and the most arrogant; which was why I had decided that Clawed would be my target.

I focused back on the cat just a few meters away from me as Clawed stopped and looked around, ready to escape at a moment’s notice.

I patiently waited for him to draw near, making sure to keep any traces of my presence hidden. Coalescing the raw mana around me with the purified mana inside my body, I prepared my attack. As I gathered mana in my legs and right arm, I lowered myself carefully into an ideal position since he couldn’t see me anyway, making sure I didn’t set off the bell.

The muscles in my calves and thighs twitched in anticipation at the thought of finally being able to catch that elusive cat. Right when Clawed bent down to continue its lunch, I propelled myself forward and struck at a speed that would’ve shocked my old self.

The distance I near-instantly cleared from my initial position to where I now was - in front of Clawed - measured out to be roughly six meters, but somehow Clawed had already disappeared before my attack could connect.

My augmented fist sunk deep into the soft dirt floor, the silver panther nowhere in sight.

“Damn it! Again?” I cursed, impatiently prying my buried hand from underneath the ground.

‘Where did I go wrong? How could it react so fast?’ I thought as I looked back at where I was initially positioned. The location was close enough for me to cover instantaneously. I was well-hidden inside the bushes, and I had even gone through lengths to mask any smell from my body that might set it off. It was all supposed to be perfect. My execution of the technique I had been training in was near perfect.

I kneeled down, inspecting the pawprints of Clawed and my own footprints. I was missing something, but what?

I could see where I landed after using Burst relative to where Clawed had been positioned, but something about the markings on the ground didn’t add up.

Settling down against a nearby tree, I closed my eyes, replaying the scene in my mind to see if I could figure out where I went wrong.

“Windsom wouldn’t have made me acquire a silver panther beast core unless it proved to teach me something different than hunting raptor squirrels,” I said aloud. “In terms of speed, the raptor squirrel was definitely faster than a silver panther. So why couldn’t I kill one?”

Arriving at no satisfying conclusion, I decided to make my way back.

Looking at the remains of the raptor squirrels Clawed had been feasting on, I clicked my tongue in annoyance. Not only was I unable to capture Clawed, but there were also barely any scraps left of the raptor squirrels for me to eat.

After packing what was left of the mangled squirrel, I wiped the dirt and blood off me at a nearby stream. Seeing as I only had one set of clothes, I tried to make sure it stayed clean, but through the weeks of hiking and training in these woods, my wardrobe had become tattered.

“Arthur, you are not easy to look at,” I said derisively to my reflection in the stream. My hair was disheveled and much longer now, my bangs reaching all the way to my chin. The bags underneath my eyes had turned purplish from lack of sleep. All in all, little remained of my former, hygienic self; replacing it was some unintelligent-looking brute.

It was hard for me to believe that more than a month had passed since the last time I had any actual interaction with someone other than the animals I had caught.

Windsom had visited me the night I had finally been able to capture a raptor squirrel. He hadn’t said much with his permanently disinterested expression except that the technique, or rather, the preface of it that I had self-taught, was called Mirage Walk. He had disappeared soon after, leaving me by my lonesome to eat the lean meat of a raptor squirrel’s hind leg.

The next morning, I had set out in search of the next prey on my list, a silver panther. However, it had become fairly obvious during the weeks that I had spent inside the forest, training to catch more raptor squirrels, that there were no signs of larger mana beasts at all.

Thus, leading me to venture out further into the woods despite the dangers that might’ve followed. It wasn’t until about three weeks of trekking deeper into the forest that I had begun seeing different species of mana beasts; larger ones as well.

I would’ve cleared more ground in those three weeks had I not been using the journey itself as a form of training.

Burst or Burst Step.

That was what I had decided to name the first sequence of Mirage Walk. Windsom had only mentioned that what I had done to catch the raptor squirrel was only a mere introductory step of the actual essence of Mirage Walk, but he had refused to divulge any more information than that. However, seeing that the technique I used had certain steps or levels to reach full mastery, I had decided to name this first tier Burst Step.

I had traversed through the forest, using the abundance of trees as a natural obstacle course to practice, hoping to gain some insight to improve the skill.

Going through with this training had made me realize how much concentration, coordination, reflexes, control, and agility one needed to utilize the full potential of Mirage Walk properly. I had succeeded in capturing a raptor squirrel with Burst Step only because I had made the necessary preparations to be able to. It had been a flat clearing with no obstructions to get in my way. The distance was short, and within view, it had no time even to react.

However, trying to travel through the lush greenery, congested with trees and uneven ground, to get a foothold using only Mirage Walk had made me feel as though I was an infant again, except this time with my feet tied together. It was terribly frustrating, tripping over the slightest misstep, even the faintest miscalculation in trajectory resulted in a not-so-elegant tumble and a face full of mud; slowly and painstakingly, I made my way deeper into the woods.

It had been over a week since I first arrived at this particular domain. The mana in this area was much denser than where I had been before, which was probably one of the reasons why it was so appealing to higher level mana beasts.

And here I was, still with nothing to show for besides the number of tears in my shirt and holes in the soles of my boots.

As I finished washing myself, I inspected the leftover meat I had brought back. “This isn’t enough,” I sighed looking up at the sky.

Dusk had spread a thin veil of darkness over the forest, but it was still light enough to hunt. I laid out some mushrooms I had picked along the way and waited, crouching underneath a large root eight meters away. With my level of mastery, I could clear almost ten meters in an instant using Burst Step without triggering the bell.

As I waited, keeping my presence hidden, I observed carefully for any signs of movement. There was faint sound of rustling, but it came from above me, somewhere up in the trees. Glancing up, the last glint of sunlight reflected off the eyes of the predator. It was some sort of large, black bird.