Chapter 16: Kill or be killed
Perceiving a sense of aching in his forearm and a warm liquid slowly sliding down his skin, Chris heavily regained his consciousness.
In his disoriented state, he noticed two uncomfortable and painful wounds. One at his arm and another on his abdomen.
Recollecting his last memories, he quickly realized the reason for the midsection wound. Though, he was surprised to see it having healed so fast, as he remembered how bad it seemed when he first observed it himself, 'They must've helped me,' he concluded feeling a tinge of warmth by their care.
Looking towards his arm, which hung below him, he noticed himself being upside down, giving him yet another puzzle. However, the aching in his arm took priority. Seeing his tactical knife stabbed through his forearm gave him an alarmed look, allowing him to quickly take in his surroundings and brought forward a sense of vigilance.
Just as he looked ahead he heard multiple gunshots in close proximity. Perturbed by the sudden loud sounds, he swiftly looked to his right. Standing about 10 meters away from him, Theresa stood with Chris' pistol in her hands with a slight red aura emitting from her body and an intense gazed fixed ahead of her, to Chris' right.
Fixing his sight to fit the direction of Theresa's, he saw a huge black spider with eight long and thick legs, ending in razor-sharp points that dug deep into the ground, with two of them in a protective stance in front its head. Its body was covered in thick, bristly hair, and its many eyes glinted in the barely dim moonlight. The creature's mandibles were sharp and deadly with drool or venom giving it a glistening appearance in the dark forest.
Activating mana vision out of habit, Chris saw the how the creature had expended close to every bit of mana for its defence.
Hearing another shot coming from Theresa he watched with an intense and hopefully gaze.
However, observing the bullet graze the spiders face his heart sunk, and as the creature leaned backwards and shot out its web from the spinnerets, hitting Theresa straight on the chest of her body, allowing her upper body to be trapped to the tree right next to George, Chris felt an intense painful emotion.
Despair. Chris was somewhat unfamiliar with such an emotion. He had seen others experience it through his various hits. However, he himself couldn't sympathies to their state as he didn't know what it entailed. He was doing his job, there wasn't any external reasons other than that. Death was a profession he thought to be an expert of.
However, with his experience of nearly dying to Marcos' hand, and now seeing the couple he felt he had befriended in their short time, he was reminded that all though he knew to kill, he had never truly known death.
Experiencing the despair he had seen others have plentiful of times before him as he slashed their throats, he knew this was different.
He was the prey, and now his new friends would be killed right before him. The creature was just like he had been, except more primal in its needs. Kill for resources, driven on instinct to procure food. It was kill or be killed.
Seeing as the creature was starting to move slowly towards Theresa, Chris began panicking somewhat.
How could he let these two lovely people die before him, unable to do anything?
He had lived such a distant and cold life, now sensing the warmth and kindness of the old couple, he thought this was what he wanted.
But now it was threatened to be extinguished right before him. There was no way he could let that happen.
With the spider having decided upon Theresa for its first feast, it didn't notice Chris closing his eyes and the darkness growing in the surroundings.
Chris was drawing in the atmospheric mana and simultaneously he was also using his own mana to coat his body. He had sensed and seen all the dark particles clearly in his surroundings, they seemed to be more of them as night came.
Unbeknown to Chris, the mana he was coating had taken the black colour when utilising his intent as if it was the most optimal way of utilising such a purpose.
'Corrode' Chris thought as he channeled mana to the outer layer of his body. He sensed as all his clothes began to weaken in its fabric, the web connecting his feet also seemed to loosen its stickiness.
With the knife also withering down in rapid speeds, Chris began to imagine a thin blade, similar to the one he had used in his training with Ming Yong, a katana.
Opening his eyes he saw as the spider moved just a couple of meters ahead of him.
Wiggling his feet out of the sticky web, he brought his feet to the centre of the tree and kicked off in great power, aiming to cut the creature in two.
The creature feeling the sudden vibrations, brought its head to the sudden motion to understand its cause.
However, as it had utilised all its energies in the last battle, the spiders reactions were slow and the only thing it could register before it joined its brethren in the afterlife was a dark shiolouettle landing right beside itself and slashed an opening in its abdomen with what seemed to be some sort of extension of the persons arm.
With no mana coating its body, Chris' improvised katana had easily cut through the exoskeleton with his intent of corrosion and sharpness. He simply sliced open the spider, gushing innards and blood spat out of the two parts as he calmly stood there.
He felt it somewhat anticlimactic how quickly he had taken down the creature that just some seconds ago was threatening their lives. This simply told him the importance of mana and knowledge of intent.
Having experimented some earlier with Theresa and George, they had been successful in doing minor changes such as corrosion and healing.
However, this time with his dark coloured mana it seemed to have given his intent a boost, allowing him to surpass his previous test results in its usage.
Feeling relieved about his lucky gamble in using corrosion and they way it seemed to synchronise well with his newfound dark mana, he felt two eyes staring at him to his left and turning his head he locked gazes with Theresa.
"Hey," He said.
Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone