Chapter 237: Running short on time
[2:00 AM]
[60 km to Destination]
Luke continued down the narrow forest path, Synthia secured firmly on his back.
By now, he had already hunted five beasts.
Two of them while carrying Synthia.
Thanks to his Domain, he rarely needed to spot an enemy with his eyes. The moment a creature entered its range, he could sense its presence and direction as clearly as if it were standing right in front of him.
Synthia remained safely strapped behind him, submerged within the water-filled container. There was enough water for her to stay fully immersed without risking suffocation, though the arrangement was far from comfortable.
Luke pressed onward at a steady pace of roughly twenty kilometers per hour.
According to the System, dawn would arrive around six in the morning.
At his current speed, he should reach the ocean shortly before five.
The estimate sounded reasonable.
Achievable, even.
At least, it would have been if the wilderness had any intention of leaving him alone.
A low growl echoed through the darkness.
"Grrr..."
Before the sound had fully faded, Luke’s Domain alerted him.
Left side.
Moving fast.
Without breaking stride, he shifted his footing.
A black panther exploded from the undergrowth, muscles coiling as it launched itself toward him.
Its claws sliced through empty air.
Luke smoothly pivoted aside, the container on his back remaining perfectly balanced despite the sudden movement.
The panther shot past him entirely and landed several meters away, skidding across the dirt before twisting around with a furious snarl.
Luke sighed as he read <Lvl 3> over its head. As the system mentioned, he should expect anything since he was already closing in the safety boundary.
It rounded on him fast. Too fast for anything that should be running on four legs through dense brush. Experience, of course.
Luke’s hand found one of his steel claws without diverting his attention, the motion smooth from several kills of practice now.
The panther came again, this time low, aiming for his legs instead of his throat. Trying to be smart ass.
Luke twisted his torso to keep Synthia level, planted his foot, and let the beast’s own speed do the work.
He stepped into its blind spot as it closed the distance, the kind of movement that should have spilled the container off his back if he hadn’t compensated mid-stride.
His claw found the base of its skull before it even registered he’d moved. His speed left a trailing silver faint behind.
The panther’s head snapped sideways at an angle skulls weren’t built for. It didn’t have time to make a sound.
Momentum carried the body another half meter, legs still trying to finish a leap that had already ended, before it crumpled into the dirt in a heap of broken angles.
Luke straightened, rolled his shoulder once to settle the container properly again, and checked the water level out of habit. Still full and calm. Synthia hadn’t even stirred.
He glanced down at the panther’s corpse, already cooling.
"Six," he muttered, stepping over it without breaking stride.
The system chimed quietly in the corner of his vision, logging the kill, but he barely registered it anymore.
His eyes were already back on the path ahead, counting kilometers instead of bodies.
He knew he had gained quite many points but right now, he wanted to see the ocean.
The system has already done him many favors by allowing him to stay here even though he has accomplished the second level’s requirement.
Now, Luke could not ask the system to let him stay any longer than six hours.
So, he needed to rush.
....
[3.30 AM]
[40KM to destination.]
The path narrowed here, hemmed in by trees thick enough to block what little moonlight filtered through. Luke’s domain flared the moment he crossed some invisible threshold in the dark.
Not one signature. Four.
He didn’t slow down. He was already running late, off the calculation.
The first ape dropped from the canopy directly into his path, easily twice his mass, dark fur bristling as it slammed both fists into the ground hard enough to throw up dirt.
Behind it, three more shapes peeled off the treeline, fanning out to box him in.
Forty kilometers. Less than two hours of buffer if he wanted to make the ocean before the system’s window closed.
He didn’t have time to be careful.
Luke surged forward instead of waiting for them to commit, closing the gap on the lead ape before it had finished its display. It swung a fist the size of his torso.
He ducked under it, felt the wind of the blow disturb the water in the container at his back, and drove the burning dagger up under its jaw in one motion.
The blade hissed against flesh. The ape choked, swayed, and Luke was already moving past it before it hit the ground, ripping the dagger free without breaking stride.
The second one came from his right. He didn’t bother with footwork this time, just turned into it and met the charge head on, catching its wrist with his off hand as it grabbed for him and using its own momentum to swing himself around its flank.
Synthia’s container scraped against bark as he passed too close to a tree, water sloshing violently.
She didn’t make a sound. Just held on.
He drove the steel claws into the back of its neck, twisted, and shoved the body aside before it had even finished collapsing.
Two left.
Faster. He needed this faster.
The third and fourth came together, coordinated in a way the others hadn’t been, trying to flank him from both sides.
Normally he’d have read the angle, picked the gap, dismantled them with patience.
He didn’t have patience tonight.
Luke threw himself directly between them, daring the convergence, and at the last possible instant dropped low.
Both apes swung where his head had been a heartbeat ago and caught nothing but each other’s arms with a crack of bone meeting bone.
One staggered. Luke didn’t wait for the other to recover, came up inside its guard and buried the claws into its ribs, dragging upward with brutal force until it stopped thrashing.
The last one, arm hanging wrong from the collision, turned to run.
Luke caught it in three strides and ended it from behind without ceremony.
Silence dropped back over the path. Four bodies steaming faintly in the cold air.
He exhaled hard, more from urgency than exertion, and checked the water without really looking, just a reflex now. Still full. Synthia’s eyes tracked him through the surface, admiration and slight concern flickering in them.
"Sorry," he muttered, not really to her, already breaking back into position "No time to be gentle tonight."
The system logged the kills somewhere behind his eyes. He ignored it.
Forty kilometers left.
He made the decision, "Synthia."
"Y-Yes?"
"I am going to run much faster. Close the lid and try holding your breath. If it becomes too difficult, tap rapidly in the container and I will slow down."
Synthia realized that the cause of this rush was time. As such, she made the resolve to do what she could do the best to support him.
"I will hold it as long as I can. Don’t worry about me."
Luke nodded before he looked ahead.
He could already see many beings surrounding him.
Growling, he muttered, "Come in my way and see how it ends."
It was time for annihilation.
••••••••
A/N:- Three more Chapters to end the arc. I hope you liked the Chapter.
