Chapter 28 - 28 – Tiger
Gravis slowly walked closer, but the tiger didn't react. The tiger seemed to feel completely safe in its surroundings, like a king on his throne. Gravis slowly climbed up the hill, getting closer to the tiger. The tiger still didn't react. When Gravis was only ten meters away, it slowly opened its eyes, looked at Gravis, and just grumbled a little.
The whole nearby village could see the hill. Some kids had noticed that Gravis was walking to the tiger and called their parents. The parents called other adults, and soon, the whole village was watching Gravis getting closer to the tiger. The parents quickly protected the eyes of their children. They didn't want the kids to see a suicidal fool getting mauled.
The tiger had just eaten, so it was too lazy to stand up right now. A low grumble would surely scare that puny human away. The tiger closed its eyes again to sleep. Suddenly, the tiger heard that the footsteps became faster and heavier, and it quickly opened its eyes again. Sadly, it was too late. A saber stabbed into the tiger's left eye, completely destroying it.
The tiger roared, jumped up, and tried to hit Gravis with a swipe of one of its claws, but suddenly, the atmosphere changed. The tiger felt like it was fighting an incredibly powerful enemy, while before, the man felt like an average human. The sudden change in feeling made the tiger hesitate.
When Gravis had seen that the tiger would not care about him, even when he was so close to it already, he took the chance to attack. Gravis had not activated his Will-Aura until the tiger was injured. If he activated his Will-Aura earlier, the tiger would never allow such an easy attack to land.
The tiger continued roaring in pain, rage, confusion, and fear. It had never been in this situation before, and it didn't know how to handle it. Was it supposed to attack Gravis? The tiger wasn't sure. The feeling that Gravis gave it was an enormous cold pressure. Should it flee? Then it would have to go back to the wild, where there were stronger beasts than the tiger.
While the tiger continued thinking, Gravis had thought of a battle plan. The next attack would decide the whole direction of the fight. If Gravis attacked its front, the tiger would have two choices. It could bite or swipe with a claw. The tiger was faster than Gravis, so he had to decide his course of action before the tiger started reacting. In some sense, one could say that Gravis could only act based on prediction and not on his opponent's action.
If Gravis decided to slide beneath the tiger and it swiped him, everything would be fine. The fight would take a similar direction to his previous battle with the lion. Yet, if the tiger decided to bite him, it would nearly kill him with a swipe if he slid beneath it. It was a 50/50 in that case. Gravis didn't like those chances and decided against sliding beneath his opponent.
Instead, he started running to the tiger's front. The tiger's instincts kicked in, and it bit towards Gravis. Luckily, Gravis hadn't decided to slide under the tiger. Instead, Gravis started jumping before he was in the tiger's bite range. The bite missed, and Gravis used all his strength to hit the upper side of its snout.
The saber hit the bone of the tiger's snout and broke it. The snout-bones of tigers were very fragile and thin, and a good hit could make them collapse easily. As the tiger jumped back in pain, the bone fragments cut its nose's insides, and a thick stream of blood started flowing out. It could not breathe through its nose anymore and took heavy breaths through its mouth instead.
The fear in the tiger's eyes increased, and slowly, panic began to build. Its rage diminished, and fear gradually replaced it.
Gravis took note of the subtle changes of the tiger and immediately attacked again. If the tiger decided to flee, it would be a hassle to hunt. This was not the cave of the practical test. Escaping was a real possibility that could happen. Everyone knew that winning was always easier than killing because of this.
Gravis saw the fear in the tiger's eyes and took a gamble. When he reached the tiger's front, he started sliding forwards on the floor. Just like he thought, the tiger was too scared of getting its head anywhere near Gravis, so it swiped with its claws. Gravis easily slid beneath the claws and arrived under the tiger. This time, he had an even better plan than when he fought the lion back then.
Gravis quickly found what he was looking for, raised his saber to the tiger's skin like a razor, and ran it along its underside… right through the middle between its hind legs. The genitals were not protected, and he severed them easily. Gravis didn't remain and left the tiger's underside.
The tiger felt a pain that it had never even imagined before. It seemed like the whole world broke, and all the pain in the world concentrated between its legs. The tiger went insane, screamed, fell to the floor, spasmed, and acted without any thought. It could not create any rational thought at that moment.
The tiger lay on its side, and Gravis quickly ran behind its back. He then jumped up and slid his saber into its ear with all his power. It went in deeply, but Gravis didn't try to push it any deeper. Instead, he immediately jumped away and let the saber stick. In the tiger's current state, it would surely do the rest.
Not disappointing him, when it felt the pain, the tiger raised its leg and tried to push the thing away that was stuck in its ear. Its leg hit the sticking saber with all its strength. Yet, the saber was made of void-stone. Even Orpheus called void-stone "pretty hard". It was absolutely impossible for the tiger to destroy the saber.
So, when the leg hit the saber, instead of breaking, the saber bent and cut out a long trench in the tiger's ear. Flesh got flung out by the saber, like it was a catapult, and the saber flew away. Gravis already predicted what the tiger would do in that situation and quickly retrieved the saber, which had landed close to him.
The tiger was bleeding profusely from its destroyed eye, its nose, from between its legs, and from its ear. Gravis also had lightly scratched the tiger's brain when the saber was in its ears. It was only a matter of time until it died of blood loss.
In a rare moment of clarity, the tiger's remaining eye looked at Gravis, and absolute fear took hold of it. The tiger got up and immediately fled into the distance. If it had done that earlier, Gravis would feel annoyed, but right now, it was already near death. All the blood flowing from its body left an unmissable trail behind, and Gravis just had to calmly run after it.
Even though the tiger was still faster than Gravis, it could not hold out for long. If Gravis just continued following, he would find it sooner or later.
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Two male twins with identical swords were walking around the forest. They had heard a big commotion coming from their east. Obviously, a big fight took place, and they wanted to see if they could reap any benefits. One of the parties in the conflict would probably retreat, heavily injured. If they killed both fighters when they were injured, they could earn a lot of money.
They had not seen who was fighting. Before they had arrived at the location where the fight took place, a heavily bleeding tiger with only one eye came running towards them. "A heavily injured, ferocious beast! It's our lucky day!" one of them shouted towards the other.
They both smiled at each other and charged the tiger with their swords.
Today, they would make a lot of money.