Chapter 32: Chapter 32—Against an Evil Beast

The whistling sound soon became louder, signifying the beast had arrived close to Laden.

Since he was still a white-level Summoner, Laden didn’t really have any physical boost from his summon, making it harder for him to block or dodge the attack.

He tried all he could and moved his head to the left, making the attack narrowly pass by his neck, leaving a small gash.

"Shit," he said while summoning Prime.

"It’s time to battle," Prime said excitedly.

"Thankfully it didn’t touch my jugular vein and carotid artery," Laden said while grabbing onto his bleeding neck.

"Forget all that weird stuff and let’s fight," Prime shouted while he dived into Laden.

Blue fur slowly sprouted out of different parts of Laden’s arm and face, signifying their successful merger.

"Now let’s test this thing out," Laden said while he picked up the staff and got into what he believed was a suitable battle stance.

In their merged form Laden and Prime remained extremely attentive as they waited for their assailant.

"You attack me and then go hide," Prime said, annoyed.

"From the tiny features I could observe when it passed by, it is probably a cat-like evil beast," Laden muttered.

"Agility-oriented, uhhh..."

He kept his eyes wide open as he kept turning around, paying attention to his surroundings as best he could.

"Come out and fight," Prime shouted.

A few seconds passed, and Laden couldn’t find any signs of the beast anywhere, and then suddenly,

!

Another sound came rushing straight at Laden from behind, but this time, Laden was much more prepared than he was the last time.

Using the staff as support, Laden turned around with a twirl, and now he was facing the beast head on.

"A black cat," Laden said surprisedly.

Since it was still in the air, the beast couldn’t stop his lunge; instead, it grew more ferocious and aimed at Laden’s chest.

"Not again."

He picked up the staff and sent it hurtling at the beast approaching him.

His staff hit cleanly, sending the beast flying towards the side, but it appeared as if the contact wasn’t that much.

The black Cat-like Evil beast landed on the ground hard and was about to sprint towards the darkness again.

""Oh no, you won’t," Laden shouted.

He quickly abandoned the staff and rushed towards the beast bare-fisted.

In an instant, he arrived, blocking the beast’s escape path, and sent a kick flying towards it.

But the beast didn’t remain still; it used its cat agility and twisted strangely, narrowly dodging the kick flying towards it.

Laden was just about to send another attack to the new location when his eyes suddenly widened.

"It vanished," Prime said.

The black cat was nowhere to be found in front of Laden, as if it merged into the shadows.

"A black cat using shadow abilities isn’t too strange," he thought.

!

The whistling sound came again from behind Laden, originating from his neck again.

"I know what to do," Laden thought.

He waited till it got closer and sharply turned around to grab the beast directly.

His timing was almost perfect, but Laden was a tad too slow. Instead of grabbing it in the middle, he only managed to grab the leg.

That small margin of error gives his opponent another chance to attack.

The beast sent the claw swipe towards the laden’s face.

The claw hit Laden cleanly, leaving streaks of blood on Laden’s face.

"Tskkkk," Laden shouted angrily.

Using the leg, Laden swung the beast extremely harshly towards the tree that was just beside him.

Bamm!

The impact resounded extremely loudly in the environment, accompanied by the sound of cracked bones.

"Exhumed," Prime said in a low, dominating voice.

Since the beast was still in his hands, Laden could feel the beast’s muscles go limp. It was dead.

"Exhumed, did you just say exhumed?" Laden asked with a shocked face.

"Ignore it," Prime said resolutely.

Realizing that Prime actually didn’t want to press the matter further, Laden quickly shut his mouth and focused on his wounds.

"A small evil beast cat and I am already thus injured," he touched his neck and face.

"Hmm," he winced in pain.

"I need to take care of this," he said.

Though from his contact with the wounds, Laden could feel that they were already healing, it was too slow.

"We can cancel the merger for now, Prime, so we can conserve Spirit Energy," Laden pitched.

Prime didn’t retort; instead, he just went back to the Spirit World, resulting in all the blue fur receding back into Laden’s body.

He moved towards the bag that they were provided with, which had some first aid tools and a small knife.

"This should be for harvesting the important parts," he said while picking up the knife.

"But first let’s take care of this wound."

Just like that, Laden sat on the ground and started using the little first aid materials they were given to clean up his wounds.

When he was done taking care of his wounds, Laden took the knife and headed towards the carcass to harvest the claws.

"I think that should be enough," he said while looking at the eight cat claws on his hand while he returned to the bag where he carefully hid them.

"Got this injured during my first battle. Damn, the Wilderness isn’t really a playground," he said while picking out his bag to leave.

In another location of the same forest area, a very muscular and dark-haired boy sat on a tree staring in a particular direction.

"Enjoy your hunt for now Laden, daddy will be coming to have his revenge soon," the boy said while standing up to also head towards another side.

Before leaving, he turned to look below the tree he was sitting in; another cat-like beast was lying there dead.

This beast was much larger than the one Laden just killed, almost double or even triple the size.

"Well done, Flood Dragon; we did well," he said before leaping away.