These weren’t the jumps of a desperate predator driven by hunger or territorial instinct that was behind Zhao.
They were those from apex predators with too much ti and power, they had moved into the realm of recreational violence.
The feline appeared in his peripheral vision, moving from trunk to trunk with speed that seed impossible for its size.
Zhao didn’t stay to see how interested the creature was in him.
He flew.
The long flight that followed was a nightmare of speed and terror. The "playful" Cat wasn’t just fast; it was intelligent. It anticipated Zhao’s movents, cutting angles and using the positioning of the forest "trees" to shorten distances.
Each leap covered impossible long distances, the creature’s enhanced musculature allowing it to treat the massive trunks like stepping stones. Its claws found purchase on surfaces that should have been too smooth to grip, and its reflexes expected Zhao’s evasive maneuvers with uncanny accuracy.
"Think, think!" he told himself while navigating between the giants, each maneuver consuming more mana. "What would make it lose interest?"
His enhanced eyes provided constant information: pursuer speed, movent patterns, possible escape routes. But it all ca down to one simple reality: he couldn’t maintain this pace for much longer.
He had to flutter as hard as possible. Silent fly relaxed tempo and speed was out of question.
The Cat Bear had reserves of power that dwarfed his own, and it ant it could maintain this play pursuit much longer. For it, this was entertainnt. For him, it was a death sentence being slowly executed.
The Playful Cat emitted a sound that was part purr, part laughter, the sound of a predator having fun with its toy.
♢♢♢♢
After several minutes of pursuit.
A clearing appeared like an oasis in the middle of the nightmare.
Perhaps here the Cat Bear couldn’t jump so easily to follow him.
Zhao launched himself toward the open space, his lungs burning from the sustained effort of flapping with everything he had. Only when he was halfway across did he realize what he had found.
The body of a massive Royal Golden Nose lay in the center of the clearing, its form so imnse it had created its own ecosystem in death. The "trunks", because that’s what most of its body was, extended for hundreds of ters, creating a natural open space.
The scale was staggering. This hadn’t just been a large creature; it had been a living mountain, a being whose death had reshaped the local geography. The clearing existed solely because nothing could grow in the shadow of its massive ’canopy’ when it was standing.
But the body wasn’t alone.
Carrion Sprouts surrounded the corpse like voracious satellites, their flattened forms invisible beneath the surface. They had been feeding on the dead giant for who knows how long.
The feeding frenzy was a rare spectacle. Zhao could see the patterns in the disturbed earth, the way the carrion plants had positioned themselves to maximize their access to different parts of the corpse.
And on top of the massive trunk, sothing grew that made Zhao rejoice.
Dark blue-green grass covered the upper surface of the corpse like a thick mantle. The sll emanating from it was distinctive, dicinal, but intense.
"dicine for mana excess," he whispered, disbelief filling his voice. "Highest quality".
Behind him, the Playful Cat stopped at the edge of the clearing, its nostrils dilating as it processed the slls. Its expression changed instantly from amusent to evident disgust. Its fur bristled, and it backed away several ters.
"It doesn’t like the sll," Zhao realized, a smile touching his lips for the first ti in hours.
Now relatively safe and with ti to finish analyzing the place thoroughly, he saw it...
In the center of everything, piercing the massive trunk like a spear that had penetrated a shield, rose a black and dry tree. Its branches extended like a withered claw, barely rising above the giant corpse.
The sight was surreal and sohow ominous. The dead tree looked ancient beyond asure, its bark blackened not by fire but by ti and exposure to forces that had drained all life from its structure.
Zhao flew toward the center of the corpse, the "island" between the sprouts and the forest, recognizing the opportunity to rest above. The dead giant "tree" offered a safe landing point. And the dicinal grass...
"Maybe my anti-mana supply problem isn’t as serious as I thought," he murmured, landing on a solid branch of the "small" black claw tree.
The Giant Cat circled the periter of the clearing, clearly frustrated by the loss of its toy but reluctant to approach due to the penetrating sll of the dicinal grass.
The creature paced back and forth like a caged animal, occasionally making feints toward the clearing only to retreat when the dicinal odors beca too intense.
For the first ti since he had begun this suicidal mission, Zhao allowed himself a mont of rest.
The claw tree was more solid than it appeared.
Zhao settled into a stable fork, his senses analyzing his new refuge. The matter of the "hand" erging from the corpse seed completely dead, but its structure remained intact. There was sothing unnatural about the way it had been preserved, and if it was that old how had it crossed the body of such an enormous giant without damage...
The preservation was too perfect, too complete. Normal wood or rock would have been flattened by the giant body.
"What killed you two?" he murmured.
The Playful Cat had found an elevated position on a trunk from where it could observe, its eyes fixed on Zhao with a patience that was more disturbing than its previous pursuit. The creature knew he would eventually have to move, and when he did...
But for now, Zhao had ti to evaluate his situation.
The dicinal grass was more abundant than he had ever seen in any one place. Thick, juicy leaves that practically radiated healing potency. If he could process even a fraction of this...
The quality was exceptional, far superior to anything he could have purchased in the city. The grass had been feeding on the nutrients from a creature of incredible power, concentrating and refining those energies into pure dicinal essence.
"I could make it to the platinum rings and back," he told himself, ntally calculating the doses he would need.
Zhao began planning his next move, aware that the Playful Cat was still waiting, aware that the ti he could hold out was limited, but for the first ti since he had left the king’s empty cave, feeling that maybe, just maybe, he had a real chance of success.
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