BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Looking at the massive claw, Ryuk instinctively reacted, a sharp glint flashing in his eyes.
He swiftly raised his hand and slapped out towards the claw, striking its centre. Immediately, the gigantic claw was held in place, unable to advance an inch.
But as Ryuk exerted strength, he was sent soaring backward, crashing onto the ground with his feet, skidding for five meters before coming to a stop.
'That collision should have been enough for a shockwave to ripple into the clouds… Yet, the air didn't even shake at all.'
'And the ground beneath me, which would have been reduced to a large chasm if I were in Enderath, barely has a single crack on its surface,' Ryuk mused, noticing the strangeness of his surroundings.
He could sense that whatever force he had just clashed with should have been strong enough to send shockwaves ripping through the air.
Yet, there was barely any ripple.
Even though his feet had slammed into the ground with power, not a single crack had formed beneath them.
And not to mention—his speed right now… It wasn't at the level it should be. He had just increased it to Level 200.
Why does it now only feel like when I was at Level 130 in Enderath?
'Oh… Now I understand. I understand…'
Ryuk's lips curled into a grin as the creature that had collided into him finally emerged from the branches, revealing itself—a chameleon-like beast, nearly four meters in height, its brown and green body perfectly matching the colours of the branches Ryuk had previously been sitting on.
Its claws dug into the tree, glowing with a metallic sheen, revealing just how sharp they were.
Its three eyes—two at the sides of its head and one in the centre—stared at Ryuk, unblinking, as it remained perched on the tree.
'My slow speed, the heavy air, the hard ground… All of this is telling me that this is not Enderath. No. This is a world higher than Enderath…'
"As my power grows, Enderath's ground becomes more fragile. Its air becomes softer and seemingly easier to tear through.'
"But this is a different world.'
'It's not that I've gotten weaker or slower. It's just that the air is thousands of times heavier, making sure I can't slice through it.'
'The ground is so hard that when I punched it deliberately, my hand almost shattered into pieces.'
"The beasts here are strong. Every little one that ambushes me has an even stronger cultivation than mine."
Ryuk stated as he looked at the beast and found it to be easily a Grade C upper-rank beast.
This chameleon was even more powerful than the evolved bees he had faced before, and its concealment power was so great that even with his extraordinary perception, he had been unable to sense the beast until the attack was barely inches away from his head.
'This is no Enderath. This is a world even greater than it in all aspects. And right now, I just happen to be on the lowest of the low. The absolute weakest in this new world…'
Blood pumped fast through his heart, adrenaline rushing through his veins, as the feeling of exhilaration covered him. It was a feeling he had almost lost ever since he left Grade E. The feeling of being alone with a beast whose fearsome aura threatened to tear him apart.
But this place… This place brought more exhilaration.
For even in Grade E, Ryuk knew he was stronger than some beasts. But here, every single beast gave him the chills.
He wasn't a stranger to the wild. He had lived in it all his younger life and therefore knew there was a food chain. And here, he—Ryuk—was now at the lowest of the low.
Now, he had to join in on the fun.
The fun of rising up the food chain until he reached its peak.
Stopping meant death. True to the law of the jungle.
The only way to survive was to keep fighting. To keep rising.
'So what will it be for me? To rise to the top of the food chain until I can slaughter every foe with no fear at all? Or to perish, becoming a stepping stone for another beast? What will become of me?'
Ryuk asked himself, and in the next instant, something long and green flashed toward him with ferocious speed.
He barely dodged his head to the side as a straight bloody line instantly opened up across his cheek, blood pouring down, some of it splashing into his lips—sending the taste of iron through his mouth.
But that was only the beginning.
The chameleon retracted its tongue in a split second, and it was already lashing toward Ryuk again.
He instantly jumped away from where he stood, running in a circle as the ground beneath him repeatedly cracked open from the flickering tongue of the beast.
'I understand a little now, MadWhite. I understand…'
The flickering tongues lashed beneath his feet, causing him to jump into the air to avoid it.
He landed on a tree, his body crouched on it, nails dug within the hard bark, causing blood to ooze from his fingers from the sheer hardness of the tree.
Yet, his gaze remained fixed on the chameleon.
The beast instantly flicked out its tongue again, but Ryuk had already moved away before it could reach him, landing on another tree.
And then another, until he became an inhuman blur, circling around the chameleon and jumping from tree to tree.
'You might be right, MadWhite. This is most likely a trail, and now, the unspoken goal is to reach the top of the food chain.
Ryuk's speed became so inhumanly fast that even the chameleon could no longer see him—merely catching glimpses of a blur moving around it and it unconsciously stopped flickering its tongue out form repeated failure to catch Ryuk's blurry figure.
A deep cut opened up on the chameleon's legs as a sharp edge slashed through it, sending red blood splashing through the air.
Ryuk continued blurring around the trees before once more lunging forward toward the chameleon, creating another deep mark on its flesh.
"I accept the trial."
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In and Out_SnowySmoos