The Mystery of Elijah

Elijah trusted Hikaru who was strong in his eyes. He walked through the circle and before the dogs reacted, the pack leader told them to move away with a roar. They parted way and allowed Elijah to leave. Then they closed the circle shamelessly around Hikaru.

Hikaru had already seen Elijah's front part of the body when he brought out his equipment. If he could see his back as well, he would figure out the secret compartment. However, Elijah did not change his equipment.

The golden retriever roared and charged at him. There was hardly a gap to dodge this attack, but Elijah calmly waited with the shield in front of him and then took the impact.

There was a loud shockwave from the collision of the shield and the pack leader.

Only one of them was knocked back. The pack leader bounced off 10 metres from the shield.

Hikaru saw the whole thing and squinted his eyes.

Elijah didn't possess immense strength. What he did was a perversion of the natural laws. Hikaru had been monitoring his abilities and fitness with all five senses in overdrive. He could feel the pressure in the air and the vibrations on the ground.

Each step the gold leader took caused a rumble in the ground. When it knocked with Elijah's shield, the force exerted in the ground was greatly lessened.

Naturally, with two colliding objects, some momentum should be transferred to Elijah and that force would travel from his body to the ground, causing a vibration. Yet, Hikaru didn't feel any of the transfer.

In chemistry, the total energy in a system is conserved. It is neither created nor destroyed but merely changed from one form or another.

Specifically, in physics, momentum is also conserved. Hikaru didn't see any damage to the ground caused by friction between Elijah's boots and it. There weren't any cracks either.

It seemed like somehow Elijah's shield block had deflected that energy which caused the mutant dog to be knocked back further than it would from regular action-reaction forces.

The knockback effect could not be because of Elijah's physical strength. This is because the shield hadn't moved at all from its position. It just stayed in one spot.

Then is Elijah's shield made from a special metal? Why did it only have this effect now and not before with the other opponents? Was it some sort of electronic shield that requires power to activate its special chemical properties?

The golden retriever shook its head and when it got out of its daze, it slashed at him with its claws. Elijah dodged the first swipe by moving to the left, but he wasn't fast enough for the second swipe.

Hikaru watched the claws approach Elijah in slow motion who just landed on his feet.

Suddenly, Elijah accelerated, and he slid to the right without bending the knee.

Hikaru could not believe it.

Elijah with his boot soles completely on the ground, slid to the right like a slippery slug on ice. It was impossible for animals, least so humans to move around on their feet without contracting the muscles in the feet.

He moved as if an unseen force was pushing him away. Elijah was like a puppet with strings attached.

Was Elijah hiding his true strength and speed?

Elijah thrust his spear three times in rapid succession with the fourth one thrust even harder and deeper than the first three times. The fourth hit blew a hole 10 times bigger than the spear's dimensions and then knocked the pack dog more than ten metres away.

If Elijah could hit that hard with the fourth strike, why didn't he just do that from the start? It would be like asking a boxer not to hit his hardest. Although light jabs were used for feints and other reasons in boxing, there was no reason for Elijah to limit his strength to the fourth hit unless he wanted to look cool?

However, Hikaru's intuition told him that Elijah was breaking the rules of physics in exchange for another set of rules.

Elijah went over to the pack dog's corpse and reached into its gaping hole. There were some squelching sounds. Hikaru summoned tentacles from his legs which gathered the bodies and absorbed them. He then approached Elijah from behind.

"Did you find anything?"

Elijah was crouched down holding something in his hand.

He was holding nothing but air, yet his hands seemed to be grasping something with a certain shape.

There was plenty of mystery around Elijah. Hikaru wanted to know.

Suddenly, Elijah turned around with his eyes wide.

"Is something wrong?" Hikaru asked surprised.

"Be careful! I sense something dangerous!" Elijah gravely said.

Hikaru looked around but didn't see anything.

"I don't see anything."

"Hmm, I think it's around here somewhere. Please be careful."

"Alright, wait for me while I take this one in,"

"Ahh okay. I'll wait over there."

Elijah walked away while Hikaru consumed the pack dog which was 8 metres long. They had agreed that after Elijah claimed certain materials from the corpses, then Hikaru could take the rest.

Hikaru's eyes settled onto Elijah's back.

'His senses are pretty sharp. Not sure about his mind though.'

***

Elijah walked far enough for some privacy.

"System."

His status display appeared in front of him. He had just levelled up to 20. He opened the levelling menu and allocated the three stat points to agility.

He had run out of skill uses for martial art: sidestep.

He would take damage if he didn't increase his speed to dodge on his own. He realised that Hikaru had high reflexes and speed, so he was able to dodge more but also defend and attack better. Especially when he was fighting a mob of enemies.

Earlier, he felt a chill and received a warning from the system.

[Warning: Strong bloodlust detected.]

"System, is the monster that you detected nearby? Is that why you wanted me to avoid it?"

...

No response as expected.