Coward

A boy can be seen in a forest with the trees around him completely burnt up.

Smoke continued to rise even after the fire had been put out from this set of trees, before they gradually became ashes.

Standing in front of this scenery is a boy with black hair, an above average face and eyes of purple and white respectively, wearing a long-black jacket and trousers.

"Whew" Zephyr felt relieved as he looked at the burnt trees whose fire had finally died out.

He had put out the raging fire with the help of Xenon, he just had to concentrate on the flow of elemental energy(mana) and cut it off.

RUFFLE! RUFFLE!

"Huh? What's that?" Asked Zephyr as his ears picked up sounds of rustling leaves not too far away.

As he looked in the direction of the leaves, the surroundings came to an abrupt silence.

'I'm sure I heard something,' Zephyr said in his mind as he strained his eyes searching for anything out of place.

While doing this, his right eye suddenly glowed, the purple hue shined as his eyes zoomed in on the surroundings like a magnifying glass.

At the same time, a notification suddenly appeared to Zephyr;

[ ??? Is in effect]

"Xenon, what is this?"

[It seems you are able to activate your trait instinctively]

[And before you ask, yes, i don't know what your trait is, hence the question mark]

"Hmm, so my trait is farsight, not the worst but definitely not the best" Zephyr remarked as he began to search the forest from afar with a magnified view.

Not long after, he picked up a trail of blood and began to trace it, but before he could even finish, something lunged at him with speed.

As the object came into view, Zephyr picked up his speed and fled without a second thought before stopping two hundred meters away.

His eyes had stopped glowing.

He shuddered as he thought of the thing that lunged at him.

It was the same white-furred leopard that was chasing him before. Just as he probed his mind on what to do, Xenon's voice rang out.

[Dude, what are you doing]

"Wh-What do you mean?" Zephyr stuttered as he asked the question.

[When did you become a coward]

Zephyr's blood boiled at Xenon's insult.

"I'm not a coward, i was just-

[You ran two hundred meters at the sight of a wounded beast that wasn't even chasing you]

[If that isn't cowardice, I don't know what is]

At these words, Zephyr didn't have a point to refute Xenon.

[What about all that talk about growing stronger, about rising to the top, don't tell me that you think it'll ever happen if you keep running away like this]

"I was…" Zephyr didn't have anything to say, during the invasion, all he did was hit and dodge crudely, but that was because most beasts disintegrated the moment they attacked, which in turn increased his confidence.

Yet, as the ability to disintegrate got seriously restricted, his confidence began to shake, like a building whose foundation is terrible, but he didn't notice it until Xenon pointed it out.

He had been telling himself while running away that the beasts were the ones who were strong, not that he was weak.

But Xenon shattered that illusion with it's words.

'What did I do when I met the leopard at the cave? I fled! What did I do when I could've capitalised on the battlefield? I fled!' Zephyr eye now burning with new light as reminisced on his past actions before saying;

"This cannot go on, I can't afford to be a coward"

[I can't afford to allow you to be a coward]

"Thank you"

[Why]

"For reminding me of my vow to become stronger"

INHALE! EXHALE! INHALE! EXHALE!

Zephyr took deep breaths to shake off his nervousness as well as anxiety for the next action.

"Time to face my fears I guess" He said and then;

ZOOM!

He sped off to the direction of a beast we all know.

-----------------

Within a certain part of the forest, a beast with bloodied fur moved slowly towards it's resting place.

It was the wounded white-furred leopard.

It moved to a resting place after failing to catch something it thought to be prey.

The python was edible, but the leopard couldn't eat it in its current condition.

The python's body contained poison, but it wasn't lethal enough to kill the leopard. But that was only if it's body wasn't injured.

The leopard's body was healing slowly because of the accumulated injuries, the body focused all the energy on healing internal wounds, but if lethal substances were to be consumed on top of that.

Then the leopard's already slow healing process would be unable to handle all the problems, which will ultimately lead to it's death.

Rarrr!

The leopard growled as it felt his hunger grow.

Alas, all the nearby animals had fled because of its fight.

It could only recuperate for now, and then look for food after. But fate had something else for him because at the next minute the leopard suddenly stood on edge.

As a predator itself, the feeling of being targeted was something instinctive, but even so, it had never felt like this before.

Whatever was coming for it didn't bother to be secretive nor was it cautious, it was charging straight for it with it's purpose clear.

It was to kill!

The leopard picked up the pace, trying to avoid whatever it was because it knew it would die if it fought in it's current condition, but it couldn't run fast enough because it didn't have a lot of remaining energy and it wanted to avoid opening up healed wounds.

That was when the leopard heard;

ZOOM!

Like a bullet train, someone was coming towards it and fast.

At this juncture, the leopard knew it couldn't get away, so it chose to face the incoming enemy and resigned itself to its fate.

It wasn't going down without a fight, and then;

BAAM!

A solid kick landed on the side of the leopard before it could even react.

BAM! BAM! CRASH!

The force of the kick blasted the leopard's body into two trees before falling, causing two bones at the side of the ribs to break.

The leopard immediately got back on it's feet as it showed no signs of weakness, before fixing its gaze on what had kicked it.

In front of it was a man clad completely in black holding two fists In front of its face, the creature looking at this figure as it seemed familiar for some reason.

The leopard wondered where it had seen the being in front of it before.

The two beings locked on to each other's gazes as they sized each other up preparing for the next attack, before they both moved towards each other simultaneously.

A battle of life and death had begun.

SLICE!

The leopard suddenly released a blade made of compressed air from it's claws towards Zephyr, who had momentarily forgotten such a tactic as he barely dodged it.

As he resumed his posture to begin a counter attack, the leopard appeared right before him and slashed down with the intention of cutting Zephyr in two.

"Shit!" Zephyr said as he tilted his body to the side just in time to narrowly dodge the released air blade.

Seeing that the air blade had cut nothing but trees and leaves, the leopard turned to the side, as it moved to attack the human once again.

It couldn't allow his enemy the time to prepare or else it would be the one dieing today, and it couldn't let that happen.

Alas, it had forgotten one little detail.

As it lunged forward to pounce on the assailant, it opened it's mouth to compress an air blade bigger than the last, with the intention of ending the battle with this, a bright red glow suddenly emanated from the assailants hand as the skill [Firebolt] made it's appearance.

All of this happening in less than a minute

.…!

The leopard still afloat couldn't do anything as the assailant threw the a flame the size of a golf ball into its mouth and then;

BOOM!!!

------------------

Well, damn

That's badass.