An unwelcome guest

ROAR!

A mighty bellow resounded as an azure cheetah the size of a tiger from Earth came into view.

It's nose fully focused on a single scent as it moved at breakneck speed following the trail of broken trees.

It's blue fur housing different battle scars, all coming together to look like an artistic rune marking. But the most noticeable battle scar of all were the three claw marks that stretched from the right side of it's face to its neck.

All this combined to give it a regal but deadly look.

But looking closely, the face of this particular beast was crunched with a few veins popping out of its skull, making it look ugly.

This beast was pissed. How dare prey make it run so much?

Hey, he was quietly sleeping peacefully when something woke him from his slumber by releasing it's aura near its territory.

Thinking it was looking for a challenge, the cheetah rushed to meet whoever it was. He couldn't let a rival encroach on its territory while he was still alive, now could he?

But before he could even confront the beast in question, it sees the prey, which happens to be a different beast entirely, running through the trees and immediately thinks the prey was running after sensing its arrival. And with such thinking, the cheetah immediately gives chase.

What? Did you think prey would just disturb it's sleep, make it run all the way here and go scot free?

Of course not. He would catch, kill and eat it to prove its ruthlessness as an example for the next beast who tries to steal it's territory.

With that, he sped off to meet the running prey. He never thought he wouldn't be able to catch it, after all, till this day, it hadn't seen a creature move faster than it did, except some of his now-dead brothers.

Obviously, this was because it didn't venture far across the jungle. Nevertheless, it had its own fair share of territory battles of which it took pride in.

The cheetah moved speedily and steadily closed on its prey, getting ready to pounce on it as soon as it got close enough.

As of now, both looked like streaks of black and blue chasing after each other, with the gap getting noticeably smaller.

That is, until its prey abruptly looked back, only to see the deadly beast chasing it. The prey's shock was evident as his eyes almost fell out of it's head, before regaining his bearing and surprisingly, began to speed up.

Yes, unlike before, Zephyr's shock was brief after he found a beast whose aura was a little more frightening than his, chasing him.

He instead regains his focus, and increases his speed, before setting some trees behind him ablaze with [Firebolt] to stall the beast for a few seconds.

Though it might seem like a few seconds it's too small, in the advent of two people racing, a few seconds of delay is enough to leave the other in the dust. And that's exactly what happened.

The Azure cheetah stopped briefly to quell the flames allowing Zephyr to increase the gap between them.

The cheetah knew this, and was about to head back, when it found that the scent was still thick.

'Why did the prey stop? Was it laying a trap?' the cheetah thought, before advancing with less speed and more caution than before.

But within a few metres, it caught on to two other scents which were also thick.

The cheetah couldn't help but speed up even faster, afraid the prey would run away before it could get near.

Luckily, it seemed the prey hadn't moved much. It didn't bother to think it had abruptly stopped and only looked forward to tearing apart the prey limb from limb and savouring it's taste.

Zephyr and the unnamed assailant were still going at each other at full throttle when the bellow of the cheetah pulled their attention towards it.

They moved four feet from each other, before simultaneously looking sideways towards the unwelcome guest.

The Azure cheetah whose aura had spiked excitedly at the sight of his prey. Which in turn made the battling duo more cautious.

The cheetah, running this far, was unwilling to let it get away once again, and so as to not spook it off, the cheetah advanced at a moderate pace.

Seeing the cheetah advancing, Zephyr and the unnamed assailant stared at each other as a light of understanding flashed through their eyes.

Zephyr picked the second serrated dagger which was kicked afar when he was fighting the assailant.

Killing intent rushed out of the duo's bodies towards the Azure cheetah as they were equally pissed.

It was then the overly proud cheetah took notice of the second person beside its prey, it was confident of killing the prey easily, but with one more prey in the hunt, the battle might get difficult, but that wasn't something it couldn't handle.

The exhilaration and adrenaline had gotten them excited, though he didn't know it. Zephyr was smiling like crazy, and looking very creepy at that, while the assailant under his suit was slightly smiling.

The guest who had disturbed their fun at such a moment would have to be taught a lesson.

Like this, the battle of two became a three-way showdown, with the common enemy being the Azure cheetah.

Suum!Suum!

As the two ran simultaneously towards the advancing cheetah, the cheetah also increased it's speed as it confronted them squarely.

From above, it looked like lines of dark purple and black were heading towards an Azure line.

And then...the show began.

BAAM!

A sonic boom impacted the surroundings, as dust sprung up with trees blasted away and the ear drums of Kang-Soo Jin who was slowly crawling away almost bursted.

"Ahh!" Kang-Soo Jin cried as blood flowed out his ears, but he wasn't the only one In a bad situation.

The assailant could be seen with his back against a broken tree caused by the aftershock of the collision.

The dust settles, and we see Zephyr hand regenerating with a dagger against the claw of the Azure cheetah.

It seemed the cheetahs confidence was warranted as Zephyr became a little excited.

Make no mistake, Zephyr's excitement didn't come from feeling pain as he was not a masochist. But the adrenaline as well as the massive increase in dagger mastery fighting the assailant, made him see the big differences in how they handled the dagger.

Anyhow, when the opponent he wanted to kill easily blocked his dagger strike, his train of thought changed from.

'How annoying' to 'Maybe I can learn a thing or two'

Zephyr stopped underestimating the cheetah and decided to bring his A-game as his speed doubled, but so did the cheetah's.

The battle between man and beast became blinding as both moved at insane speeds clashing dagger against claws while looking for an opening.

Seconds passed as small cuts accumulated on Zephyr's and the cheetah's body, when a new aura entered the stage with a…Baam!

As we see the proud cheetah sent flying with a kick to the head from the unnamed assailant, whose killing intent surged up like crazy.

The assailant followed up with a barrage of punches which turned out to be a bad idea as his wrist fractured.

That's when the cheetah took momentum and slapped the assailant through a tree and moved to kill him, but Zephyr appeared in front of it.

"Where do you think you're going?" he asked as he began attacking with his two daggers in hand and his feet moved at crazy speeds making the cheetah furious.

"ROAR!" the cheetah bellowed while using its [Sonic roar] which effectively blew Zephyr away, finally giving the cheetah some breathing space.

But not for long, with Zephyr back on his feet with a grin plastered to his face, relentlessly attacking as he ran towards the cheetah causing another shockwave to resound a moment later.

Zephyr and cheetah battled at their top speeds making their figures blurry, with the cheetah occasionally attacking with water and wind blades while Zephyr could not instantaneously use [Firebolt] during a battle of insane speeds.

All the while, Kang-Soo Jin laid back against a faraway tree as a spectator to the crazy battle.

His wounds had begun to heal, but he was still far from okay.

Clang!Clang!Clang! Bam!Bam!

Sounds like this resounded as the two were more or less evened out in terms of speed, with Zephyr dodging, deflecting and negating the cheetah's elemental attacks.

Luckily, for him, the assailant had finally stood up.

Now, how will things play out, we are yet to see.