Parasyte System

*Bam!

Before long, the sound of blows had become commonplace in this part of the forest.

Moving at a high speed, two figures were exchanging blows as their combat location constantly shifted.

One of these figures was tall and slender, with several burn spots illuminating its body, making iteasier to distinguish in the shadows of the forest, despite its seemingly unwavering silence which not even the heavy burns seemed to be able to break.

In contrast, the person responsible for the burns was quite the opposite, not only needing no help to be visible in the forest, but also making a great deal of noise with her attacks.

*Bam!*

Again, Faith managed to connect another blow against the humanoid monster, leaving another burn mark on its body.

However, this offensive act had cost her, leaving her in an unstable and open posture for any kind of attacks.

*Crash!*

In less than a second, the monster replied, lashing out at incredible speed, containing a force that despite not having made contact with the trees, only the resulting wind managed to cut them down.

To its bad luck, the trees were the only thing it managed to cut, as only a moment before it attacked, Faith\'s figure vanished in front of its eyes.

"Ha!"

*Bam!*

With a small sound, another fiery blow from Faith made contact with the humanoid monster, this time on its back and with enough power to even move it a little.

The monster, of course, turned again, just in time to see Jay\'s figure, which was right behind Faith, quickly disappear into seeming nothingness.

"..."

Though it didn\'t let out any sort of sound, it was clear that the monster had its own thoughts about this, and if one had to guess, one wouldn\'t be far wrong in thinking that the direction of these thoughts went towards the word "Interest."

The monster remembered that at the time it had encountered the blonde human, it had simply required one blow to send her flying and cause her to fall into unconsciousness.

However, now that it wanted to repeat the same process, no matter how many times it tried, it didn\'t seem like it was going to work, so it had to try other things or.... try harder at what he was doing.

*SWOOSH!*

"!!"

Immediately, the humanoid monster lashed out again, but this time at a much faster speed than before, causing a surprised reaction from Faith.

*Crash!!!*

Again, trees were cut down, only this time it wasn\'t just a few, but dozens of them, all having fallen victim to the monster\'s attack.

Still, in the surroundings, only cut logs scattered on the ground were visible, Faith\'s figure was nowhere to be found.

"..."

Though no sound came from the monster, its gaze slowly swiveled until it landed on a certain part of the forest, one that had been untouched by its claws and still had plenty of trees, but more importantly, a place from which both Faith and Jay seemed to be appearing out of nowhere.

"Haa...haa" Letting out a breath, Jay set Faith back down on the ground before squatting down to rest, "It\'s damn fast..."

Also crouching down to share her energy with Jay, Faith replied, "You\'re no slouch yourself... it\'s amazing that you can carry me and react to the monster\'s attacks in the nick of time."

Just as she had said, the way they had been fighting the monster so far was through teamwork.

Thanks to the monster\'s rank (B) physique, Jay\'s attacks, even being reinforced with his wind control, even though he could move at high speed, didn\'t have the slightest effect on it.

On the other hand, Faith\'s attacks, as could be seen on the monster\'s body itself, were strong enough to leave after-effects, indicating that they were effective.

Unfortunately, her physical capabilities lagged behind her skill, so while she had been able to land a couple of hits on the monster earlier, it was only when Jay began to support her  that things seemed to turn in their favor.

Making full use of the Phantom Trace martial technique properties, now with his new source of qi, Jay could truly live up to the name "phantom ".

Jay had been doubtful whether this martial technique, being a common and low level technique according to James, would work against a rank (B) monster, but to his pleasant surprise, it worked wonders.

Though of course, if one took into account that he had already been running non-stop for quite some time, doing this did nothing but deplete his already low energy reserves even faster, keeping him at a very dangerous margin.

His exhausted breathing and the sweat on his body being clear proof that even with Faith\'s energy, it was doubtful whether he could keep this up for much longer.

This was especially true considering that Faith, for both their sakes, couldn\'t afford to run out of energy either.

All in all, the atmosphere could not help but be heavy, with both espers doing their best in an uncertain fight against an enemy who clearly did not take them seriously.

Something that even Faith, who didn\'t have as good a vitality radar as Jay, having exchanged a few more blows with the humanoid monster, also realized.

Raising his head suddenly, Jay quickly brought his gaze to where they had left the monster, "...This..."

Still sharing her energy with him, Faith was surprised by Jay\'s reaction, "What\'s wrong?"

Not immediately answering the esper\'s question, Jay kept looking in the direction of the monster, trying to see through the shadows, a confused expression gradually filling his face.

As for the reason for his confusion, it was because the monster, at this moment, had started to move at an insane speed!

\'What?\'

That question popped into Jay\'s head as he felt the humanoid monster, rapidly, moving out of his radar range.

Its speed and agility was shattering, already having disappeared from both of their sight and only being visible to his radar as it blended into the shadows of the trees.

Until finally, it was off Jay\'s radar.

Now without knowing their exact position, worry began to fill Jay.

He didn\'t know what the monster was planning, but it didn\'t take a genius to realize that whatever it was, it wouldn\'t be good for them.

Staring in the direction the monster had gone, Jay braced himself for the worst, the energy along with the qi inside him filling every part of his body so he could react instantly.

Simultaneously, he stood up, preparing to grab Faith at any moment.

*SWOOOOSH!!!*

The next moment, a hissing sound reached both of their ears, coming from the direction the monster had fled at the same time that a signal reappeared on Jay\'s radar.

*BAM!!!*

"ARGH!"

Before the esper could react, a figure rushed past him at breakneck speed, crashing into Faith and causing her to let out a scream.

The force of this crash was such that it threw her more than ten meters into the forest, with her by sheer luck not crashing into any trees.

"Shit!"

Wasting no time, Jay turned as fast as he could, activating the last steps of the Phantom Trace at the same time, his figure disappearing as he moved towards where Faith had shot out.

"!"

However, the moment he took the first step, he felt a shiver run down his spine, his instincts screaming a specific phrase.

\'I\'m in danger!\'

*CRASH!!!*

With a thunderous sound, a shockwave from dangerously sharp claws cut through all the trees in the area.

Having suddenly appeared out of nowhere, the humanoid monster stood with its arm outstretched, having just launched what had undoubtedly been its strongest attack yet.

This time, the cut was not only much wider and faster, but it also had to be mentioned that it was not clean.

If one looked at the trees and the parts that were cut, one could see that instead of presenting a clean cut, it was more like they had been forcibly separated, with fibers from the trunks sticking out in clumps.

\'F*ck!\' Seeing this, Jay was thankful that he had ducked at the precise moment.

Just with this move on the monster\'s part, Jay was filled with questions, but of course, this was not the time to answer any of them.

After all, the humanoid monster was already moving again.

Its slender arm came down at incredible speed, forcing Jay to again use the Phantom Trace, barely managing to escape by a hair\'s breadth.

This was the same tactic he had been using to help Faith, disappearing with the martial technique to escape, something that had worked as the monster, despite being rank (B), seemed unable to detect him.

This time, to his bad luck, it didn\'t happen that way.

While Jay\'s figure faded and he concentrated on quickly increasing the distance between the two, he had not taken his eyes off his opponent.

Thanks to that, he could see perfectly how the monster\'s cold gaze, albeit ever so slightly, was following him.

Then, to his surprise, something happened that would leave Jay, for a long time, with an incredible amount of questions.

The monster began to walk towards him, but its pace was unusual in that it was not a normal walk, but was following a certain specific and strangely familiar rhythm to Jay.

It was an erratic movement that had gone unnoticed normally, but to Jay, who expected anything from this monster, he realized what was going on.

For that very reason, the expression on his face changed to one of utter shock.

Utter shock, for the fact that at this moment, the humanoid monster was replicating the first and second steps of the Phantom Trace!

*BAM!*

"GAH-!"

At a speed where he couldn\'t even see it coming, Jay received a heavy blow to his chest which immediately cancelled his own Phantom Trace.

Even though all the trees in the vicinity had been cut down by the monster itself, it didn\'t take long for Jay\'s body to crash hard into another one of them, releasing an audible cracking sound coming from his back.

*Crack!*

"-!"

With the air having been forced out of his lungs, Jay could not even gurgle the shortest words to express his pain.

His entire rib cage, both front and back, was in extreme pain, to the point where it was difficult to do anything else.

As for what his specific injuries were, it wasn\'t necessary to look at his condition with the system to know that something was very wrong with his body.

The sound of something breaking along with the great pain indicated that at the very least, he had already broken a couple of ribs, proof of the immense physical strength of the humanoid monster.

"AHHH!"

In the midst of his pain, a woman\'s scream suddenly was heard coming from the other side of the forest, followed by a strong golden glow that at most lasted a couple of seconds.

After that short time, an eerie silence filled the forest.

Moving his body with difficulty, Jay slowly, with his body being flooded with excruciating pain, struggled to stand up, "Faith...!"

At this point, things like saving energy and the wounds on his body immediately took a back seat.

He had to act, and he had to act fast.

Although he had had to resort to leaning against the tree on his back, he managed to get to his feet, Jay gathered what little qi was left in his body and again prepared to use the Phantom Trace.

*Swoosh!*

However, just as he was about to move, Jay noticed movement from the forest, something was approaching him at high speed.

Thanks to the fact that he had seen it in time and was already prepared to use his martial technique, Jay could dodge it if he wanted to.

But in this case, he didn\'t move even an inch, but instead opened his arms and braced himself to meet the impact.

*BAM!*

Due to the speed of this object and the fact that Jay was in no condition to receive such a blow full on, his body was forced backwards until it slammed into the tree again.

This, of course, further aggravated the wounds he had and made him see stars, but to him, that wasn\'t important right now.

Slowly getting on his knees, Jay\'s face was filled with a mixture of emotions, including bitterness, anger and remorse.

In one smooth motion, he lowered Faith\'s body, which now had a horrific wound on her lower torso, the degree of it was such that it made Vilda\'s look like something light.

The final detail of this was that there was really no blood, but rather the black liquid with which Jay was already unfortunately familiar.

In just a moment, this fight had taken a disastrous turn for the worse.