Escape

The blade tightened around the neck, and the body in hand suddenly tensed and convulsed, emitting a vibration that seemed disproportionate to its small size, as if every drop of life force within it was about to burst out. As the warm, pungent liquid gradually dripped into the mouth, the trembling between the fingers gradually subsided and finally dissipated. Assa squeezed the mountain rat with all his might, not caring that the contents of its stomach were also being squeezed out. Only when the last drop of bodily fluid slowly dripped down did Assa throw down the mountain rat, which he had already twisted and deformed, and stick out his tongue to lick the blood from his lips.

"I don't want to die."

The taste of blood surged up from his stomach. His throat let out a low, muffled roar, deep and ambiguous, not like it came from an organ, but from some fold within his soul.

He remembered that sound from when he was three years old, hiding in a tree and watching a group of hunters in the village capture an injured wolf. He trembled at the low, rumbling growl emitted by the wolf, not out of fear, but because a string deep within his soul resonated with it. After that, he was obsessed for a while with understanding the language of animals.

Now he understood that the sound originally had no meaning, it was just the desperate cry of life in the face of death threats, the outpouring of intense survival instincts and almost insane animal nature from deep within the heart.

Three days of living on raw meat and blood, extreme tension, and physical exhaustion. Being chased by the threat of death and driven by a strong desire to survive, he was almost turned into a complete beast. But fortunately, reason still governed all his actions.

Assa was well aware of the gap in abilities between himself and his Stalker. He vividly remembered how the heads of the two infantrymen in Squad Three were smashed like watermelons at first sight. The only advantage he could rely on now was insight into his opponent's intentions.

The Stalker was not chasing him with all their might. This was not a killing pursuit, as the Stalker did not want to catch up with him quickly and risk being bitten by a desperate beast in a life-and-death situation. It was a hunt, chasing the prey until it gradually weakened in fear and desperate escape. When the Stalker was confident enough, they would come over and kill him like squeezing a mouse to death, cutting off his head. Neither of them could escape or catch up given the circumstances of their bodies and survival skills in the swampy forest.

During these three days, Assa pretended to be the desperate fugitive that the Stalker wanted to see. His physical condition was also rapidly deteriorating like that of a real desperate fugitive. Without being able to make a fire, there was no sufficient food. Eating the meat of any animal alive in the lizard swamp was suicidal, as the parasites inside it could be fatal to the human body. Instead, he could only search for some harmless insects to eat raw. Although drinking the blood of animals was safe and could provide some minor replenishment, it was not enough to counterbalance the loss of sweat and physical strength due to extensive exercise. The shortage of salt and food had almost reached the limit of endurance, and the illusion he had created during these three days had to be terminated with a flawless action.

With great luck, he quickly found three non-poisonous worms on the grass and bushes around him. They were the size of a finger and wriggled energetically in his hand. He pinched their heads with his fingers and slowly squeezed out the green excrement. He had to be careful not to squeeze too hard and burst the worms, splattering the nutritious juice, and also to try to eliminate any potentially toxic excrement. It was a very delicate skill, but after a few days of practice, Assa had become quite proficient.

The tender worm meat quickly turned into a thick paste between his teeth. The slippery bitter taste clung to his tongue like the swampy air clung to his skin. Assa carefully ground the meat with his teeth and searched for any larger pieces that might have been missed, ensuring that every part of the worm was broken down into the smallest possible units for easy digestion. Every drop of nutrition was precious, and it was his hope for the energy to survive.

He dug a hole about a foot deep with his knife and buried the shrew's body. Every time he killed an animal over the past three days, he had used his valuable energy to bury the body.

After checking himself carefully and smoothing out every protrusion on his clothes, Assa stepped onto the narrow platform like a careful sentry, and slowly squatted and crawled like a huge, deformed worm towards a nearby puddle of sewage.

He focused all his attention on this ugly act, carefully controlling every muscle in his body, making his body stretch as much as possible to stick to the ground without leaving any noticeable marks on the soft muddy ground. Any loss of control or coordination in any movement would render the three-day plan completely futile.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, slowly sliding into the chest-deep sewage, without splashing any water. The weight of the knife kept him from floating as he moved the mud at the bottom of the water towards the direction he remembered. This pool of sewage leads to a temporary stream formed during the rainy season. He deliberately came here and chose this terrain to bury the body, everything was planned.

There were a few places on his body that were slightly painful, where leeches had attached themselves. Assa ignored them, knowing that they would let go after they had sucked enough blood. He reluctantly avoided pulling them off to prevent the suckers from remaining in his skin and causing infection. Now the most important thing was to swim as far as possible before the next breath change. He reviewed every detail of what had just happened in his mind. There were no flaws, and he was about to experience the huge joy of being reborn. The only problem now was the mountain rat's corpse, which had to decay to a sufficient degree and emit a certain level of odor before the Stalker arrived.

I just need some cankered luck now.

On the sediment of decayed matter, Assa moved his limbs like a carrion lizard and prayed hard.

In the afternoon, the rare sight of the sun appeared in the Lizard Swamp.

The sunlight was cut by the branches and fell piecemeal. The wet ground turned the dead body of the sun into a veil that swirled between the foliage of the trees and the ground. In this sultry and humid barrier, all swamp life grows quickly and then dies for other life to grow, and even the rapid corruption seems to be full of life.

The stalkers watched in silence as a pack of scavengers gleefully snatched up a mountain mouse carcass. He hated the slimy smell of these ugly scavengers, it was too strong for his keen sense of smell. A larger lizard successfully snatched the corpse, turned and fled, and the others immediately swarmed and disappeared into the forest, leaving only a dug out pit and traces all over the ground.

For humans, this prey is quite good, with good speed, agility, and strength. The stalker was interested and quite sure of killing him in frontal combat.

However, it is not enough to have a certain degree of certainty. This is not a battlefield, but a hunt, and it takes a certain degree of certainty to gradually evolve into a sufficient certainty. Since yesterday, the footprints have gradually become weak and vain.

Now, the Stalker feels confident enough.

But it's also a strange prey. Although it was indeed being chased, the footprints did not show the mess and panic that the hunted prey should have. There is a strange firmness revealed in the feeble steps, it is not a ignorant escape, but something else is hidden in it.

During these three days, the cover-up was done well, but one stupid mistake was made all the time-burying the carcasses of animals that had drunk their blood. This is completely counterproductive, and the lizards will dig up the corpse and eat it, looking for the smell of decay. A stalker can pretty much just follow the stench of a swarm of lizards.

Incomprehensible mentality, stupid mistakes, there seems to be a faint connection between the two, this feeling makes the stalker feel a little strange. However, it is only limited to strangeness. After catching up, killing, and cutting off the head, there is nothing strange about it. No animal can escape from its stalk in this swamp jungle. The stalker has absolute confidence in this. absolute.

But the stalker was immediately surprised to find that all the traces only ended here, and did not extend in any direction.

All that remains in the air is the strong stench of the swamp lizard. The stalker bent down, carefully examining any clues on the ground. Although the lizards crawled and scrambled for food and made a mess of the surrounding ground, for the super observation and experience of the hunter, the traces of the prey are still visible, and it takes a while to wipe out all the traces around. The survey was clear.

Some frivolous but not flustered steps, there is no trace of stepping on his own footprints to return to the road, but just turned a few times in the surrounding bushes, probably looking for food. The stalker was even able to tell that the first food he found, probably a worm, was found under two shofers. The front half of the two footprints there is slightly deeper, showing a forward shift of the center of gravity in the stooping action. But other than that, nothing was found. The footprints stopped abruptly as soon as they reached the earth pit where the corpse was originally buried.

This is completely beyond the scope of experience accumulated by the hunter's tribe for many years. Escaping, concealing, gradually declining physical fitness... The stalker can only rely on his own mind to connect these, hoping to draw something other than experience from it. But a mind that lacks the ability to think logically can hardly do this task. When he realized that he had fallen into a strange trap step by step, just as the fugitive expected, an uncontrollable rage frantically occupied all his thoughts.

A lizard scrambled back, sniffing the side of the pit, hoping to find some good. But it immediately became the object of venting for the furious people next to it. The huge body flew high under the violent blow, and then fell into the sewage pool, stirring up soaring sewage and silt to splash around. Along with the muddy water, there were also a few leeches wriggling awkwardly, their bodies swollen and rounded after eating, trying to return to the water. The stalker noticed it, picked one up for a closer look, cracked it with a snap, and tasted the liquid that came out of it. Then a ferocious expression that other races could not understand appeared on his face.

Sticking to the ground, the most sensitive sense of smell on the entire continent finally discerned a trace of the smell he hoped to find from the irritating smell of the lizard's mucus and the rotten smell of the soil. The smell extended to the sewage puddles.

Take out your heart while you are still alive, tear that hot and throbbing thing in your teeth, and swallow the freshest blood contained in it through your throat into your body, and turn the cunning contained in it into yourself the power of.

There must be no damage to the head. Slowly dig out the brains from the eye sockets and eat them, peel off the flesh, and ask the best craftsmen to grind the skulls. This perfect trophy can be placed on the ancestral tomb. As a sacrifice, this is a further testimony to the hunting skills that the tribe is proud of.

You are my good prey.

A long-lost excitement filled the whole body of the running stalker. It was a feeling that had only stirred in his body when he was chasing the most beautiful female in the tribe when he was just mature.