Chapter 7

Dian finally arrived at the cave entrance, sprinting inside, he began running in the direction of the unstable section of cave ceiling, the Curved Claw Ape was right behind him with only a few meters separating them, the screams of the enraged monkey constantly rang out behind Dian, as if to remind him how close the ape was.

'This is it! A couple more turns, and I'll arrive at the destination, luckily the Curved Claw Ape is completely bloodthirsty and enraged, and won't be able to exhibit even the basic instincts of a Wild Beast'.

Wild Beasts generally have a very low level of intelligence, sometimes even less than a human baby, this along with their very instinctive and territorial nature is one of the reasons that Wild Beasts received that name and were classified as different from the regular animals. It's also known that when Wild Beasts are enraged they can go into a sort of berserk mode in which they lose their senses and focus only on killing their target, this makes them easier to kill because they don't have their basic survival instincts, but at the same time it also makes them more dangerous as they don't care for their own life in their berserk mode and will not give up on their target until its dead.

Dian ingested a large amount of medicinal solutions which he bought from Hunters Agency as he was running away, in case he became heavily injured.

After continuing to run in the cave paths, Dian made a final sharp turn, which allowed him to go out of the ape's view for a few short seconds.

This was the dead end which had the unstable ceiling, by entering it himself, Dian knew he was putting himself in harms way as he was stuck between the cave wall at the dead end, and the level 3 Curved Claw Ape, but he also acknowledged that this was his nest chance at killing the level 3 Wild Beast chasing him.

At that moment of cover, after making sure he put a bit of distance between himself and the turn that the ape is going to arrive from, Dian stopped and held one of his submachine gun's, loaded with a bunch of level 2 poison bullets, and some level 3 ones.

*Oooh oooh ahh*

The screeches of the enraged Curved Claw Ape became louder and louder, finally, the ape arrived at the turn, the moment his tall and hairy muscular ape body appeared, the sounds of continuous gun shots rang out.

*Brrrrrrrrt*

The chest of the ape became filled with many coin sized holes, out of the thirty bullets held in the magazine of the submachine gun, 16 managed to pierce the apes belly and chest area, after emptying the entire magazine, only half of the bullets managed to pierce the ape's thick skin, luckily Dian who researched many Wild Beasts of the lower levels online in his free time, remembered that the belly area of the Curved Claw Ape is the area in which his skin is the softest and is the most susceptible to bullets. Otherwise, Dian might've not pierced him with any of the bullets.

*Ahhhh*

The ape screamed with all the air in his lungs, his pain was immense, and it caused him to become even more enraged. The cave ceiling rumbled, and some small stones fell out of it. The angry ape ignored the wounds he had and lunged at Dian without any regard for his own safety.

Dian who stood a couple meters away, surrounded by cave walls behind him and to his sides, in front of him was the Curved Claw Ape, quickly dodged the ape's lunge and jumped to his right.

"This is my chance!"

Dian knew that the optimal time to collapse the cave section arrived, now that he dodged the ape, the way out of the cave section was in front of him and the ape was behind him, Dian immediately ran towards the exit, while he ran towards the turn he took out his second submachine gun, and aimed it up at the ceiling.

While Dian did that, the Curved Claw Ape lunged at him again, this time from behind, his long curved claws managed to pierce Dian abdominal area from the back, four of his five claws entered Dian's stomach through his new equipment and defenses, and messed up his innards. Dian who was pierced grit his teeth while trying his best to ignore the immense pain of his internal organs being cut to pieces, he sprayed at the ceiling using his submachine gun he took out, while he was doing this the Curved Claw Ape which had his hand on Dian's back jumped on Dian's back with its entire body weight while opening his mouth filled with frighteningly sharp teeth in an attempt to bite Dian's head, with the weight of massive ape on his back, Dian quickly came crashing to the ground with his face smashing into the cave ground as well, his entire body was being pressed into the ground with the weight of close to 600 kilos (1322 pounds) of pure muscle that came with the massive 3-meter (9.8 foot) frame of the ape.

The cave wall which was shot quickly came down on the both of them.

This entire sequence of event since entering the unstable cave area, until the collapse of the ceiling happened in a short few seconds.

A massive amount of rocks and boulder fell on the both of them, with the Curved Claw Ape being on top of Dian, he suffered most of the damage. Dian, which was being crushed by the weight of both the ape and the collapsed cave wasn't in great shape either, even though he didn't suffer the falling rocks, and had the Curved Claw Ape giant body as a blanket, his entire skeleton was almost crushed under the massive weight pressed on top of his body. Luckily, together with mid grade Lieutenant rank Martial Artist body, the good deal of equipment on his body, and the medicine solutions he ingested before entering the dead end, his body still managed to prevent his bones from being crushed.

Feeling the pain coming from all over his body, Dian felt fear.

'Is this how I'm going to go out?, what about mom and Lilly, luckily I sent them enough money to survive for a long while before entering the forest this time.'

'This must be some cruel joke of the universe, I'm going to die here in the hands of a level 3 Wild Beast, exactly the same way dad died'

While he was thinking, time felt as if it was flowing slower and slower, and suddenly, he felt as if something inside him broke, not in a physical sense, and also not in the spiritual sense, he felt as a veil that had covered him his entire life has been lifted, a wonderful feeling incomparable to anything else he had ever felt in his entire 21 years of life.

'Is this death? Am I dying?'.

Suddenly, Dian remembered the process of becoming a Deviant, those that possess Deviant abilities are called Deviants, and they all share one thing in common, they all awakened their powers when they were either experiencing a great amount of physical strain, usually in battle. Or when they experience a great amount of mental strain. Dian realized that currently, he fulfilled both the requirements, the great feeling that encompassed his entire body became greater and greater, and Dian suddenly felt happiness, as he suspected that he was in the process of awakening his own ability.

As the feeling grew stronger, Dian finally lost his consciousness from his many wounds.