As soon as Lucas saw the deer move, he leaped out of the way. Enhanced reaction time combined with increased awareness allowed for him to get out of the way as soon as he saw the deer’s muscles twitch. And not a moment too soon either. A mere few moments after he had leaped away, the deer barreled past him. Only to almost immediately come to a complete stop, canceling all of its inertia.

Lucas cursed his luck. He should have known. He had seen it kill the fox. If it was able to accelerate that quickly, then it should have been able to deaccelerate just as fast. His first strategy was to just simple dodge the buck every time it charged and hoped it would injure itself on the trees.

That meant he had to use his second plan. The more dangerous one. He would have to dodge its charge, but be close enough to also inflict some damage onto the buck. Slowly whittling it down until it could no longer fight. A battle of attrition. It did hinge on the fact that the deer’s unnatural regeneration could not apply to the rest of the body or the fact that it had some sort of limit.

He really did not have much time to think, since the buck pivoted on its hoof and charged towards him again. Lucas had not expected it to be this relentless. It kept on charging at him as soon as it located him. Occasionally, its antlers would clip a part of a tree, breaking a part off. Only for it to regenerate almost immediately.

Their little dance of death continued for a few more minutes, with both sides as fast as they were at the beginning. Lucas was confident in his stamina since he had been running around the forest for the past few months. However, he was unsure if he could last as long as the buck. As of now, he could still keep up with it, but what about ten more minutes? Twenty? Thirty?

He decided that it was time to go on the offensive. After all, it was impossible to win if you never attacked.

And so, when the buck charged at him again, he began his counterattack. He first needed to get behind the buck. Even if it was for a fraction of a moment, he would have to get into its blind spot. There, he would have a chance to injure the deer. Instead of leaping off to the side, he dashed forward, managing to slip underneath the antlers. He wheeled around and pounced at the deer, intent on attacking one of its legs.

Only to get kicked right in the face.

The kick had an impossible amount of force in it, but he was used to this stupid deer doing things that it should not. It was a direct hit on his chin, snapping his head backward. The rest of the body went with his head, and he gained some airtime for a bit.

It hurt. It hurt a lot. It was as if someone had a hammer and swung it at you as hard as possible, which was pretty much what just happened. Time seemed to slow down as Lucas tumbled through the air. His ears were ringing, his vision was blurry, and a massive throbbing pain started in his jaw. He fell to the ground, disorientated and groggy. He had messed up. He did not think that the deer would have been able to attack him from its rear.

He stumbled to his feet only to immediately throw himself to the side. He had not even seen the deer approach, but he had felt it. Its danger aura. And he saw a ray of hope. One that would let him survive. To live another day. Its aura was decreasing. Significantly too, it was not even half of when he first found the deer.

He would be able to win a battle of attrition.

He was not sure what would happen if all of the aura of an animal disappeared. Never once when he was hunting, had he found an animal without any aura. Some of them had very little, less than he did when he first became aware of it, but they always had some. Since aura disappeared if the animal died, would the animal die if the aura disappeared? Well, there was one way to find out.

Unfortunately, he was kicked pretty hard in the head. Definitely a bruise, probably a minor concussion, and maybe a fractured jaw. But his legs were not injured, and he could move just fine. He was just a little groggy, but he could deal with that for now.

The little game of cat and mouse went on for quite a bit longer. Each time Lucas barely dodging the antlers, while the buck kept on running. They were both feeling winded after fighting for at least half an hour. They had both gotten slower, but more significantly on the buck’s side. At the beginning of the fight, Lucas could barely even see the deer move. Now, it was just moving slightly faster than he could.

Before long, the buck was at ten percent of its original aura. Then five. And then it was so faint that Lucas could barely even feel it. At around one percent of the buck’s original aura, it decided enough was enough, and it tried to flee. With one last burst, it turned around and leaped as far away as it could.

Lucas was prepared for the buck to try and flee. Once it knew it no longer had a chance of winning, it would try to escape at all costs. And once it realized it would not be able to flee, then it would fight to its very last breath. The main problem was that he was unsure which direction the buck would try to escape to, but in the end, it did not really matter. The buck, compared to its unfollowable charges at the beginning, was now incredibly slow. Slower than Lucas, who was only slightly winded.

Let the chase begin.

The buck was significantly more cautious running away from him. No longer did it just rampage through the woods, it tried to dodge the trees as best it could. But Lucas was now faster, stronger, and significantly less tired. He was slowly but surely catching up to it, and he was sure the buck was aware of it too. There would be no escape. The only options would be to fight or die trying.

And the buck chose to fight one last time.

It had purposefully slowed down and acted too tired to move on. Lucas, believing that it was getting too tired to continue, sped up. He could almost taste his victory. Satisfaction in his own kill. Satisfaction in using his own observational skills and intellect to defeat an overwhelmingly superior enemy. Satisfaction in being the first of his siblings to take out prey of this size.

The deer slowed down to a quick trot, and that is when he decided to strike. He was confident in his victory. He leaped through the air, teeth bared, intent on grabbing a hold of its left leg. And then it turned around.

This was when Lucas knew, he messed up. It was a ruse, a feint. One that he fell for hook, line, and sinker. He was caught midair, unable to avoid a charge if it happened. He briefly locked eyes with the buck. They were no longer luminescent, but back to their original brown. But there was a fire burning in them. Determination. Not a desire to live on, but a desire to cause as much pain as it could to Lucas.

And cause a lot of pain it did. With its remaining energy, it dove headfirst into Lucas’ body. Still in midair, Lucas tried to shift his body out of the way but was largely ineffective. The buck caught him along his left side, ripping gashes in his side. The crown of the antlers, which seemed to be pretty round and dull, easily tore through his fur.

He crashed into the ground on his uninjured side, whimpering in pain. Three different gashes crossed most of the left side of his body. The upper two were shallower and did not seem to put him in immediate danger. The third one was a different story. It was bleeding profusely and was significantly deeper.

And there was not anything that he could do.

His fur quickly became matted with blood, pooling onto the ground beneath him. Then the pain began to shift. At first, it felt hot. Burning even. Excruciating anguish that continued throb with his heartbeat. But it slowly transitioned into a cold ache. The wound did not hurt. In fact, nothing did. He was not able to feel anything but the chill.

He had messed up. He should have known. Correction, he already knew. He just did not think that it was important. He knew other animals would become aggressive right before their death. He had just assumed that it was too tired to continue. And not intelligent enough to trick him. His overconfidence had gotten the better of him. He was sure he would win. But that cost him everything. He knew the saying learn from his mistakes, but how could anyone learn, if that mistake was the last choice that they made. They would not be able to.

His determination was for naught. All of his thoughts and ideas would die with him. He had lost to the same animal that his siblings had to. And now, he was going to suffer the same fate as Ben. He found the situation humorous. He, an apex predator with the intellect of a human, died so quickly in the wild. Against a situation that he knew about and could have avoided if he was more cautious.

A white fleck drifted in front of his nose and melted as it touched the ground. Soon, more snowflakes followed, with the majority of them melting as they landed. Eventually, enough of the snow had sacrificed itself to cool down the ground, and it started to stick. Before long, a thin sheet of snow covered the forest floor, creating a pale, ethereal beauty in his blood-deprived mind.

Lucas’ eyes slowly began to drop. There was nothing more that he could do. He had fought against closing them for as long as he could. He was going to die for a second time.

Then the greatest aura yet entered his sensory range. It was so massive that he could not even tell its source. It made even his alpha’s, the literal apex predator, seem like a drop in the ocean. And it made him feel inconsequential. Trying to fight against it would be like trying to put out the sun with a water gun. Or trying to make communism work in a country. It was just would not be possible.

Not only was it massive, but it was also more complex. All of the other auras that he had felt were monotone, save for the alpha’s who felt cold. But this one was so much more complex. Multiple layers of different feelings all entwined together but also separate. It felt burning, freezing, alive, and dead all at the same time. Most significantly, he felt death. An unending, black void that was inevitable for everyone and everything. After all, the only certainty in life is death.

The pure magnitude and complexity of the aura were so immense that it made him freeze. But only for a moment. It was inevitable. There was nothing that he could do anymore. He gazed forward as his lifeblood pooled out of his body and seeped into the ground.

And finally, Lucas closed his eyes.