“And fuck this. How come it can use such a powerful skill?” Leo was a little flustered and warily looked at the snake. It was fun to hear him talk about fairness when after spending merely two days in this world he went from a helpless little cat to a cat that could make a peak rank D feel threatened. 

 

"Phew, I need to calm down. I won’t get anywhere by panicking. I just need to do my best.”  Leo muttered.

'Luxia, please help me assign the attribute point I gained. I should have 25 AP, right?' Leo asked as he continued to keep an eye on the snake.

[Yes.]

'Good, put 10 in Intelligence, 5 in Spirit, and 5 in Agility.' As soon as Leo said those words, he felt the familiar wave of mana wash through his body and strengthen it.

'That should be enough for now.' Leo muttered. 

Meanwhile, the snake that was still immobile seemed to feel the change inside Leo and immediately attacked him with a vigorous swipe of its tail. Hurriedly, Leo jumped and was barely able to avoid the snake's tail. Now that it was healed, the snake's speed was improved significantly and its attack posed more threat to Leo. However, the snake wasn't done surprising Leo. Just as the tail went past him, Leo felt something was wrong and immediately dashed away from the snake's tail. When he looked back, he saw a green cloud of poison busting from the snake's tail and surrounding the area where he was. If he hadn't reacted quickly, he would have been poisoned.

“So it was able to release the poison cloud from any part of its body. Tsk, what a sneaky bastard. It didn’t even use it against the bear. Why is it so hell-bent on killing a cute cat like me? ” Leo said while putting some distance between him and the snake. Now that he was aware that the snake could release its poison from any part of its body, he wasn't keen on staying close to it. 

However, how could the snake just sit down and lose its biggest advantage in this fight? Without hesitation, it started pursuing Leo and throwing Poison ball towards him.  While Leo was able to avoid all the poison balls, the clearing was starting to be filled with poison giving Leo less room to maneuver. However, Leo wasn't just running away. Since the snake already shredded any form of cordiality, Leo too went all out and spammed the snake with shadow spike. Unlike his previous attack those shadow spikes were more powerful, not only did he increase his intelligence most of those shadow spikes were full powered. Despite all its effort, the snake was unable to avoid all of them and Leo managed to deal a good amount of damage to it. 

'It looks like I am still winning this fight. Also, there is something wrong with that snake.' Leo muttered as he looked at the snake's scale that looked to be duller.  Plus during the fight, Leo could feel that it wasn't calm at all. It was as if it was pressed for time and was trying to end the fight as soon as possible.

“Looks like the ability it used to heal wasn't without a price.  Maybe it will receive a backlash from using it or it is only able to maintain its current state for a limited time. No matter what it is since it is trying to end things quickly it should not have too much time so I could try to drag things a little and see how it’ll react.”

Putting his decision into practice, he ran through the clearing and focused on dodging. He only attacked him from time to time with weak shadow spikes and even started using his new skill shadow ball. He was pleasantly surprised since the skill could ignore a part of the snake defense and put it through more pain.

“Phew I am spent, this guy is really good at taking hits.” Leo said looking at his stamina and mana that were down by half despite his regeneration. Afterward, he glanced at the snake that was once again in a raged state and had blood all over its body. He couldn’t help but laugh at the sorry figure it was cutting thanks to his hard work. 

Opposite to the smug Leo, the snake was feeling terribly awful and was thinking of a way to escape this situation. To have a chance against our little cat it has to spend a great deal of its life force to forcefully heal all of its injuries. While this skill basically gave it a second life it also has a severe drawback. The skill just heals it and doesn't restore his lost energy so he had to keep spending his life force in order to continue fighting. The energy Leo felt coming from him was not mana but the snake life force.  In this situation, the snake has to quickly end the fight to reduce the amount of life force it will lose or its lifespan will receive too much damage. The snake thought it would be able to easily kill Leo but things didn’t go as expected at all.

As if knowing its condition the damn cat just kept wasting its time and hopping around like a damn flea. The worst was the fact that he was able to repeatedly cast his ball and spike attack and damage it greatly. At the same time, he was able to evade all its attacks. The snake would have made a run for it a  long time ago but it was really greedy for Leo's bloodline and was unwilling to suffer such a loss without getting anything in return. But things were still not looking good for it after all this time so it chose to give it all and try to bring him down. 

“Here we are. It seems he can’t wait anymore. Haha, that is good. I was also thinking of ending things." Leo muttered when he saw the gaze of the snake. 

 Once again, the snake attacked, but this time it wasn't a poison ball that came out of its mouth but a massive stream of fire that instantly reached him.

'Shit! Do you think you are a dragon or something?' Leo cursed as he hurriedly dodged but the snake followed him with the stream and started to set the whole clearing on fire. 

'Cough, cough. I have to stop that crazy fucker.' Leo coughed as he breathed in the heavy fume that started to fill the forest. The worst was that he could feel a trace of the snake poison inside it. Luckily for him, his health has reached an impressive level and he was able to resist it. Plus by covering him with earth armor the fire did little damage to him.

After spewing fire for ten whole seconds the snake stopped out of breath. It was feeling proud when it saw the massive fire burning around him. However, his pride was crushed when he saw Leo standing completely unharmed at the edge of the clearing.

'Well, you have done your worst.' Leo muttered as he cast a full-powered shadow spike towards the snake. At the time, the snake scales were completely dull and some of them were even falling by themselves. When the shadow spike reached the snake, it easily broke its defense and blasted a hole inside its body.

Thud. With a heavy thud, the snake fell to the ground. " I guess it is the end." Leo muttered as he cast another shadow spike to end the snake. However, at that moment, a crazed light flashed through the snake's eyes and it suddenly stood up and bolted towards Leo.  Its body was shining brightly and started to swell.

“ Oh shit, the crazy bastard is going to blow everything up.” He thought. Without hesitation, he threw the shadow spike at the snake, hoping to kill it before it could complete its plan, but he was a little late. Just as the shadow spike reached the snake, a blinding light followed by a deafening sound filled the clearing. 

[Ding…]

BOOOOOOOOOOM

“ Damn don’t you think it would be a good idea if you die more quietly?” Leo thought as he cast earth armor and ran with all his might.  Unfortunately, he was still caught by the explosion and was ruthlessly sent flying through the forest by the remaining wave.

CRASH, crashing heavily against a tree he slumped weakly on the ground and felt power leaving his body. As he was struggling to not faint on the spot, he was suddenly picked up by two soft hands and pressed against two soft fleshy mounds.

“ Oh~~~ poor things, did the bad guy hurt you?” the person currently holding him asked in a soothing voice.

He tried to struggle out of the person's grasp but was too weak. The explosion created by the snake was no joke and the feeling of the two mounds pressing against him wasn't helping either. After trying a little more and feeling the person tighten their grip on him while lightly stroking his fur he decided to give up and just hoped to not regret his decision later. 

“Don’t worry, little thing, I’ll take good care of you.” The person said as she held Leo and happily walked away.