Gravis sprinted in one direction, trying to get to the surrounding cliffs as quickly as possible. At the cliff, he would be able to find a cave, and there he would temper his bones. With tempered bones, he could survive at least one hit from a medium-grade demonic beast.
Gravis continued running, and after a while, he noticed that he couldn't see any animals. Typically, such a forest should be filled with different animals, yet, he couldn't see or hear any. Gravis narrowed his eyes as he knew what that probably meant.
'This is the territory of a demonic beast,' he concluded, yet he continued running. 'There shouldn't be many middle-grade demonic beasts in here. The chances of me running into one are…' When Gravis thought that, his eyes widened, and he immediately stopped.
Gravis was angry at himself. How could he forget his incredible luck? Of course, this would be the territory of a middle-grade demonic beast. With his luck, there was no doubt about that. He immediately took out his saber and concentrated on his surroundings, silently. He had been running in here for a while. There was a high chance that the beast had already noticed him.
'So, what's your plan, Heaven? Will you send a strong creature with a valuable treasure or a weak creature with a worthless treasure?' Gravis sneered. 'You are probably not sure if I would die to a middle-grade demonic beast. So, what will you do? Will you bet big and send a strong one, or will you bet small, and send a weak one?'
Gravis slowly turned and kept watch everywhere, even above himself. The fact that he did not notice any movement in this large area, meant that the beast was an ambush predator. What if there was no beast? Impossible! Gravis wouldn't believe that for a second. If there were nothing, that would be the best case for him, which never happened.
Gravis relaxed and lowered his saber, and then immediately released all of his Will-Aura.
SCREEE!
He heard coming from above and behind him, and he immediately jumped to the side. He evaded not a second too early because a long, thin, spiky leg stabbed into the position where he stood previously. The beast had attacked when Gravis showed his relaxation, and it got startled when it suddenly felt the pressure of the Will-Aura. That's why it had screeched.
Gravis could see the beast now. It was a giant spider, the same color as the night. While standing normally, its body reached 1.5 meters height, and its legs were incredibly long and thin, with little barbs coming out of them. The legs were nearly ten meters long, each, and its four red eyes looked neutrally at Gravis. They were emotionless, soulless eyes that only saw prey. When Gravis saw it, his mood grew severe.
'Big bet it is," he thought to himself. To him, the beast felt like it was just as powerful as the centipede. He could guess that this beast was in the later stages of a middle-grade demonic beast. This was definitely one of the absolute apex predators in this basin!
Gravis couldn't watch it for long, as it immediately lunged forward with incredible speed. Gravis was back in a real life and death battle, and one single mistake would doom him. Just like in his early fights with low-grade demonic beasts, Gravis was utterly outmatched in speed, power, defense, and stamina. He had to predict the enemy's movements again because he had no time to react to the enemy's actions.
Gravis had already seen how the spider attacked earlier, and when he saw it's long, agile, thin legs with barbs, he was pretty sure that those were its primary weapons. Its legs ended in a thin, long, sharp spike. Every step stabbed its legs into the earth, and it was using that increased foothold as a quick way to jump around. Its movements seemed less like walking, and more like climbing.
Just like he thought, the spider stabbed its leg forward like a spear, as it would not use a slash from this distance. Gravis had already prepared himself, and used the Vanishing Shadow Art, to sidestep. The Vanishing Shadow Art was that sidestep that William had shown him. It moved him quickly beside the leg, as it flew past him.
Gravis had already started gathering his strength while sidestepping and immediately released a Splitting Wind Chop onto its leg.
CRCK!
The chop broke the carapace, but it did not sever the leg. 'Medium grade demonic beasts are powerful,' Gravis thought to himself. He immediately did a little jump and firmly held his saber. If everything worked as planned, he could gain some ground with that.
The spider screeched and quickly threw its leg to the side, where Gravis previously stood. Just like he expected, the spider was too shocked to mount an actual attack, and just wanted to shove him away. If he had remained on the ground, he would have lost his balance and would have fallen over. Yet, in the air, he got pushed away, and when the swing of its leg reached sufficient power, his saber dislodged, and Gravis flew away in a curve.
He flew for several tens of meters until he rolled on the ground and continued running. There were several reasons why he decided to get thrown away. First of all, he would gain a lot of ground like that, but that was not the main reason. The main reason was something else.
As Gravis looked back, his assumption got proven, as he saw the spider climb over a seemingly invisible three-meter-high wall. As an experienced ambush predator, and a spider at that, it had surely already spun a net around this place. Why else would it wait for so long to attack him? If he blindly ran into one direction, he would have been caught in the net.
Gravis had a lot of knowledge and experience with fighting beasts. He wouldn't forget something as basic as a spider being able to create a web. He was sure that the spider wouldn't make the web too high, since it had to create it quickly.
Gravis could already see that he was coming closer to the cliffs. He couldn't see that well in the night, but he could see stars vanishing from the horizon, which meant that they were being blocked by something. That's how he could judge that he was closing in on the cliffs.
If he managed to reach the cliff, he would have many more options for fleeing. One would think that transitioning from a 2D arena to a 3D arena would only benefit the spider, but actually, the opposite was true.
It was true that the spider would be able to climb the cliffs faster, but it wasn't able to jump very well. It's long legs, stiff carapace, and great weight made it harder to survive a fall from a great height. So, if Gravis quickly jumped up for multiple meters on the cliffs, and then jumped off the cliff, the spider risked losing its hold and falling on its back if it tried following or attacking him.
Also, a cliff was the essence of the earth element. With his Elemental Synchronicity, he might not be able to merge with it or make it move in an attack, but he could do lots of other things. Gravis looked back again and saw the spider gaining ground. It was pretty fast.
Gravis reached the cliff and could see no cave. 'Tch,' Gravis spat and decided to go for plan B. He quickly jumped to the cliff and started crawling upward like a lizard. He quickly reached a height of nearly ten meters, and he could see how the spider tried to reach him with one of his long legs. Luckily, he had climbed fast enough.
Gravis quickly reached the top of the cliff, stood up, and looked down at the spider. Realizing that it couldn't reach him, it started contemplating.
Should it climb and leave the basin for its meal, or should it give up?