Mike clearly knew that deciding to face the creature head on would be no different from suicide. The creature had too much of a natural advantage in claws, teeth and build for that, being a near perfect replica of the Chande* species of his home world. Even worse, it wielded at least five different supernatural abilities So, rather than a physical clash of strength which he would definitely lose, he planned to draw the creature into a clash of a different nature, a clash of natural advantages.
Elts as a specie did not have sharp claws,sharp teeth, enviable builds, great hearing abilities, wings, swim bladders neither were they born with any physical advantage that could have placed them by default on the top of the food web , or even any food chain at all. In fact, considering the seemingly unfair natural advantages other creatures who co-habited the same ecosystem as them had, they could have been counted as nothing but miserable creatures meant to be hunted to extinction.
Yet, in defiance to such a predestined end , they went on to become the apex specie on their home world, hunting down any other creature that dared to stand in their way and even driving some of them to extinction, even with all their natural advantages.
The Elts could accomplish this because, having being denied of an innate weapon, they learnt to bend any environment they found themselves to their will , and turn it, and all it's components, into their very own weapon if given enough time to do so.
....and Mike was aiming to do the same to kill his assailant.The only other alternative to that was death. The wild, after all, was nothing if not merciless.
"….follow me if you want a taste of what my natural advantage feels like.'' he muttered as he ran.
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Most parts of the lightless expanse of the Genesis-remnant mountain cluster was characterized by with elevated, interconnected mountain with very steep slopes and sharp ridges. These made the whole place almost impassable if not for saving graces like, passes, throughs, narrow dry valleys and other of such mountain features. The problem was that this places was home to dense plant life clusters-whose size depended on the size of the mountain feature itself-and and harbored creatures that could be deadly harmless or both.
In such places every wrong move one took could be that persons last move - since every turn , and every corner harbored creatures and plant life that looked either deceptively harmless, whose lethality could go unnoticed until the very last moment, or were powerful enough to out rightly kill their target even when they were noticed by them, and where even the terrain itself sought blood-Mike would not dare call himself an apex creature, or even dare to lightly esteem any creature found in any such places, no matter how harmless they seemed . What he could do, and always did, however was to take stock of the characteristics, strengths, weaknesses, threat level, features, lifestyle, and possible uses of each and every specie he came across, and find gaps and loopholes in between them that he could exploit, when possible. This had enabled him to survive for long periods in these areas and even hunt down creatures in whose presence he normally could have had no right to stand, with almost no mistakes . After all, the wild was a very unforgiving place ready to punish ones ignorance and mistakes with grave injuries, or even worse death.
There some attractive, flowering plant lives could spread their death inducing pollens without any warning, even though they, like almost all other plant lives were immobile, some predators found in them were stalkers and ambushers, and could not commit to chasing their target prey over long distances, some avian species were selective feeders while others could make a meal out of anything, some creatures were active during the 'day , others at 'night' and a few at any time . In fact, these places could become the shallow grave of a person who would be foolish enough to tread in those places without the right knowledge. Even a person with enough knowledge of these places would not be totally sure of keeping his or her while walking through these places
It was one of these places, the South Moe pass that Mike was running towards. He knew that he could die since even his limited knowledge of the place could not guarantee his survival. But the alternative to doing so was death, which the enraged Chromo hotly pursuing him was ready to deliver. In contrast, doing so would improve his chances of survival, since he had the knowledge the anger driven Chromo did not possess, and thus could survive a run through the place while the creature could not.
The South Moe pass, as Mike had arbitrarily named it, was one of such places. It was situated between two steep, well spaced and totally vertical mountain walls and led to the Drant woodland-also arbitrarily named by him-, where his Spawn point was.
He ducked under trees along pathways he knew were relatively safe, ran through thorn bushes that drew blood from him, disturbed the nests of one insect specie that delivered painful stings, amongst a host of other nasty experiences .At one point, he was almost bitten by a well concealed, venomous snake as he passed by a bush .Yet, despite all this, he pressed on.
"Roaarrr!" a pained roar sounded behind him for the umpteenth time.
The Chande-like beast was not faring any better. For every damage Mike received, The beast, Chromo, received at least double. Even worse, the creatures of South Moe seemed to possess a natural ability to gauge the level of threat a being posed. So, the creatures that ignored Mike when he ran passed their territory, vehemently attacked Chromo, whom they detected to be a greater threat,when he did the same. Even when it stopped to retaliate, it was forced to move on by the pressure that built up when he did
The woodland , was punishing it's ignorant boldness.
Mike's natural advantage, despite the odds , was proving it's worth .
'