Chapter 25

Lwanda waited for the blow that would take his life. His eyelids were tightly shut, his teeth clenched as he waited for the gory death that would soon follow.

10 microseconds....20 microseconds, time that would usually pass unnoticed now felt like decades to Lwanda. It was like everything was playing out in slow motion and he felt it all.

“It really is true. Your life really does flash before your eyes before your death”

In those few microseconds Lwanda waited for his release. Albeit he didn’t like it, he had no choice but to accept it. With the fear of his impending death, he felt his mind clear up, all the worries that he had, all the stress that had been weighing him down, all seem to fade away. In this moment they were insignificant, he felt a huge load lifted off his back.

Counting down the microseconds Lwanda patiently waited. 30 microseconds...50 microseconds...77 microseconds. He continued to count but nothing came, after the decade like second, Lwanda finally opened his eyes to assess his current situation.

The scene playing out before him was something Lwanda would never have guessed, not even in a billion years.

The angry jaguar kept clawing towards Lwanda, ripping the vines that lay in its wake, but at the same time the vines kept regenerating, growing at a speed that could be seen with the naked eye. Each time a part of it was clawed out, it would regenerate; healing itself super-fast and blocking the jaguar's path once again.

The jaguar kept at it, clawing even more ferociously trying to get to its target, but even still the vines kept regenerating foiling its plans. It was a clear stalemate and neither was willing to compromise.

Lwanda stared at the scene in shock, never had he thought that the brittle looking vines would be so resilient, of all the things that would save his life he’d never thought this would be it.

Snapping out of his thoughts Lwanda dug deeper into the vine maze, distancing himself even further from the jaguar. Seeing that, the jaguar let out a ferocious growl, one look was all it took to discern how pissed off it was. It started clawing faster, harder, in the hope of breaking through before the vines regenerated but it was all for naught.

As Lwanda watched the show a sudden feeling of wooziness befell him. His vision was getting worse by the second.

“Oh yeah...”

Lwanda looked at his bleeding arm, he’d temporarily escaped one danger but he wasn’t out of the woods just yet. He’d lost way too much blood, if he didn’t fix it soon, he’d be sure to die of excessive blood loss.

He glanced at his broken left arm, it was in no condition to tie and possibly stop his bleeding. He sat pondering for a second before his gaze fell upon his staff once again.

A slight frown manifested on his face; an idea had struck but he hated it the second he got it.

“This is going to suck”

Lwanda moved the staff closer, he sighed heavily then bit hard on the vine closest to him, in that second, he sent his will to the golden crystal again.

**Bzzzt **

**Chrrr**

**Nnnghhhs!!**

Lwanda writhe in pain, he bit harder on the vines. Tears fell from his face as the lightning scorched his skin. The excruciating pain was unbearable. The combination of shock and burn was way worse that he’d ever imagined, but it was the only way.

Tears continued to fall, the frown on his face only worsened as the torture carried on, drool flowed down his mouth as he bit hard on the vine, his subtle moans reverberated through a short distance before it was drowned by the jaguar's ferocious growl.

Unable to take it any longer Lwanda felt himself losing consciousness, the pain coupled with the massive blood loss was just too much for him to handle. He cast his gaze one last time towards the jaguar before everything turned dark.

….

**Growl**

An echo of a growl softly reached Lwanda, it sounded like it was far off, barely struggling to reach him in time before dying off.

After the first growl, a second one followed then a third, each consecutive one felt like it was growing stronger, louder and getting closer.

Lwanda struggled to open his eyes, they felt heavy and he felt drowsy, he wanted nothing more than just to close them tight and sleep some more, but his instincts told him that would be a bad idea. A sleep that he’d never return from.

As he stared into the darkness before him, he tried to recollect himself, figure out what was going on and where he was.

Subtle images flowed to his mind, the more he saw the more he frowned. An avalanche of images suddenly flowed in before Lwanda jolted up opening his eyes wide open. as he looked around all he saw was darkness, the sun’s light was no more.

He had no idea how long he’d been out for but he had a feeling it was a long time. Unlike back on earth the day and night circle in this planet were way longer. From his estimate the days were roughly 50 hours each and so were the nights.

The fact that it was already dark outside meant he’d been out for 20hours at least. As Lwanda thought about that his gaze swept across the place, he was looking for the jaguar, the silent night void of ferocious growls made him uncomfortable.

Lwanda looked out but saw nothing, he tried listening but again he heard nothing, it was like he was the only living thing there, no other sound existed not even the normal sounds from creatures one was accustomed to hearing in the night.

“Is it really gone?”

As the thought struck Lwanda, a pair of bloody red eyes suddenly opened up before him.

“Fuck !!”

Lwanda jolted back in shock, he was beyond surprised, the jaguar had been before him the whole time but neither could he see it nor sense it, it was like he was staring at nothingness.

“What the hell is that? Is that a cloaking technique?”

Lwanda stared in shock as the bloody eyes shut once again and with them the jaguar vanished yet again, gone, like it was all an illusion.

“What the hell?!”

Lwanda was panicking, it was already stressful enough to deal with the jaguar as it was, but now this whole new ability made things way more difficult.

“How am I supposed to deal with that?”