The blue rabbit stared at him some more. It crouched in the bushes and watched him vigilantly as Kain was on full alert. For 10 full minutes the two stared at each other while being on full alert. Eventually, Kain got tired of the rabbit staring while not making a move, so he picked up a rock and threw it at the rabbit. The rabbit dodged by flinging itself sideways and, to Kain’s surprise, sent a cloud of strange blue gas towards him. He jumped to the side by strengthening his legs and flew a few dozen feet across the clearing. When he landed, Kain saw the rabbit stare at him intensely, as if ready to make a move, or as if threatening him. Kain pulled out Grand and crouched to get a better shot. At that moment, the rabbit’s eyes flashed a different color for a split second. It was so fast that Kain could not detect it; though that would have been easy, as Kain never had the fastest reaction time. Once the new color flashed in the eyes of the rabbit, it jumped up to a tree almost too fast for Kain to miss, and darted away.

Once the rabbit was gone, Kain was left all alone in the clearing. The blue rabbit with the circular patterns across its fur were imprinted into Kain’s mind. He sighed.

‘Well at least it ran away. I didn’t want to have to kill it.’

Kain didn’t want to kill it when its only crime was looking at him for too long. It was innocent, so it was not Kain’s enemy. Aside from that, he did not want to spend any more bullets than necessary because he had no way of getting new ones. Despite his relief at the end of a potential battle, he now had new questions to contend with. The most pressing of which was:

‘What in the world was that gas? It threw it at me as it dodged as well, so it wasn’t like that was any sort of special attack. Besides, it didn’t show me it's backside when it did that, so it's not like a bombardier beetle with some special mechanism in its back end, so what was it? Will I be able to do that as well?’

Kain was alerted by the rabbit’s ability to project strange clouds of… something from its body because if a simple rabbit could do it, what would happen if a more dangerous creature like a wolf could shoot gas that at least could blind an opponent and at most poison them to death? Despite that, there was a feeling of giddy anticipation in his mind. ‘I want to do that as well.’ That thought rose then fell, rose then fell, and rose then fell again. It seemed to fester in Kain’s mind and took root. He wanted to do that. If a rabbit could, then so could he.

He spent what seemed like what should have been the night trying to practice that odd technique. He tried to feel that tingling sensation in his body again; he ran it up and down his body, making his body look like a morbid blue lighthouse when he did it. The stuff, the sensation circled his body over and over again. Finally, he condensed it into his hand until it felt like it would burst with strength. He then tried to ram it out of his body through his palm, attempting to see what would happen. When he did so however, he felt the strength push back once it was about to leave his body and it shot through the rest of the arm, dissipating without showing any effects. He tried it over and over again until he finally gave up. No matter where he sent it, to his legs, arms, eyes, chest, wherever, it always slammed back and flooded back into his body and dissipated before he could control it to stop. Kain was a bit upset, but he pulled out of it quickly.

‘It could have been worse. It could have blown an arm off or destroyed my bloodstream or whatever carries this power-thing. I may have not achieved it, but I can’t expect the magic water to give me too many handouts. A strengthening ability is a good starting point. Besides, I learned a bit from this, when I strengthen my organs, they actually become stronger.’

He decided that it was time to rest. He did not feel as tired as he should have been, but he firmly believed in the virtues of a balanced lifestyle. So, under a foggy sky and under a floating island a size bigger than some countries, Kain finally fell asleep.

*=====*

Kain slept for a good long while before he jolted awake. He stood up, pulled out Grand and rested it on the rock next to him. He crouched and held the rifle, aiming it towards the forest to his right. He heard a strange noise come from there that sounded like a cross between a bat and a dog with a bit of monkey thrown in for added weirdness. He heard the sound once and no others, so whatever it was, it was alone. The thing came closer and closer as Kain held onto his rifle tightly. The thing that stumbled through the trees was not large, but not small either. It had a short head with an elongated snout. Its eyes were cloudy, and a dark blue that seemed to only see its prey and its predators. Its arms were muscular and its body was shaped like a hairless gorilla.

‘Honestly, it looks like a cross between a goblin from most pop culture and a gorilla. And it's blue, though a bit less blue than the rabbit.’

The goblin-gorilla sniffed the air then glared at the boulder Kain was hiding behind. As the lighting was always consistent here, both parties could see each other. Kain held Grand tightly. There was no way that this thing was going to book it like the rabbit did. Kain decided to err on the side of caution and took aim. The goblin-gorilla glared at Kain once more before darting forward. In the blink of an eye it ran from the edge of the forest to the front of the boulder with its fists raised. Kain jumped back as he was unable to get a clear shot on him and landed at another boulder as the gobo-monkey slammed its fists on the rock that had just hid its foe. The rock caved and a shower of gravel sprayed the area.

‘What the hell!? That thing is too strong!’

The gorilla looked around before it locked onto Kain once more and prepared to dash to him. Kain was one step ahead, however, as he had aimed a shot at the weird thing’s forehead. Grand fired and a powerful bullet was slung towards the monkey. Not even the gorilla could dodge a bullet, so it had to stand there and tank the bullet. The bullet clashed with the head of the gorilla and a cry was heard escaping from its mouth. Despite what Kain had thought was a sure kill, the bullet had only lodged a half and inch deep into the creature’s head. If anything, the bullet merely angered the creature, as it was now glaring at Kain with a glare that seemed to be able to kill, as if asking whether he believed he really could resist. Kain gawked at the sight of a weird gorilla monster with a bullet loosely lodged into its head and thought that he maybe should have run instead.

The creature rushed forward with a vendetta and tried to grab Kain, but he managed to slip away. The thing then lifted up a boulder and threw it at Kain as he was running in a straight line. He managed to dodge by the skin of his teeth and only made it out because he was on high alert and that he had used his strengthening technique on his eyes. Using his strengthened eyes, Kain managed to catch a glimpse of the goblin-gorilla monster as it was winding down from its throw. He saw the thing with a wrathful expression on its face that was only accentuated by the blood that was now trickling down its face. When seeing that, Kain reached an epiphany.

‘They can bleed. So, although this is a cliche, they can be killed.’

Kain placed Grand to the side while having a staring contest with the goblin-gorilla. He then pulled out Dea and started to circle the gorilla. The goblin-gorilla, not to be outdone, circled Kain as well. The two went around each other a couple times, staring at the other with glares. Eventually the monster became too impatient and charged Kain. Kain charged as well. They approached and the monster threw a punch at Kain’s chest, which was dodged. Kain slashed at the creature in return which was able to scratch the creature’s tough, gorilla-like skin, but not much more. The creature took the opportunity to raise its fists high and slam down. While the creature thought Kain had made a fatal mistake, he had instead employed a tactic that he learned in his fight with some bullies back in elementary school which he called baiting. The creature’s fists slammed down to the ground, cracking it, but not doing anything else as Kain had already backed off. He used the distance to pick up speed and charge the gorilla as it was looking up. It saw Kain charging it with the pommel of Dea pointing to one spot: its forehead. He struck the creature’s forehead with Dea’s pommel like a hammer clashing against an anvil. The bullet, dangling from the creature’s forehead, was driven into the skull with a crunch. The creature fell back and let out a screech, though the screech did not save it from the cold embrace of death in the end.