Levi ran.

Fear was beginning to settle into his gut as he strained his ears for any sound of pursuit.

The frantic desperate panic of being in immediate deadly danger.

The slow creeping dread of being outnumbered in enemy territory.

All of it building and growing with every moment.

Resources expended without hope of replenishing them.

Allies falling one after another.

All too familiar.

Behind him, the gorilla bellowed, a deep roar that shook the ground and rustled the trees, then it sent another tree crashing to the ground in a tumultuous ruckus.

Giving no further thought to navigation he simply fled in whatever direction the giant monster wasn't.

He had to get to the next room, but with so many trees in the way he had no clue know where to look. If he could just get to a wall it would lead to the exit eventually.

If he'd been anything but fully drained of stamina and recovering from oversurge he might have managed to stay ahead of the gorillagus.

As it was, he had to rely on the obfuscation of the foliage to have any hope of escape, and even that didn't help much.

The gorillagus's bellows stilled, unnatural quiet descending upon the forest. For a second, the only sound was Levi's harsh breathing and his running feet and the brush of his armor against the ever-present tree branches in his path.

Then a triumphant roar. In a mighty crashing of branches, the gorillagus thundered toward him. Straight towards him, faster than he could move in his current condition.

He still tried, swerving to one side, but he hadn't gone four steps before a tree crashed down on top of him. He hadn't heard it thrown, the gorilla's crashing, thundering footsteps drowning out any other sound.

It knocked Levi off his feet and crushed him to the ground, dropping his health another 11 and leaving him trapped under the surprisingly sturdy branches of the tree.

He slashed out with his Destruction blade, cutting his way free in a frantic scramble that cost him what little mana he'd managed to recover.

The gorilla arrived in person before he could get to his feet. It stomped on the fallen tree hard enough to drive it straight into the ground, the higher branches whipping down. The tree crushed Levi back down to the ground and dropped his health another nine points, his bottomed-out stamina failing to mitigate the impact at all.

Thankfully these branches were the thinner ones. He shoved them aside and staggered to his feet, diving back into the forest a split-second before the gorillagus stomped down right where he'd been a moment before.

He glanced at his health meter. 60/271. A single swipe had done more damage than that, dropping Lash by over a hundred. Levi's armor might help, but at this point even the incidental damage from thrown trees was growing dangerous. He couldn't afford to take even a single hit.

Silence abruptly fell, and Levi immediately froze, putting an arm over his mouth to muffle his breathing.

Though every ounce of instinct screamed for him to keep running, he'd tried that last time and the gorilla had proven to have excellent hearing and uncanny aim.

He stood in the silence as the seconds dragged by. His pulse thundered in his ears, every shaky inhale sounding like a shout in the absolute silence.

The trees fully obscured everything ahead, behind, and above. He tried very hard not to imagine the gorilla creeping up on him in the dim quiet. The tense feeling of impending doom only grew by the moment, urging him to make a break for it.

A snorting grunt from behind was all it took to start him sprinting again. He didn't know what direction he was facing, if he was even heading the right way any more, but that didn't matter as much as getting away.

Another tree fell behind him, this one stomped on rather than thrown. He caught a brief glimpse of towering black fur and the smooth chest of his adversary visible above the trees and immediately shifted direction to throw off its pursuit.

Its course missed his as its momentum carried it too far past where he'd turned, and Levi knew what was coming next. He grabbed hold of the next tree he passed, bringing himself to an abrupt stop just in time.

The forest went silent again, the gorillagus listening for him.

It was closer now, close enough he could hear the snorting of its breath, though not so close that he could see its shadow on the trees.

The only advantage he had was flexibility. The gorilla could outrun him every time, but once it got its momentum built up it would have a hard time redirecting. It could make wide curves, but Levi's relatively small size let him get out of reach as long as he kept pushing.

Even if the brief pauses were more terrifying than the frantic running they interrupted, it was still a respite. His emotions and sanity may be run ragged, but it let his mana and stamina slowly tick upward.

A snort, a footstep that shook the ground, and Levi took off running again.

The gorillagus didn't continue its rampage, pausing after a single stomp. Before Levi could quite register the silence, too quickly for him to stop and hide, the beast was in pursuit. Once again closing in directly on his location.

The damn thing was too smart. Minibosses and their cunning, he could do without.

A crash directly behind him. A whistle through the air, another uprooted tree flung unerringly in his direction, and Levi swerved sharply to the right with what little stamina he'd recovered.

He'd refrained from drinking another stamina elixir since his health was still recovering from his recent oversurge, but at this rate a few more health points wouldn't make any difference.

He downed the strongest stamina restorative he had, shifting his regens together into stamina and amplifying their effects; from 5 health, 8 mana, and 7 stamina per minute, it shifted to only stamina, but 22 per minute.

Three seconds. Every three seconds he could push himself a little faster, move with a little more precision. Every point of stamina he recovered was spent immediately, his speed become erratic with the brief temporary boosts, but it was the only way he could keep ahead.

If the room had ended up being any larger, he wouldn't have made it.

Even hiding and switching direction unpredictably beneath the canopy cover, Levi would be squashed flat if he made a single mistake. The giant gorilla was fast and relentless in addition to cunning and observant.

Thankfully, it seemed this room was set up more like an arena than the vast terrariums of the previous room, and Levi found a wall less than a minute of frantic dodging and running later.

Not that the wall was any safe haven.

A flung tree slammed into the wall just above him, sliding down and almost pinning him if he hadn't pushed off hard the instant he reached the wall, diving back into the forest and ducking out of the danger zone. Even then, the crashing of trees bouncing against the wall and smashing to the ground meant it was almost another minute before he could return to the wall.

To his great relief, he'd headed the right way. Less than thirty seconds after he reached the wall he spotted the blessedly tiny exit tunnel just ahead. So his sense of direction wasn't entirely broken.

He dove into the hall, out of reach at last. One final tree landed across the entrance, branches stabbing in at him in one last futile attack.

Gasping and laughing unsteadily with relief, he looked back just to be sure he'd escaped pursuit.

No one coming. Even the angry roars of the gorilla had fallen silent.

He tripped over an unseen step in the floor, stumbled and fell forward, catching himself on one hand and a knee. Stairs? Broad and shallow, they advanced upward to a large rectangular doorway whose design was instantly recognizable.

Boss room. He was definitely not going to survive an actual boss fight in his current condition. Even a level 5 dungeon, he'd hesitate to challenge a boss as he was now.

"Crackle?"

Crackle jumped off Levi's head where he'd been resting and buzzed off ahead, then returned with an eager bob.

"Still empty?"

Affirmative loop.

Finally, something going right.