Howling in terror, seeing the tiger come once again, the monkeys jumped even more furiously on the trees, not even caring about others who were getting left behind, as they all tried to protect themselves.
As Mark, like a slaughterer, came out of one shadow and another and bit their heads off, clawed their bodies apart, bathed in their red blood, chewed their hearts out, he was lavishing every moment of the slaughter he was committing.
As soon the piercing pain attacked his body from top to bottom, making him growl out loud and disappear into the darkness, but this time not to come outside to kill more monkeys, as another two notifications rang inside his mind.
[Killer gift activated, permanently stealing 0.1 Strength stat*9.]
[Killer gift activated, permanently stealing 0.1 Agility stat*8.]
But not caring about the notifications, he felt his body bulging out, as if something wanted to burst out of him, as he felt his muscles tearing and mending, swelling with each moment passing, and then squeezing shut tight to become leaner and slickier.
This all happened within five seconds, as before he knew it, the transformation ended, but it was enough for him to wish not to let such a transformation happen again.
Every time his body got transformed, he felt a different type of pain. How was it different? He had no idea, he just knew that it in his brain, he just knew that terrible feeling, but simply couldn't describe it.
But one thing was sure as hell, no one would want to go through such a horrifying pain in their life.
Next, removing all the thoughts from his mind, Mark again focused on his target, who was rushing towards him.
Hiding and running inside the darkness, Mark also rushed towards his adversary, and the moment he reached Blake, he rushed out of the darkness.
As if knowing his location, Blake had also stopped to clash with him, throwing his punch with all his power at him, but remaining in a state of invulnerability, Mark let the attack pass by and hit the ground, as he leapt to grab Blake's neck.
Like a snake biting its prey, Mark bit Blake's neck with all his power. If that wasn't enough, he used his entire strength to push him to the ground and thrashed his entire transformative monkey body, making Blake flail and try to retaliate in horror.
But what made Mark go insane was that even now, he couldn't do anything to Blake, much less damage him.
Not even a drop of blood shed out of his neck, his fangs were even biting his throat, yet nothing, as he saw the monkey Blake laughing and howling crazily.
Slapping his claw hard on Blake's laughing face, Mark again disappeared, but this time he completely ignored Blake.
He simply couldn't deal with him. He accepted his loss and changed his target to other humans.
This was a race against time and the thousand humans, not just one person.
Four hours had passed since this horrifying killing game started, and yet 681 people still remained alive.
He couldn't waste any more time on Blake and needed to hunt other humans and increase his stats at the same time.
But Blake wasn't the one who was letting him go, running beside him, leeching at him like a loach; he kept him marked, but Mark didn't care.
His agility was higher, he was hidden in darkness, and soon he left Blake in dust, as this time he targeted the group of five humans.
He was powerful. He had a Killer Gift. He could attack everyone at their weak points even without thinking, and at a glance, he could tell who was prey and who was predator, so, ignoring the first two groups, he targeted the third group, which had five members.
At a glance, he knew, they were family. He didn't even know whether they had killed anyone or not.
But he sure as hell knew one thing that they were prey, his prey, not predators at all.
So leaping out of the shadow, he attacked the head of the family, the father, who was close to no threatening to him, biting him on the neck.
He was so fast that the other four only saw something blur and heavy hit Ace, as screams rang out of their mouth in fear, when the next moment, he turned into a bloody mess.
His throat was gone, his neck was a tilted mess, as the blood was pouring out of his neck like water, but before they could run, or even think of running, they met the same end as Ace.
As slashing their necks with his talons, Mark ended their misery right there and then.
Thus, the hunting began.
He ignored all the predators, as he leapt at all the prey he could find. Whether the person was alone, in a group, hiding, running, or fighting, he slaughtered them all.
In between, he targeted the monsters he found in his way. Killing camouflage snakes, tearing the monkeys apart, slashing fledgling trees eyes, as he even killed two other new monsters.
One was a bird type, it looked like a crow, but it was of green color, ironically, it was called a green crow, nearly making him laugh.
But the beak of the green crow wasn't any laughing matter. It was as sharp as his claws, and the speed at which it could fly was enough for it to kill normal humans without them even realizing.
The other one was a rat. A bloody red rat. Its glossy bloody body was enough to make anyone terrified, while its two fangs were enough to drill the land apart and hide inside and come out of it in total silence to sneak attack, mostly at humans ankles, and then it would directly attack people's mouth or eyes, go inside their very body to destroy them from inside.
It was a small but terrible being, which tasted really delicious, so he especially targeted them to eat.
While Blake had also stopped pursuing him and started attacking other humans and beings to increase his stats, too.
Maybe finally realizing his predicament, or maybe remembering that sooner or later they would have to meet, cuz without one of them dying, they simply couldn't live past today.