The blade slashed through the neck, and the body in his hand twitched violently, trembling disproportionately to the small size, as if to burst out all the bits and pieces of life contained in it. As the warm, foul-smelling liquid gradually dripped into his mouth, the tremors between his fingers gradually subsided and finally dissipated. Asa squeezed the mouse, not caring that the contents of his stomach were squeezed out as well. It wasn't until the last drop of bodily fluid slowly dripped that Asa dropped the twisted and twisted rat and stuck out his tongue to lick the blood from his mouth into his mouth.

I don't want to die.

The smell of blood steamed up from the stomach. The throat let out a low roar of its own accord, dull and ambiguous, not like it came from an organ, but from some fold in the soul.

He remembers hiding in a tree at the age of three and watching several hunters in the village round up a wounded wolf. He was shaken by the low roar of the wolf, not with fear, but by feeling a string in the deepest part of his soul resonate with it. For some time after that, he was obsessed with understanding the language of animals.

He now understood that the voice had no meaning in the first place, just the scream of life before the threat of death, the emanation of a strong desire to survive and an almost crazy beastly nature overflowing in his heart.

Three days of blood drinking and extreme tension, as well as the critical physical strength. The threat of death and his own desire to survive after him turned him into a beast through and through. But fortunately, reason still dominates all actions.

Asa is well aware of the gap in ability between himself and the Stalker. He remembered very well how the heads of the two infantrymen of the third division were beaten to pieces like watermelons in one shot. The only thing you can rely on now is the advantage of having insight into the other party's intentions.

The stalkers didn't chase him with all their might. This is not a pursuit, the pursuers do not want to catch up with him as soon as possible, and then risk being injured and biting each other with a beast in a desperate situation. It's hunting, chasing the prey all the time, letting the prey weaken in fear and running away, and then coming over when it's a little certain, killing him like a rat and cutting off his head. Whether it was physical factors or the skills to survive in this swampy forest, it was impossible for him to escape the hunt. This is clear to both of them.

For three days, Asa pretended to be an outlaw escape that the pursuers wanted to see. His physical strength also dropped as quickly as he really ran away. If you can't make a fire, you won't have enough food, and eating raw meat from any animal in the lizard swamp is death, and the parasites in the human body are deadly, but you can only look for some non-poisonous insects to eat raw. Although the raw blood of animals is safe and can be supplemented slightly, it is not enough to cope with the sweat and physical strength lost by a lot of exercise. The scarcity of salt and food had almost reached the limit of what could be tolerated, and the illusion of truth that had been laid out during these three days had to be put to an end by an action that could not be made in the slightest mistake.

With great luck, I quickly found three non-venomous worms from the surrounding grass and shrubs. It is the size of a finger and tosses from side to side with vitality. Pinch your head with your fingers and slowly strangle it, and the green feces are squeezed out. It is a very delicate craft to squeeze the worm body too hard, to splash the nutritious juice, and to expel the potentially poisonous feces as much as possible, and after a few days of use, Asa has become very proficient.

The tender flesh quickly became a thick paste between the teeth, and the creamy bitter taste swirled around the taste buds like the swamp air sticking to the skin. Asa carefully grinds with his teeth and scannies the batter with his tongue for any missed chunks of flesh to ensure that all the worms are reduced to the smallest possible units for easy digestion. Every drop of nutrition is precious, the motivation for the next step, and the hope for life.

Use a knife to dig a pit about a foot in the ground and bury the carcass of the mouse. Every time he killed an animal during these three days, he would bury the corpse with precious physical strength.

Carrying the knife on his back, he examined himself carefully, flattened every protrusion of his clothing as much as possible, stepped cautiously on the mound of earth where the mouse, like a careful sentry stepping onto a narrow platform, and then slowly crouched down, lying down, like a giant deformed worm, and slowly moved towards a puddle of sewage beside him.

He focused all his attention on this ugly movement, carefully controlling every muscle in his body, so that his body was as stretched as far as possible against the ground, leaving no visible marks on the soft mud. Any loss of control and uncoordinated action will make three days of scheming completely wasted.

I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, and slowly slid into the chest-high sewage, not letting the sewage splash in the slightest. The weight of the knife was just right for him not to float, and he swiped the mud from the bottom of the water in the direction he remembered. The pool of sewage leads to a makeshift river formed by the rainy season, and he has come here on purpose, and he has chosen this terrain to bury the body, everything is planned.

There was a slight pain in a few places on the body, and the leeches were on the body. Asa didn't pay attention, they would loosen their mouths after sucking enough blood, barely pulling them so hard that they would leave the suction cups in their skin and cause infection, and now the most important thing was to dive as far as possible before the next breath.

I revisited every detail in my mind. There is no flaw, and the great joy of being born arises spontaneously. The only problem now is the carcass of the mountain mouse, which must decompose enough to emit a certain smell before the pursuers arrive.

All I need now is a rotten piece of luck.

On the mud deposited by the decaying debris, Asa prayed fiercely as he prayed as he prayed like a scavenging lizard.

In the afternoon, the sun, which is rarely seen in the lizard swamp, shows its face.

The sunlight was cut into pieces by the branches. The damp ground turns the sun's corpse into a curtain that swirls between the branches and leaves of the trees and the ground. In this sweltering and humid curtain, all swamp life grows and dies as fast as it grows, and even the rapid corruption seems to be full of business.

The pursuers watched silently as a large group of scavenging lizards happily scramble for a mountain mouse carcass. He hated the smell of slime from these ugly scavengers, too strong for his keen sense of smell. One of the larger lizards triumphantly grabbed the carcass and fled, while the others immediately swarmed and disappeared into the woods, leaving only a pit of dirt and traces of the ground.

In the case of humans, this prey is quite good, with good speed, agility, and strength. The Stalker was interested, and quite sure that he would be killed in a head-on fight.

However, it is not enough to be quite sure. This is not a battlefield, but a hunt, and it is necessary to gradually evolve into sufficient certainty with considerable certainty. Since yesterday, the footprints have begun to gradually become weak and vain.

Now, the stalker feels like he's sure enough.

But it's also a strange prey. Although it is true that it is being chased, the footprints do not show the messiness and panic that the pursued prey should have. There was a strange firmness in the feeble steps, not a desperate escape, but something else hidden.

The three days of covering up their whereabouts were good, but they kept making the stupid mistake of burying the carcasses of animals that had drunk blood. This is completely counterproductive, and the lizard will pick up the corpse and eat it in search of the smell of decay. The stalker almost simply follows the stench of the large swarms of lizards.

The incomprehensible mentality, the stupid mistakes, and the seemingly inextricable connection between the two make the stalker feel a little strange. But it's just weird, after catching up, killing, and cutting off the head, there's nothing strange about it. No animal can escape its tracking in this swampy jungle. The stalker has absolute confidence in this. Absolute.

But the pursuers were immediately astonished to find that all traces had only reached this point, and had not extended in any direction.

The air was filled with only the strong stench characteristic of swamp lizards. The pursuer leaned down, scrutinizing the ground for any clues. Although the lizards crawl and scramble for food to make a mess of the surrounding ground, the traces of this prey are still visible to the pursuer's superior observation and experience, and it takes a while to survey all the tracks around it clearly.

There were some vague but unhurried steps, and there was no trace of stepping on their own footprints to return to the way they came, but only a few circles around the bushes, probably looking for food. The stalker was even able to tell that the first food he found was from under two claw ferns, presumably a bug. The front half of the two footprints there is slightly deeper, showing the forward shift of the center of gravity in the bending movement. But beyond that, nothing was found. The footprints came to an abrupt end in front of the pit where the bodies were buried.

This is completely beyond the experience that the pursuers' tribe has accumulated over the years. Running away, disguising, gradually declining physical fitness...... The stalker has to rely on his own mind to connect with these, hoping to draw something from it beyond experience. But it is difficult for a mind that lacks the ability to think logically to accomplish this task. When he found himself in a strange trap step by step, as the fugitive had hoped, an irrepressible rage took over all his thoughts.

A lizard crawled back with its head shaken, sniffing beside the dirt pit, hoping to find some more good. But it immediately became the target of the furious people next to it. The massive body flew high with a furious blow, and then fell into the pool of sewage, sending soaring sewage and sludge flying everywhere. A few leeches came ashore along with the muddy water, wriggling clumsily and squirming to get back into the water. The pursuer noticed this, picked one up, looked at it carefully, cracked it on the ground, and tasted the liquid that flowed from it. Then a hideous expression appeared on his face that was incomprehensible to other races.

Pressed against the ground, the most sensitive sense of smell on the entire continent finally discerned a hint of the smell he hoped to find from the irritation of the stench of the lizard's slime and the rotting smell of the earth. The smell extends to the puddle of sewage.

Take out your heart while you are alive, tear the hot thing that is still beating in your teeth, and swallow it through your throat with the freshest blood contained in it, and turn the cunning contained in it into your own strength.

There must be no damage to the skull. Slowly dig out the brain marrow from the eye socket and eat it, peel off the skin and flesh, and ask the best craftsmen to grind the skull. This perfect trophy can be placed on the ancestral tomb. As a sacrifice, it is a further testimony to the tribe's proud hunting skills.

You are my good prey.

A long-lost excitement pervades the running pursuer, a sensation that only stirs in his body when he is just mature, chasing the most beautiful female of the tribe.