I Level Up By Making Enemies

He stared at the price for a long time.Spending would make the next few days safer. It would also leave him with fewer resources for the three additional forced binds the system now demanded, and for whatever emergencies the middle channels still had waiting.

He had stabilized the connection this far through stubbornness and controlled pressure. Buying the crutch now felt like admitting he couldn’t finish the job himself.He closed the shop without purchasing.

Not yet.

Afternoon brought the complication.The mist beyond the three root pillars began moving in long, unnatural sheets. Lin Feng felt the pressure change in his ears a second before the beast’s head snapped toward the same direction. Something was approaching, not as powerful as the creature he had bound, but strong enough to make the residual hostility in the air stir.

He stood with knife in hand, and locked the bind down hard.

”Stay close and do not attack unless I say.”

The beast’s hatred spiked in protest, but the improved connection held. It moved to his flank, stiff when he pulled.

The intruder broke through the mist in a low, sinuous rush, it was a long bodied swamp predator with a mouth full of forward curving teeth. Lin Feng did not give it time to decide.He met the first lunge with a short Dash and a cutting Counterstep, opening a line of dark blood along its side.

The real difficulty was maintaining the connection to his own beast while fighting. Every time his attention narrowed on the predator, the bound creature tested the link. Lin Feng had to split focus, feeding just enough will into the bind to keep it obedient while still dealing with the immediate threat.

He took another shallow tear across the forearm and a heavy impact against his already bruised ribs before he finally drove the knife up under the predator’s jaw and twisted.

The body thrashed for awhile then stilled.The bound beast had not moved to help or to attack. It had simply watched, waiting for any crack in the connection.Lin Feng stood over the corpse, breathing hard and fresh blood running down his arm.

The small recovery he had gained during the morning had been partially spent. The bind integrity had held, but the strain of the split focus left a deep ache behind his eyes.He dragged the body to the edge of the hollow and left it where the outward flow of residual energy would carry the scent away faster.

Then he sat back down, cleaned the new cut as best he could, and decided to move. One probing predator had already found him so others might follow. Staying still for another full day of pure recovery was becoming its own risk.

The recovery phase was ending whether he liked it or not. He locked his attention on the link again andsettled into another session of steady, grinding pressure, and let the beast’s hatred wash against him without yielding.Tomorrow he would leave the hollow.The hunt for the remaining three binds would begin whether his body felt ready or not.

Morning came so soon and Lin Feng opened his eyes without the usual spike of hatred from the bind. The link in his head still burned, yet the pressure was steadier, less likely to tear if his attention drifted for a breath too long.

He sat up and tested his body. The thigh wound pulled but held. Qi had climbed overnight into a low but usable range.

He stood and the bound beast rose with him. Lin Feng pushed a command through the connection.

”Follow at a distance beasty.”

The creature’s resistance lasted only a few seconds before it obeyed, falling into place several paces behind him.

He left the secondary root hollow, not wanting to linger there anymore.

Yu Mei’s earlier lessons guided him. The first promising pressure zone turned out to be a false lead, a wide platform dominated by three mid tier beasts that shared the space. The second was cleaner but weak, the resident creature fled the moment it sensed the bound beast at his back. Useless.

By late afternoon the character of the swamp began to change. The ground grew softer and water appeared between the root islands in wider, darker pools. Lin Feng slowed as he noticed that he bound beast’s ears were flattened. Its resentment spiked with something closer to caution.

He had entered a new territory. The transition was clear. Behind him the root dominated middle channels continued as before. Ahead, the water deepened and the platforms narrowed into a network of half submerged roots and black, still pools. The residual hostility here was stronger than most places he had passed. The mark of a single powerful owner rather than scattered lesser creatures.

Lin Feng stopped at the edge of the first wide pool and studied the water.

It was too still. There was no surface insects and no small movements. The qi above it swirled in slow currents. Something lived in or under that water, and it was strong enough to keep an entire stretch of the middle channels clear of rivals.

He took one careful step forward onto a slick root that jutted over the pool. And the surface of the water shivered.

A low pressure rolled out from the depths, heavy enough to make his ears pop. The bound beast at his back growled, the sound vibrating with recognition of threat. The link between them burned as the creature’s instincts warred with the forced command to stay.

This one was different. He know he says that about every new and powerful beast he faces, but something about this one was really different.

Lin Feng exhaled and stepped fully into the territory. And the water began to rise.

The water exploded upward and a massive shape burst from the black pool in a surge of pressure and spray. The beast was long and heavily built, its body covered in slick, overlapping plates that shimmered with moving water qi. Fins and root like tendrils trailed from its limbs, and every motion pulled the surrounding water with it. Cold, clean killing intent rolled off it in waves far denser than anything the first bound creature had ever produced.

It locked onto Lin Feng first, then its head snapped toward the bound beast standing several paces behind him.

The water beast clearly decided the bounded beast was the biggest threat to it’s territory.

It launched. And a spear of compressed water tore across the platform. Lin Feng Dashed aside, but the attack wasn’t meant for him. It slammed into the bound beast and hurled the creature backward into a tangle of roots. The wire in Lin Feng’s head screamed. The first beast’s hatred and sudden terror flooded the connection as it scrambled up, snarling, forced to fight for its life.

The water beast closed in with terrifying speed, water rising and shaping around its limbs into cutting lashes and heavy hammers. The bound beast fought back with raw power and desperation, but the difference was obvious. It was outclassed in strength, speed, and elemental control. Every exchange drove it further into the defensive. The bind connection frayed under the strain of its panic and survival instinct.

Lin Feng felt the link starting to snap. He had a fraction of a second to decide. Keeping the bind active meant the first beast stayed pinned in place by his will while something stronger slowly tore it apart. Watching it die while he forced it to stay felt less like strategy and more like pointless cruelty.

”Screw it,” he muttered.

And he released the bind. The connection broke with a sharp, burning snap in his skull. The first beast staggered as sudden freedom hit it, then turned and fled into the denser roots and mist without a backward glance.

The water beast paused for half a breath, head turning between the escaping prey and the human who had been holding it.

Lin Feng wiped water from his eyes and gave it a crooked, exhausted grin.

”Now what?” he called. ”You just gonna stare, or are we doing this?”

The water beast’s killing intent locked fully onto him.

It was much worse up close. Lin Feng already knew he could not win a straight fight. Not here, not with his qi still not fully recovered, not against something that turned the entire environment into a weapon. So he did the only smart thing left.

He ran.

Fleet Footed Dash + upgraded Blackroot Traction sent him sprinting along the network of half submerged roots. Behind him the water beast roared and plunged into the nearest deep channel. Water surged and followed it like a living current. The creature was faster in the streams than he was on the roots.

A lance of pressurized water punched past his shoulder and shattered a root trunk ahead of him. Lin Feng cut hard left, nearly lost his footing on the slick surface, and kept moving. The beast burst from a side pool in a spray of black water, jaws open, and he only avoided losing an arm by throwing himself flat and rolling under a low arch of roots.

”Yeah, yeah, you’re very impressive!” he shouted over his shoulder, breath already burning.

[Rage Value + 700]

[Cureent Rage Value : 10,962]

The water beast abandoned any remaining interest in the escaped creature and committed fully to running him down.

Lin Feng led it along a winding series of narrow streams and root bridges, using every scrap of mobility he had. The upgraded Traction kept him from slipping into the deeper water where the beast would finish him in seconds. Dash after Dash ate through his qi at a frightening rate. A grazing water blade opened a new line of fire across his back. Another impact against a root wall drove the air from his lungs.

He needed a better position. Somewhere he could stop running and force the fight onto ground that didn’t constantly try to drown him. Somewhere he could build the water beast’s hatred high enough for a second forced bind attempt without getting pulled under first.

The stream curved sharply ahead. Lin Feng spotted a higher cluster of interlocked roots that rose above the worst of the water levelan island of relatively solid ground in the middle of the flooded territory.

He ran hard for it, with the water beast surging through the channel right behind him, and threw everything he had left into one final Dash.

He hit the raised roots, spun, and skidded to a stop as the massive water beast exploded from the stream below, water qi already shaping into the next attack.

Lin Feng wiped blood and dirty water from his mouth, raised the knife, and settled into the best stance his battered body could manage.

No more running. The real fight and the second bind attempt started now.