Kaiser of the New World

What did I just see? (56)

The next couple of hours were extremely intense, arduous and painful for Kai. While the breakthrough may have seemed instantaneous, it was far from that.

Every insight he gained came with a price. Be it a bruised rib or a new cut on his arm, Kai even thought he broke the pinky finger on his left hand when attempting to dodge Umbra's attack one time.

But there was progress, Kai could correctly anticipate six out of ten of Umbra's attacks. Sadly, this didn't mean he could dodge them all though.

Even with his slightly improved Dexterity stat, he was still too slow, too unbalanced, too inexperienced to be able to react properly to every attack. But just the fact he knew what was about to happen helped ease the mental duress he was under.

While Kai may have thought he was kind of smart back on Earth, he was far from smart in a place like this. Him calling himself smart right now would be like a toddler in a library calling itself smart after reading all the easy picture books.

To successfully watch the soul of his opponent, their actual body and his surroundings all at once was stressful and torturously hard. Kai's brain hurt and he was a but dissapointed that what he was doing didn't count as a mind attack so that Strong Mind would help out. The uncommon skill was collecting dust ever since the moon incident.

But even if he couldn't dodge the attack in time, just knowing what was about happen gave him enough time to form a thought on what to do. It also gave him enough time to brace and defend himself, lessening the pain og the incoming blow. Although Kai would much rather just dodge as he was too weak to fully deflect the weight of his familair's blows.

Umbra, on the other hand, seemed to be really enjoying herself. The pitch-black wolf thought of the whole situation as one big game of tag. She seemed to be extremely happy whenever Kai managed to dodge a hit she was sure was about to connect.

That wolf has too much energy...

Even though he's only been awake about two hours, Kai already wanted to pass out. Keeping the telepathic link open the whole time, focusing on anticipating someone's moves through their soul and just the atmosphere of The Dome all made Kai just want to curl up in a ball and return back to sleep.

He probably would have, if he was back on Earth, but just the fact he would have had to use a tree root as a pillow was enough to deter him.

For now...

Successfully managing to dodge another one of Umbra's relentless attacks, Kai slowly developed a better understanding of how souls worked.

Watching a soul while fighting was like reading someone's mind. In their soul, they knew what they were going to even before their mind knew. Their soul was their very being after all.

Meaning, if Umbra was going to attack Kai's left, there would be a sign. It was as if the soul was calling out what it was about to do in a barley audible whisper.

Though the more complex the move, the harder it was to understand. Majority of the attacks Kai had successfully dodged were just average swipes or bites, the ones he was not able to dodge were feints or attacks that gave him no room to dodge in the first place.

He was on the verge of passing out from exhaustion, his entire body was screaming out at him, he felt as if he could vomit at any moment. He was at his last straw, he couldn't do this for much longer.

But he wanted to.

Since there was no real threat in this fight, it was thrilling. No danger meant Kai could have some fun with his familiar.