Monster Integration

As I hid into the tree gap, I covered myself thickly with the Rule Bending power, creating a field that will make me part of the environment itself and also isolate even the tiniest part of the aura and sound of my breath.

I am very happy that I had worked on this hiding method.

I wanted something for this scenario when I have to hide from the powerful powerhouse; I had been chased many times in the past that I have to do something like it.

Now, it is the test of this sophisticated method I had developed; though there is no soul sense to give it an extra edge, there are many other ways one could find people that are hiding; some ways are even more efficient than the soul sense and where even my sophisticated hiding method would turn useless.

THUD!

A loud thud rang out as the Copper Mane Lionman landed on the ground a few hundred meters away from me. It had must have landed with quite a huge force, seeing I was able to hear the sound of it despite trees around me absorbing most of the force.

"Little human, I know you are hiding here somewhere here, and I will find you, and when I do, you will wish you have never avoided the chance of swift death I have given you earlier," It said.

I thought its attack would come a very next second, but there was nothing, except for the sound of heavy rain, I heard.

For a moment, I even thought that the Lionman had said those words to scare me, and it might not even have an idea I am here, or it had just left instead of wasting time to search for me since every second count in this second challenge.

But I did not listen to those thousand; instead, I burrowed deeper and deeper into the gap of the tree and waited for it to do something.

Seconds passed, and nothing happened, and as such a minute had passed and some more second. I desperately wanted to walk out of the hole, but I controlled myself and stayed hidden in the hidden hole.

Sup Sup Sup

About four minutes later, the Copper Maned Lionman had finally reacted, and through the small hope, I saw hundreds of coppery blades falling from the sky in the dense rain.

These coppery blades looked like a scyth of the Grimm Reaper, coming toward me to take my life, and they have power to if even if a single one of them were able to hit me, but unfortunately, they will not.

The tree hole I had found is not only well-hidden naturally and by my rule-bending power but also quite deeper toward the roots and the way these blades are moving, they are going to chop the trees from the roots, but they will not go too deep into the roots.

Chop Chop Chop

I watched as the blades fall down on the trees and begin to cut them; these blades are extremely powerful that they are cutting the trees like they are butter, and they are hot knives cutting through it.

The trees are powerful, so powerful that the average Emperor would have to spend hours to cut the single tree, some even not even able to cut it with their strength seeing how quickly they heal, but these coppery blades are having no problem cutting through the trees.

A single coppery blade is cutting around seven trees before it disappears. I watched as trees cut down one after another, and soon it was the number of the tree where I am hiding.

Chop!

The coppery blade had cut through it smoothly, leaving a perfect cut. I felt smoothly the blade had cut through it as I was just a few meters down in the roots.

Within three seconds, the trees between four hundred meters in diameter had been cut down by the coppery blade, but my whereabouts have not been revealed.

I could feel the heaviness in the air as if the Grimm Monster is looking at every inch of the space it had just-chopped. Seeing that, I poured some more energy into the formation and controlled it more finely, so I would not be revealed.

That heavy feeling in the air lasted for more than five minutes before disappeared, and now there is only rain remained.

I did not get out feeling the suppressing presence disappeared; I stayed in my place hiding, and its good I did as a minute later, I saw Lionman flying above me, covered in a coppery circlet of dense Grimm Runes.

It seemed to use some sort of method to sense me, which surprised me, not the method, but it still trying to find me.

Me able to running away despite having a huge difference in power seemed to have irked him greatly that it was willing to sacrifice its chance to greater chance to getting a first reward or better rewards of the second challenge.

Every minute it spends here is giving the others a chance to finish early and also worsening my chances of finishing this challenge with a better rank to get a great reward.

Though I was aiming for finishing this challenge first like I did the first challenge, I know how hard it is; this challenge requires impressive strength and luck, both of which I have in a small amount.

So, I aimed to get a good reward by getting a good rank but for it searching for me like a hound of blood affecting my chances, but there is nothing I could do about it.

It flew around the area for more than ten minutes before it disappeared. I did not get out and waited for it to appear again, but it never did and nor its attacks; still, I waited for forty minutes before I crawled out of the hole, and even then, I remained extremely careful.

Only after ten minutes was I able to heave a sigh of relief and knew it had truly left; if it had not, it would have attacked me by now.