Now the whole royal family held their breath, wondering if he had survived the waterfall. After just over ten minutes they had begun to think he was dead, when Darius emerged out of the water, panting as he struggled to clamber onto the banks of the river. Much to Lionel's dismay. He was exhausted and out of breath, only to be met with the entire troop of spirits waiting for him. The Emperor and co marveled at the young man's lung capacity.

They had simply followed the river and watched all that had happened. Darius had no time to stop and think as immediately one of the man sized beasts attacked. Darius instinctively swung his hammer, killing the spirit instantly. He was far too frightened to even marvel at the fact that he had killed a spirit.

To most people spirits were extremely frightening. They were far more capable than most frightening beasts. Even the weakest of these primates could instantly massacre a pride of lions. Thus killing your first spirit was quite an achievement. Darius couldn't care less as he was far too occupied with staying alive.

Still more and more kept coming as Darius battered each one with a single swing, sending corpses flying in all directions. But there just seemed to be no end to the things. In the stands those watching Darius fight couldn't help but watch with awe. It was as if he had an endless amount of energy.

"Just what kind of body does he have to have so much stamina? Lionel where on earth did you find this boy?" The Emperor thought to himself as he eagerly stroked his chin.

Darius continued to swing and swing but after a few hours, eventually, they were beginning to wear him down.

That was when Darius noticed something, these weren't individual spirits, they were just one! After a while he began to notice the presence of a large spirit at the back of the pack. It looked like all the rest, but much bigger. Darius saw the way it seemed to be reaching inside itself. Its hands becoming temporarily intangible and then yanking out four smaller versions of itself, which would immediately join the fight. That was why the spirits felt like they were endless, because they were.

Darius knew what he had to do. He began clearing a path towards the original spirit. Battering its replicas as he moved though. As soon as it was within reach of his hammer Darius used all the energy he had left to leap up into the air and swing down with all his might. Bringing the full force of his hammer down onto the original copy.

Boom!

Again everything in the forest stopped moving. This was the second time a deafening sound like thunder rang out through the forest accompanied by what felt like a small earthquake. All the other participants where stricken with fear at the thought that that could be an immensely powerful spirit and all the spirits were equally scared at the possibility that it could be an immensely powerful human. Unfortunately for the spirits, they were right.

The hammer vibrated in Darius' hands as the copies of the spirit he had just destroyed all vanished into nothing. All that was left of the corpse was a mess of blood and guts left on the ground.

Darius fell back onto the ground. He was tired and hungry. Also not quite sure what to do now. The jungle air was thick and humid and various flies did not hesitate to swarm on the dead spirit's corpse.

Darius was riddled in small cuts and scratches, the biggest one being a large gash where he had hit his head earlier. It was bleeding profusely as he tried to wipe some of the blood of his forehead.

He knew he couldn't stay in one place for long, so he walked up to the river and cleaned his forehead with some of the water.

Can this whole fucking day just end already?

As he cleaned his wounds he noticed something move on the river bed, but wasn't quite sure what it was. He had no idea what he was looking at. It was like one giant claw was slowly opening in the water, taking its time. Whatever creature it belonged to was buried underneath all the silt. In hindsight given his situation Darius would later acknowledge that just watching the claw instead of running as far as he could was a bad idea, but in the moment he simply watched, when suddenly with an explosive crack, a bomb went off under the water.

Darius was immediately thrown back by the blast which destroyed trees and started fires. For just a moment Darius had felt like he was burning. The blast evaporated the water in the river instantly which had probably been why he was able to survive it. But now a gigantic, disfigured bullet shrimp burst out of the river. Darius' instinct to survive far outweighed the pain and dizziness he was feeling. After a few moments it started sprinting rapidly toward Darius. It let out a loud roar as it charged towards him, destroying everything in its path.

Due to its size it was slow on land, although its legs were disproportionately long for its body. Darius didn't hesitate for a moment. He got up and ran for his life. The territory around Darius quickly became foggy as all he concentrated on was running. With the adrenaline coursing through his veins he trekked rapidly over the uneven terrain. He could hear the beast following behind him, using its large pincers to level any trees that dared block its path. Although it was far too slow to ever catch up with Darius, its trump card over him was slowly approaching.

Darius however knew that it would take far too long for its claw to fully ajar, so he still had some time to think of what to. This had been working until he began running up a hill, realizing this too late he didn't have time to slow down. When he reached the peak of the hill, he sent himself flying and then promptly falling again and face planting into a small clearing in the forest, where an attractive girl with navy blue hair was slaughtering an enormous hideous and disfigured two headed jaguar like spirit.

With precision she gracefully decapitated the left head with one of her short broadswords, causing the limbs on the left side to go limp. Making it all to easy for her to finish of the second one. The giant cat like spirit used the remaining one of its two tails to try and whip the girl. And in the girl's mind there was no need to dodge that kind of attack. With a single swipe the tail was sent flying of and landing on the ground just behind her, still wriggling on the ground. The sting of her blade causing the spirit to cry out in pain.

The spirit then tried to swipe at her with razor sharp claws but that was simply sliced of as well. Just as she was about to go in for the kill she was hit by something large that flying came at her from nowhere.

The force of it knocking her onto the ground as Darius face planted into the ground just in front of her. This was not how he had expected things to go. She quickly recovered and got back on her feet to find Darius lying on the ground. She became enraged at the commoner who dared fall on her, and was just about to execute him when he raised his arms and shouted, "Wait! Somethings coming!" he pointed to the hill in the direction he had just come from.

She looked back at the hill, "What's come-"

Snap!

Boom!

The hill was demolished instantly causing soil and debris to rain over the clearing. The blast pushed them both back as a rampaging shrimp charged towards them. The girl sized it up for a moment then bolted, with Darius promptly following suit.

The pursuit was on again as Darius followed the girl wherever she was going. The monster bull dozing everything in its path just behind them.

"A variant, you brought a fucking variant. What the heck is wrong with you?" she screamed. Darius acted as if he heard nothing as he ran for his little life. "You brought this thing, I hope you have a plan to kill it!" Lara screamed as the two of them ran through the forest with incredible speed.

"I was hoping you could help me out with that, I'm not sure what 'it' even is!" Darius screamed back at her.

Lara almost tripped when she heard this. She assumed that the replacement Lionel would bring would have some knowledge on spirits but it seemed that he had no clue

Lara had to think fast, the claw was almost fully unraveled and this time the blast would almost certainly kill them both. She was familiar with this species and knew that each time it unraveled a claw a blast would follow. This was without a doubt a variant, which meant it would be much more devastating. She saw something in the distance, realizing it was a cave, she had an idea.