Deftly jumping back to dodge Anaxa's tail strike, the vole mother let out a surprised squeal. She did not quite understand how this weird lizard could wield a pebble like a club.
But she did not have the luxury to figure that out right now.
Facing the imminent danger, the experienced rodent pushed aside the anomaly and just aggressively lunged forward with outstretched claws, wishing to remove Anaxa from this tree.
"Humph."
Anaxa let out a small snort in his mind at the incoming attack and quickly side stepped out of the way, letting the bulky mouse brush past him. Then immediately, the tiny lizard brought back his tail for a second strike, swinging it around and
"Squeak!" The vole mother screamed hysterically in pain as the hit made solid contact, smashing into her ribs. She had never faced such a weird type of attack, thus causing her to slip.
"Nice!" While feeling the strong, solid hit, Anaxa rejoiced, "My tail has become quite a bit faster and stronger than before. That must have hurt. Ahhh… too bad I could not break any bones."
Anaxa 'tsked' himself a bit as he did not feel any of the distinct cracking or the muscles 'giving away'.
Luckily for the mother, the sheer meat and fat on her body had helped to absorb a lot of the impact, thus saving her from any mortal injury.
"Squeak!"
However, just because the worst result was avoided did not mean that the strike did not hurt- in fact, it hurt her terribly. Thus turning around, the vole mother sent Anaxa a manic, enraged stare, snarling at him with fierce drooling teeth.
She shot herself forward to counterattack with the utmost speed, pushing herself to her limits.
The simple minded creature's reasoning was crude yet logical- quickly get so close to her enemy that he could not freely use that weird tail.
"...!!!..." And this sudden burst of power caught did indeed catch Anaxa a bit off guard. He did not think his enemy would be so quick- he had based his assumptions on previous exchanges but now it seems the mother vole had much more to give.
"Aghhhh!" Anaxa thus received a powerful swipe, the sharp claws cleanly tearing through his relatively soft back with ease and leaving large gashes.
And the man actually considered himself lucky that he got away with only this- as the mother's original target had been to bite his head clean off. Anaxa managed to duck only at the nick of time, presenting his back instead.
"Hrrkkkk… my defenses still suck," He cried at the sacrifice, roaring out in indignation as hot blood gushed out of the burning cut. The enraged Anaxa certainly was not going to take this injury lying down.
Thus with his target still nearby, he immediately launched his revenge. widening his jaw and clamping down on one of the mother's legs.
"Squeakkkk!!!" It was now the poor vole's time to let out a terrified scream, Anaxa's bite did not simply pierce her thick thighs, but altogether crushed her femur in a single go.
Such was the power of a 2.5 strength bite.
Scratch! Scratch! Scratch!
Thus in retaliation, she began to wildly thrash about, lacerating Anaxa all over the back with her deadly claw as a way to force him to let go. And within the matter of blink of an eye, Anaxa's back nearly became an ocean of red.
"Grahhh!" Yet that pain made Anaxa only clamp down his vice like mouth even harder.
This 'death by a thousand cuts' type of attack made the small lizard absolutely enraged, and he bit down on the leg with all he had as revenge.
Until…
Crack! The whole joint snapped whole and slipped into Anaxa's mouth.
"Squeak!!!" And the mother vole let out a great pained cry like never before. Understandably having your leg literally ripped off was not a pleasant experience.
This also caused the vicious assault on Anaxa's back to finally cease, as the wounded creature's mind reeled from the agony. Right now, only a blank white haze swam before its eyes, as a growing faintness crept into it from the rapid loss of blood.
"Hrrrkkk!" Anaxa did not let this chance go to waste. Letting out a small victory roar, he suddenly swung his tail right like a baseball bat, this time smashing into the other side of the vole's ribs.
The limping mother finally lost her balance from the immense strike, slipping down and letting Anaxa easily climb over to her back.
Once atop, the man looked down on the nape of the defenseless creature with eyes full of rage- the wounds on his back was still stinging terribly, like bees needling him there, constantly reminding him of the torment he had just gone through.
Thus he was in no mood to show any kind of mercy as he opened his jaw to its fullest, supernatural limit, then chomped down on the soft flesh with all he had.
"Squeakkkk!!!" The mother vole sent out another dreadful cry ringing across the mango tree branch as she felt the razor sharp teeth pierce through her thick fur, muscles and reach all the way down to her bones.
The absolute pain of having saw like teeth grinding against the bone really did not need to be described. Thus the poor creatures bucked like a terrified filly, hopping up and down to try and shake Anaxa off.
Yet that endeavor was quickly shut down as Anaxa held on tightly to the thick, grey fur using his pointed claws, letitng them dig in as far as they would go- to the point they started to draw blood. Thus the tiny lizard was literally claws deep into his prey and not going anywhere.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
If all that was not enough, Anaxa then decided to use his tail to tame his unruly mouse, bringing it up above his head and then sending it down right on to the top of the poor mother's skull like a divine blow from the heavens.
And he did so repeatedly… again, again,
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Until,
Creak… crack!
The first to break was the stone Anaxa was carrying… crumbling into powder against the thick, protected skull. Yet that skull also did not fare too well.
Almost about the same time as the stone shattered, a distinct, crisp noise entered Anaxa's ears and soon he began to see clear streaks of blood sneaking out. They trailed across the forehead, splitting into many streamlets as they crossed the eyes before dripping out the long snout of the nose. And the more time went on, the greater the magnitude of his loss began.
It was right then, the vole mother entered its most frenzied state- the madness in her heart had finally been broken, replaced by a far more primal fear of death and its imminent arrival.
"Squeak! Squeak! Squeak!" Thus it madly struggled in its death throes, madly kicking its legs on the wooden branch and trying to break away from Anaxa, as it let out mournful pleas for help.
Alas.
The iron like grip with which this abnormal lizard held the nape proved too strong to shatter.
Anaxa had cleverly decided not to simply tear the flesh off then he bit down there. His intention was to simply tie the mother down here with these terrifying hooks, making her waste energy trying to escape and causing her to bleed out even faster.
"Damn she is strong! I did not think she had so much strength left!"
Now. even though Anaxa seemed very close to victory, that did not mean this hunt was easy for him. He found he might have underestimated how powerful the mother vole was by quite a bit. Initially he had figured the hunt would be relatively easy given that this was his natural prey.
Yet…due to his relatively young age thus small size as well as the vole mother's unnatural ferocity… well his back had been given a brand new mosaic pattern.
"Agghhh! How much longer do I have to keep this up? My jaw is starting to go numb." Anaxa thus soon began to complain, finding his jaw was not really meant for gripping but biting.
The mouse's struggle was thus making him somewhat annoyed.
"Ding! Target successfully hunted."
Until finally the ceaseless flowing of blood caused the poor mother to ease her thrashing and as she slowly lay down. Anaxa was presented with this cheerful notification.
"Great! Let's dig in!" The greedy lizard wasted not a second longer reading the words, and immediately began to voraciously tear apart the poor creature like there was no tomorrow.
Starting from the back, his jaws tore through the powerful muscles before attacking the juicy flanks and legs, and then finally moving onto the belly.
There he found what was expected from a pregnant animal, and although his heart tugged a bit at the sight, in the end he showed no restraint.
"Ding! Biomass consumed. Beep! Host detected to be injured. Consume acquired biomass to heal wounds?"