At least they should have, but what met him were two empty sockets that bled a thick, black liquid. Those hollow cavities seemed devoid of any light, as though someone had roughly carved out the tiger's skull and forgotten to fill them.
'W-what kind of beast has eyes like this…'
With a horrified expression, Damon forced his eyes to stay open under the weight of the fear creeping into his mind.
He tightened his bleeding grip around the severed insect forearm as a bitter chill crept down his spine. However, when the moonlight shifted across the huge silhouette, he noticed something terrifying.
His own face had begun to appear within the dark pits of the beast's empty sockets.
As his body slowly gave in to the cruel winter cold, his copper skin became covered in aching patches of frost, and ice gradually formed along the tips of his hair.
'What am I supposed to do now!!!'
Fighting seemed suicidal, and running was a losing game of stamina. Where would he even go? He knew nothing about this foreign land or how far away the nearest human settlement was.
Without a proper weapon or a plan, his chances of survival looked bleak, even with whatever martial arts he knew.
Although the beast stayed still, he could already sense the bloodlust seeping through the freezing air.
As a solitary ambush predator, the drive to hunt was all the creature knew. The apex beasts of these shifting dimensions did not seek conflict out of malice; they simply lived on the instinct to eat and claim territory.
'I just need to get out of its sensory range, and then I'll make a break for it,' he thought desperately.
In actuality, the mutated beast had unique senses that far surpassed human limits, tracking heat and heartbeats. This made it nearly impossible for Damon to lose it in the heavy snow. Nonetheless, he had to try.
As the anxiety of waiting drowned his mind, the tiger abruptly lowered its huge torso and crouched on its powerful hind legs. The clay-tiled roof cracked under its heavy paws, and the beast launched itself through the air.
"That thing jumps that far!?" Damon cursed aloud, watching the winter tiger move with such terrifying agility for something so large.
He threw himself to the side as the white blur came down from above. The snow exploded into the air as the tiger crashed into the spot he had occupied a moment earlier, scattering chunks of ice and stone across the ruins.
Seeing the beast turn and shake off the landing, Damon took a sharp breath to steady his shattering nerves. The tiger had missed. If he was going to fight, now was the best chance he would ever get.
Like a desperate gladiator, he charged in and raised the sickle-like limb over his shoulders with both hands, then hacked down with all the strength he could muster.
But the beast's hide was far tougher than he had expected.
Crack!
The sickle's edge shattered on contact, sending tiny, razor-sharp shards flying straight at his face.
Damon felt a stinging pain spread across his cheeks and forehead as thin cuts opened in his skin. Warm blood trickled down, but he paid little attention to it as his eyes stayed fixed on the tiger.
Or rather, on the lack of any injury on its white fur.
'How is that possible!?'
Damon flinched back and tried to turn and run, but it was already too late.
Before he could move an inch, something heavy lashed against his side and sent him crashing into the base of a nearby tree.
Thud!
As he collapsed into the cold snow, he opened his mouth to scream. Instead, a thick clump of blood spilled out. A storm seemed to brew inside his flesh as a terrible heat spread through him, clashing with the freezing air around his body.
"Haa—!"
As if to taunt him, the beast swiped its tail through the air like a cracked whip, showing off the very weapon that had just sliced open the side of his shirt.
Damon clenched his teeth in disbelief. He had barely seen the attack coming. Even worse, if the tail alone hit that hard, he could hardly imagine what would happen if those claws dug into him.
Unfortunately, the tiger didn't give him time to dwell on it. Instead, the beast lowered its body once more and charged.
'Already!?' Ignoring the agony flaring through his body, Damon spun around the thick tree trunk as the tiger closed in.
Bang!
Wood chips exploded into the air a split second later as the creature's right foreleg tore through the thick bark.
The strange heat flared at his back as a crimson line of blood and flesh was cleaved open, exposing the raw wound to the freezing air. Icy wisps of wind seeped into the injury without mercy, and a blood-curdling scream tore from his throat.
"Haaagh!" His body lurched forward as a strip of bloodied cloth drifted into the snow behind him.
With a distraught expression, Damon stumbled ahead, his knees nearly buckling as the tiger prepared another attack. He rolled through the deep snow before the claws could come down, then scrambled back to his feet, trying to calm his ragged breathing.
But how could he?
While the adrenaline had already kicked in, the cold was creeping into his very bones. Nonetheless, he kept running, each desperate breath colder than the last.
As he barreled through the dense forest, a huge fallen tree appeared ahead, blocking his path. It was twice as thick as the surrounding trees, and its weathered bark was a darker brown, with several old cuts along the surface, some showing a strangely red grain within.
Damon planted his foot against the bark and grabbed one of the exposed roots without hesitation. Using the agility he had earned through four hard years of combat training, he pulled himself up and over the barrier in one try.
Rip!
As he landed on the other side, his torn sleeve snagged a sharp root, and a new wound opened along his bicep. He hunched over, coughing hard as his teeth began to chatter from the shock.
Bang!
Just then, the tiger smashed straight through the fallen tree as easily as the last one, like an unfeeling, living battering ram. Splinters flew outward like shrapnel, and a heavy chunk of bark caught him square in the back and sent him sprawling face-first into the snow.
The impact drove the last of the air from Damon's lungs for what felt like the tenth time in a few minutes.
His vision swam as he tried to push himself up with what strength he had left. Concussed and barely able to keep his eyes open, he saw the white tiger already charging at him through the settling cloud of frozen debris.
'Move. Move!'
His legs wouldn't respond.
'Of all the times for it to give out… now?!' Damon's heart seized as he realized his right ankle wouldn't budge.
He tried flexing the muscles as the back of his knee began to swell fast. At the same time, a memory of the training room and a disastrous lesson flashed through his mind.
'The kick! I kicked Diana with this leg!'
As the thought echoed, the sound of the beast's low panting reached his ears.
It closed the distance in seconds and pounced on him.
Realizing the beast meant to clamp its jaws around his neck or head, Damon raised his right forearm and shoved it between the canines smeared in green fluid.
His nostrils flared as the tiger's hot, rancid breath washed over his face, and his arm was jerked back. But what came after was far worse than the impact.
The beast thrashed its head around, tearing through flesh and shattering bone with ease. Its teeth worked like a butcher's blade, taking what they wanted.
Damon lost all feeling in his arm immediately after; his vision was showered in a spray of his own blood.
A primal, agonized scream broke from his throat as blood pumped from the stump of his shoulder in rhythmic spurts. It stained his hair a deep red, and the white snow soon followed.
Sniff! Sniff!
The tiger raised its bloody snout as if savoring the smell of iron, then stepped back and dropped the severed arm onto the ground.
'Was my arm not enough!?' Damon's face fell into despair at the sight.
Suddenly, his frantic thoughts halted as the beast lowered its head instead of attacking him further. It began to eat the cold flesh straight off the bone, tearing strips away with slow, sadistic leisure, its empty gaze leering at the rest of his limbs with sinister delight.
Met with his ominous reflection in those bleeding sockets once again, Damon's mind finally caved.
He sank his remaining fingers into the snow and dragged his weakened body across the frozen ground. The bloody stump flowed like a stream and left a dark, crimson trail behind him.
But Damon no longer cared. His head was growing light from blood loss. His vision blurred at the edges, and shapes lost their outlines until he could barely see where he was crawling.
Behind him, the sickening sound of chewing had stopped.
Yet, Damon kept crawling forward, cold and terrified.
His legs had gone numb a few seconds ago; whether from the cold, the blood loss, or the shattered nerves in his spine, he couldn't tell. He suspected he would never use them again, even if he somehow survived the night.
"I don't want to die!"
Damon never thought he would be dealt such a horrific hand twice in a single day.
Like the cries of any other dying animal, his voice cracked and echoed weakly across the quiet forest before fading into a slow, pathetic whimper. After three minutes of struggling, the movement only made his body more sluggish.
'I-I'm feeling… really tired…'
'Maybe I should… I should…'
'This stuff… isn't so bad for a bed? And Mr. Tiger must be starving...'
As he drifted toward unconsciousness, Damon was lost in a peaceful daze. His swollen fingers grabbed a small clump of snow and pressed it loosely against his palm.
At that moment, a voice drifted into his ears, quiet and calm.
"You'll catch a cold resting there, boya."
"Huh…?" Hearing that strange, playful tone, Damon tried to lift his heavy gaze and gave a low mutter.
But he could only make out a blurry figure in flowing white robes staring down at him, arms folded across her chest, a warm, serene smile on her lips. Her white garments seemed to glow against the snow, and her long gray hair was tied back in a simple, traditional knot.
"There's no need to strain your eyes. I'm just a weary old woman, that's all." The woman's smile widened.
It might have been his fading imagination, but Damon could have sworn there was a small pause right before she called herself an old woman.
"Please... help me…" He opened his dry mouth to ask for help, but the words came out as a whisper. He was worried she wouldn't hear him; she looked well over sixty, after all, and Vincent had once warned him that old people often had trouble with their ears.
At the sight of this new party, the tiger, silent throughout the chase, let out a deafening roar that shook the snow from the surrounding trees.
It then lunged at Damon's exposed back.
In an instant, the old woman took a single step forward, placing herself between the bleeding boy and the lunging beast. Damon caught a glimpse of something strapped at her waist. It looked like a plain wooden training sword, with no sharp edge.
However, a moment later, he clearly heard the sound of fine steel being drawn from a scabbard.
Shing!
What followed was the sound of the air itself being sliced apart, and heavy thuds landed like rocks thrown into a calm lake.
Damon watched in shock as huge chunks of frozen flesh, the tiger's flesh, fell into the snow around her feet. Half of the beast's severed head landed inches from his face, its empty sockets still reflecting his pathetic face.
The old woman turned her head to look down at him, as though she had merely swatted a fly, her calm smile unchanged.
"Who are..." Damon's voice failed him. Before he could finish, his body gave out, and a wave of darkness swallowed him whole.