With the punch soon to make contact, Gray felt the hair of the back of his neck rise again.
Ever since his sense stat had increased from the evolution, not only could he react much faster but he was also much more sensitive to danger.
His eyes flashed to the left, and when he did, he felt his heart sink.
A wall, a growing large wall. That's all he could see.
[Trajectory shift.]
Gray pulled back, tilting his body as far back as possible.
After doing so, he watched as a large pillar of wood passed right ahead of his head.
It was a close call, but that wasn't the end of it.
Another wooden pillar extended out of the wooden pillar towards him.
In that instant, Gray reflexively created a platform which he slammed his feet onto.
[Pause Step.]
Gray vanished right before the pillar had hit him and appeared in the air a few meters above the tribe's leader.
He was positioned in a crouching position with muscles bulging out of his leg as he was about to leap towards the leader.
Around him, wooden branches began to extend from the trees towards him. These branches grew bigger with every tenth of a second.
One of them, was propelled at him as if it were a whip.
The wooden whip hissed through the air - *Splat!*
A resounding crack was heard as the wooden edge ripped into the space where Gray's silhouette once was.
Gray's figure had vanished right before it could hit him.
Seeing this, the leader reflexively stretched his arms out, grabbing onto a branch which had extended towards him, before retracting it so it could pull him away.
However, before it could - Gray appeared before the leader once more with his leg extended out in a kick.
[Fast-Forward.]
*Swoosh*
The leader's body swayed to the right, barely avoiding, Gray's kick as it passed right by him.
Thinking that he had gotten away, a nervous smile grew on his face. The branch retracted to pull him away.
Meanwhile the other branches were growing in not only size but speed, it wouldn't be long until Gray would neither time ability nor space to avoid them.
The plan was to last until then.
But - *WHAM!*
The sound of an impact echoed throughout the jungle as the Gray's other feet, slammed against the back of the leader's head from above.
'What!?'
A crack formed on the skull which he wore. With a confused expression stuck in his face, his body was suspended in the air.
"Pause." Said Gray, as he landed on a platform of paused air beside him.
'This boy... No... This warrior... How is it possible that he can move without any movement!?' The leader wondered whilst his figure frozen.
He couldn't move, but that didn't surprise him in the least.
He had gotten hit.
Now that he was immobile, Gray appeared before him with both arms pulled back and ready to unleash a barrage of punches.
With his hair covering his expression, Gray threw a barrage of punches, one after another.
He swung and swung, creating fist prints all around the tribe leader's body.
Although he was keeping up a tough front, Gray had exhausted quite a lot of his energy. Not to mention he hadn't been able to get a good night's rest because of the jungle.
Even with the stat upgrades, the amount of stamina he had was limited.
Despite that, he didn't hold back on bit on the punches.
Part of Gray's anger for being forced to fight when he was already tired was added onto the punches.
He glanced down only to find that Delta and the others had stopped fighting. They were watching with shocked expression.
As Gray was about to unleash the final punch, slammed into his back, sending him flying towards a nearby tree.
The tree opened up showcasing creating a mini cage waiting for him.
Even though Gray had paused him, he could still use his ability. The same applied to everyone. Even the king's dimensional cube and Delta's flames stayed after they were paused.
Gray was only not used to situations like this as he'd generally finish them off before they could make out what was happening.
And most of the abilities he had faced were physical enhancement abilities which would be rendered powerless if one was paused.
This wood manipulation ability worked around using physical manifestations.
Gray created a platform ahead of himself, landing into it with both feet placed on it, before pause stepping to a random location away.
After doing so, Gray's eyes widened.
[Trajectory Shift!]
He shifted his body forward and down mid-air and watched as another large wooden trunk soared right above him.
Upon avoiding it even more trunks extended out of it towards him at high speeds.
It was predictable just like before, so Gray repeated the same movement to avoid it. He pause stepped away.
However, not even a second after he pause stepped, his eyes widened as he was surrounded by trunks, branches and pillars heading right at him.
Gray kicked off a platform to avoid it, only to be surrounded by pillar's coming from every direction.
[Pause Level 3: Chronos Field!]
Gray landed on top of a platform of paused air and watched as the pillars all came to a stop, around him, right after coming into contact with his field.
Gray panted trying to catch his breath. He glared at the tribes leader.
The wooden trunks were surrounding him, creating a wooden cocoon to protect him.
Seeing this Gray placed his palm on his face before pulling his hair back.
His eyes grew cold and dark as bloodlust began to seep out.
"Unpause." He said coldly.
*WHAM!* *WHAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAWHAM!*
The leader's body cocked in direction it was hit as the hits began to register inside of the semi-formed cocoon.
Shortly after, the leader burst out of the cocoon, with injuries all over his body.
His control over the branches went loose and the branches began to sway around attacking everything in sight.
