Chapter 190: Keep Running
'What the hell was that giant creature?'
Kael was frozen like a statue in front of it, so he didn't even get the chance to study its features at all. Or perhaps its body had blended into the surrounding mists way too perfectly for him to see through anything.
'Well, it had to be a boss monster or something on that level at least. But is it following me as well?'
Since he was sprinting forward, he had no way of looking back to confirm it, because if he did, there was a chance he might get tripped by the stones and fall, before rolling down straight into those monsters' maws.
That was the last thing he wanted when every step he took only made it more difficult to move ahead. It was as though he wasn't just running anymore, but instead trying to climb a kinky slope.
In truth, he truly was.
'Still, aren't I going exactly where I came from? What a strange turn of events.'
He had no other choice left, though. Below him were hundreds of creatures swarming around, so there would be no way of getting past them without defeating them. And who would be stupid enough to do such a thing?
'Definitely not me.'
Just as he thought that, a white scythe swept through the air, aiming to slice his back from behind, but he ducked low and barely avoided being injured again.
As the limb cut through nothing but empty space above his head, Kael leaned on his legs and twisted his torso, before blocking the other descending scythe-like limb coming from the right side. Though he wanted to deflect it, the dagger's short size and his awkward position made it impossible, and his attempt failed tragically.
'Crap!'
Gritting his teeth, he tried to push the dagger forward, but instead the scythe slipped along the blade and struck the ground, barely an inch away from his leg.
Finding the brief chance, Kael turned on his heels to face the monster directly while taking a few steps back from it.
He studied the creature for a mere second.
Upon closer inspection, it closely resembled White Scyther, with the only difference being the additional colouration on the shield-like parts of its front limbs, which matched the colour of its eyes. While the former had pink shades splattered across them, the latter, on the other hand, had yellow dots covering most of its body.
He took a deep breath, causing the drifting fog around him to scatter a little.
'What should I do?'
Since this creature had managed to reach him first, he couldn't run away from it now. After all, it could catch up to him again simply by flying faster than him, and he couldn't do anything about it, so there would be no use in trying.
For now, at least.
But if he were to engage it in a battle here instead, he had to slay it in less than a few seconds before the horde reached them. Otherwise, he would be forced to battle the incoming flock of creatures as well, which he doubted he was capable of doing in this terrible state.
'What a dreadful situation. But that's fine too.'
His cold gray eyes gleamed faintly.
'I know what I have to do.'
As the creature threw its limb forward in hopes of slicing his chest open, Kael leaned backward just enough to evade the attack, but its sharp tip still managed to slice through his already torn shirt.
'Not bad!'
Swinging the dagger in his hand, he lunged forward and deflected its other scythe that tried to strike his head. Since both of its forelegs had been used one after another, it would require at least a second or so to gather them again before attacking, which left its lower body wide-open.
Or at least it should've been, logically.
However, just as Kael hunched down, it lowered its neck and launched its agape maw, filled with needle-like teeth, at him. The scythes were hiding behind the shield-like parts of its limbs, ready to attack if necessary.
Focusing all of his strength onto his legs, Kael leaped into the air and thrust his hand through the drifting fog, striking the dagger straight into its mouth. But its needle-like teeth clamped the black weapon between them halfway, making it difficult for him to shove it deeper inside.
Yellow light ignited in the creature's compound eyes as it tried to shatter the short blade inside its mouth in an instant.
Kael's expression tightened a little.
To his surprise, however, no matter how much pressure it put into its bite, not even a single crack appeared across the blade.
Well, of course not.
This blade had been forged from the materials of an S-Rank monster, while this creature was only E-Rank. It could try all it wanted, but there was no way it could break something this resilient so easily.
Then, his expression froze for a moment.
Eh?
'Aren't I being overconfident... a little bit?'
Due to the creature's attempt to destroy the dagger, Kael found his legs crashing onto the ground at some point, sliding backward under its terrifying pushing force.
Anchoring himself to the ground out of nowhere, he strengthened his muscles and jerked his hand upward, causing the blade to cut through the teeth like paper before bursting out of the upper side of the maw with a chunk of flesh clinging to it.
Retrieving the dagger, Kael watched the creature letting out a loud shriek of anger that resounded in his ears.
He had expected his head to throb with pain and his body to become immobilised again, but for some reason, neither effect occurred this time.
'That's strange.'
As the gruesome flesh fell to the ash, the creature lashed out with both of its limbs at the same time, but Kael waved through both at once and broke through its defense.
Instead of attacking its throat, however, he crouched and jumped beneath its abdomen before outstretching his hand. Because of it, the dagger struck the joint of one of its legs and severed it cleanly from the limb, but the blade failed to reach its other leg.
'No!'
Soon enough, his shoulder crashed onto the ground, causing his body to begin rolling down the slope, but before he could lose control completely, he drove the dagger into the ash. It slipped at first, but then the tip caught on a gap between the stones below, bringing his fall to a halt.
By then, the creature had started to lose its balance a little, but it was still able to stand and move using only three of its legs. The worst part was that it had begun to realise his plan, so it unfolded its wings in order to float into the air and stay out of his reach.
Kael's jaws tightened.
'Damn this insect!'
Pushing himself off the ground, he was prepared to lunge forward, but before he could do so, he heard something whistling down through the air.
Without a second thought, he leaped sideways, avoiding a pair of white scythes by a hair's breadth, which struck exactly where he had been a split second ago. If he hadn't moved in time, there would've been two giant wounds across his back now.
'Shit! I've wasted too much time trying to cripple the creature, giving the others enough time to catch up to me.'
Rolling once onto his back, he quickly got back onto his feet. Glancing to the side, he saw the ambushing monster turning its head toward him, its orange eyes glaring at him with malicious fury.
Just as it was about to attack him again, however, Kael sprinted forward as fast as he could, climbing the somewhat hill-like terrain with everything he had.
Right now, there was no time to think about anything else, not when trying to deal with one of them had turned out to be such a hassle, and handling two at once would simply be nonsensical.
'Perhaps I should be grateful that they tend to use their wings as an ace up their sleeves.'
Before he could think of a reason for it, a maw filled with needle-like teeth drenched in foul saliva rushed from the side, parting the fog aside as it tried to devour his head.
His eyes widened.
How could they not?
There were two more creatures behind him, though one was simply chasing him down while the other one was hovering somewhere in the air, outside of his view and veiled by the fog. So, no matter what came in his way, he couldn't let himself be distracted now, not even for a moment.
He had to keep running at all costs.
With a flick of his wrist, he turned the dagger upside down and drove his fist upward, smashing its pommel against the side of the maw and knocking its jaws off course.
It stalled him just long enough to slip past the monster by veering slightly from his path while maintaining his sprint. The creature, however, simply refused to back down from a simple strike and threw its limbs at him almost instantly, only to miss him by a few inches.
'That was close!'
Being an adventurer for nearly three years, Kael was more or less used to running away. In fact, every now and then he had to do it. Though he always refused to take any troublesome or dangerous quests in his weakest form in order to protect his identity or avoid showcasing his capabilities to others, he still found himself facing troubles in the end, or rather, problems always seemed to find him somehow. In those times, when facing a stronger foe, he would prioritize escaping over everything else.
But who could have thought those pitiful experiences would be so useful one day?
Dragging his feet forward, Kael kept studying the path ahead of him, expecting a boulder to reveal itself. But no matter how many hurried steps he took, there seemed to be nothing standing in his way. Which meant that his path had been diverted at some point.
'Well, it's not like I'm familiar with this floor or anything like that, so, it hardly matters. Really, what would I do with directions?'
The moment he managed to create a tiny amount of distance between himself and the creatures behind him, the monster in the air suddenly glided forward like a shooting arrow and swiped its scythe-like limb in a barely diagonal slash, threatening to cleave his body in half.
This time, the attack came from his left side, where his whole arm itself was missing.
Darting his eyes at it, he halted his sprint for a second, his pupils shaking violently.
Twisting his torso to the side, he managed to barely intercept the scythe with the dagger before it could slice into his flesh, but the force of the impact had been too much for him to handle or absorb, shooting his body through the air like a rag doll.
Kael crashed several metres away from the creatures, tumbling through the slide-like area before finally coming to an awkward halt.
'Ah!'
A wave of agony rushed through his muscles, threatening to reopen his old wounds.
He bit his lower lip.
'Damn it! My stamina is almost nonexistent. I can't go on like this, not anymore. I need to hurry and find a much safer place to rest for a while, or else I might die from sheer exhaustion only. But in order to do so, I have to free myself from being pursued by them first, no? But how can I do that? No matter where I tried to hide now, it would be useless. After all, they can easily track me down by using either the stench of dried blood or my unique scent.'
And there was only one way to block both at once, and that was to fly far away from here and land somewhere else entirely. Of course, it might not be as effective as it sounded, but even if it only worked for a short while, it would still be enough to distract them and give him some time to come up with something.
But there was one problem with this idea.
Compared to him, these creatures seemed to be far better in the air than they were on the ground. If that was the case, then before he could even get high enough into the air using his winds, he was more than sure that they would chop him into pieces.
Even thinking about it inwardly, he felt a cold chill run down his spine.
'Is there really no other way left to me?'
Staring into the drifting fog, he noticed a part of it becoming much darker as a vague figure gradually came into view.
Without hesitation, he rolled onto the ash and rose to his feet in the same motion, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the monster's limbs as they crashed where he had been, the impact reverberating with the sound of steel striking against stone.
Kael glanced at the creature before tightening his grip around the dagger.
'Well, who cares anyway? If there's none left... then I'll just make a way myself.'
Not long ago, he had survived a battle even after three of his limbs had been immobilised and rendered useless, so, after regaining two of them back again, how could he give up now? Wouldn't that leave all that suffering meaningless?
As he began his desperate sprint through the hill-like terrain again, Kael was chased down by more than five creatures at least.
Three of them tried to strike him down from behind or halt his running with their scythes over and over again, but failed every time to catch him, barely missing him each time. It was mostly because their four legs bent at a single joint in the middle and ended in sharp, knife-like tips that made climbing a hill difficult, or at least slower, for them.
The rest of the monsters, on the other hand, were hovering not so far above his head, attacking him whenever they got the chance to do so, sometimes alone while other times in coordinated assaults, leaving him with almost no room to escape.
Despite facing all of that, Kael somehow made his way through them, sometimes evading or deflecting the limbs, and other times blocking them or letting them propel him away. Though he had hardly inflicted any damage on the creatures, he had received quite a lot of injuries in return, mostly on his hands or back, but these wounds were trivial only.
Everything had been going smoothly for the time being... but that did not last very long.
Blocking his path ahead stood an uneven parapet made of jagged stones. Shrouded in fog, it appeared rather tall from where he was, but in reality, it was not nearly as high as it seemed. He knew that well enough.
After all, he had fallen from there before.
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(Chapter Ended)
To be continued...