Chapter 69: Again

Chapter 69: Again Kieran looked at the beast which was making its way towards him, its eyes locked on his figure, filled with resentment.

Unwilling to be held back by the situation, Kieran ran out to meet the beast in its advance only to raise his scythe at the last moment to block the tail that hat whipped towards him at a surprising speed.

It felt like he had been hit by several tree trunks at once, as his body crashed into one of the other trees, landing on a big root.

"Arghh!"

He groaned getting back on his feet.

The good news was that despite the pain he felt due to the impact, he didn’t have any Injuries or scratches. Although, his old injuries which had yet to heal fully still hurt when they got hit.

The tall beast, slowly repositioned itself to look in Kieran’s direction and Kieran used its slow movement speed to his advantage, rushing out again while keeping his eye on the abnormally fast tail.

It was impossible for him to dodge the tail of the beast while in air so he made sure to run closer to the tree branches, performing short jumps and slashes so he could maintain his foothold on the branches and dodge when need be.

’Not good!’

Kieran thought, seeing the white marks that his weapon had made on the creature’s body. He hadn’t been able to make out a weak spot on the creature’s body.

Even it’s underbelly which didn’t have the scales on the rest of its body, was thick and leathery. Every one of his attacks just bounced off instead of doing any damage.

Kieran was starting to wonder why the creature had even wanted him to fight against such a beast. What was it trying to achieve?!

Kieran thought, but he didn’t have the luxury to ponder as he had to play the creature’s game if he wanted to get Ruby back.

The beast seemed to have noticed Kieran’s absent-mindedness and roared in anger, it’s eyes lightning up with a blue hue, as it opened up its mouth and took in a deep breath before letting out what could only be described as a sonic scream.

A slight scream that almost made Kieran lose his steps and fall into the corrosive waters of the swamp.

If he hadn’t come across and managed to resist the effect of the creature’s "domination" earlier. Kieran would have fallen to the scream of this beast.

Still, he was affected as he could feel the ticklish feeling of his blood crawling from his ear down his face.

"Rahhhh!"

Seeing its attack rendered ineffective. The beast screamed and resorted to another method, reaching its hands out to one of the branches and detaching it from the trunk of the tree, whipping around wildly.

Now Kieran had to dodge two whip like objects; the creatures tail and the tree branch.

He wasn’t confident he could take another blow without breaking a bone or two. His wounds had even re-opened due to the intense strain he had put himself through; especially with the maneuvers he made trying to evade the lightning quick attacks of the beast’s tail.

The faster the beasts attacks became, the more strain Kieran placed on his body and the more his injuries opened up. Despite that, his movement slowly became less erratic and more calculated, testing the limits of his body with his movements without flinching once in pain.

His face was as cold as a block of ice, his eyes slowly taking on a golden hue, giving the feel of a predator, patiently waiting for an opportunity.

While dodging, Kieran took every opportunity he could land an attack, even if had no effect on the beast which was completely confident in its defense, or rather, Kierans lack of power such that it didn’t even try to block any of his attacks.

"Interesting"

Meanwhile, the creature from earlier muttered spectating from one of the taller branches, its eyes glowing erriely as it licked its scaly, flat lips.

Ruby could be seen sitting not too far from it, watching the fight with an expression filled deeply with worry.

There was nothing she could do with that creature sitting not too far away from her. She had already attempted to run to his aid once and she froze the moment she tried to jump off, the creature’s threatening eyes on her.

It simply told her to stay put if she didn’t want to die and she had no other choice than to stay put and watch as Kieran bled trying to save her.

"Rahhh!"

Kieran’s eyes brightened at the pain filled scream the best had just let out. His attacks weren’t able to peirce through before.

Even the eyes of the beats seemed to be invulnerable, but after focusing his strength on one point over and over again, he had finally manged to pierce it, blinding one of its eyes.

Taking advantage of the beasts disoriented state , Kieran ran up the tallest tree he could find and jumped off, raising his scythe up high and swinging with all his strength.

His aim? The beasts neck which was covered in scales.

If he could just manage to pierce though....!

"Pierce!!!’

Kieran adjusted his grip on the weapon and struck with the tip of the scythe. His hopes was to pierce through the powerful scales, instead of trying to cut pointlessly.

Seeing the scales of the beast become increasingly close, Kieran swung hard, channeling every bit of strength he could muster into that one swing.

It was hard to bring out all of his strength while he was in the air, without a solid foothold, bit he did it either way and it worked!

He had managed to embed his weapon into the neck of the beast, earning himself another pained roar from it.

Not passing up on the opportunity, Kieran grounded his feet on the body of the beast and twisted his body, dragging his weapon along, treating out a huge chunk of flesh from the creature’s neck.

Looking at the result of his gamble, Kieran quickly felt disappointed. Although he had managed to land a solid injury on the creature, it wasn’t still what he desired.

It wasn’t deep enough!!

Whoosh!!

Jumping to a close by tree, he managed to dodge through creature’s tail which it had slapped on its own body trying to kill Kieran.

"Haa!"

Kieran let out a deep breath, trying to stall a little.

He was completely exhausted, his hair stuck to his forehead, wet from sweat, and his body was dotted with several green spots — the effect of the corrosive and poisonous waters which had splashed on him whenever the beast moved.

At this point, he wasn’t sure if he could pull anything else from under his sleeve, but he wasn’t willing to give up.

’Not yet! Not yet!’

Kieran chanted to himself gritting his teeth as he reappeared from behind the leaf he had been hiding, about to engage himself in another round of fighting.

The beast had finally recovered from the pain of having its eye pierced and was now trying to search for Kieran with its remaining one eye.

Kieran attacked again, this time appearing from the beasts left side where he had blinded its eye. He planned on exploiting this new blindspot as he kept on targeting the only reasonable injury he had caused the beast.

His consecutive attacks on the same spot made the wound grow deeper and wider like he wanted initially, but it still wasn’t enough.

There was no way he was going to kill the beast without piercing its heart; which he had no idea where it was located, piercing its brain or cutting off its head.

And he was capable of doing none of those tasks, he was going end up dying if the beast didn’t miraculously die from blood loss.

"Haha! Hek-!"

Kieran laughed lightly, before almost choking on some of the blood he had just spat out.

He could feel his vision slowly darken from the corners, and his body felt heavy....heavy? Feel?

Hw couldn’t feel his body again!

’I lost? Ah! I lost again.... Yes, again!’

Kieran thought, his mind slowly fading as he fell, but then something snapped.

’Again???? Again????? AGAIN???!!!!!’

His previously tired and shut eyes, snapped open, his loosening grip on the scythe becoming firm again,but before he could do anything, he felt his body stop falling, followed by the cold, rough voice of the creature from before.

"That’s enough! I can’t have you burning into your soul now!"

The creature said, hitting some random points on his body, making Kieran faint, and the creature carried his body back to the high tree branch where he had been watching from.

"Here, you have him."

The creature said to Ruby, before taking a step off the branch, falling at high speeds until it abruptly came to a stop, directly above the still raging beast like there was an invisible platform beneath it’s feet.

"Now what should I do with you?"

The creature muttered, looking at the injured beast. The runes on its body shining brightly before disappearing altogether.