Chapter 117: Man vs Beast

5 minutes.

300 seconds.

600 heartbeats.

That was how long [Grave of Swords] lasted at Level 5, and how long Isaac had to survive.

The demon looked surprised for a moment, then slapped its own chest in an attempt to crush him, but it only managed to drive the sword stuck there in up to its hilt, which would have been bad enough on its own, except Isaac had switched it over to its astral form the instant it was deep enough.

Even as the pain of the spiritual damage began to sink in, Isaac leaped straight into its face, driving a dagger into its eyeball. But even that nigh-universal weakpoint required a [Piercing Strike] to injure, that was how tough that fucker was.

Isaac [Power Strike] booted the other eye as he kicked himself away from the skull, avoiding a pillar of hellfire the beast had blasted into its own face to get him off.

The demon’s head jerked back as it began to roar in pain while the human who’d half-blinded it went rocketing away, only to comer boomeranging back an instant after the black fire had died down.

Isaac simply maneuvered a dagger in the path of his jump, kicked off it and activated [Wave Charge] to accelerate him once he was pointing in the right direction.

He flew forwards, right hand extended with middle and index fingers aimed straight at the single remaining eyeball, [I Am The Sword] activated. Normally, Isaac pulled this move in a Vitruvian man pose to maximize damage, but with a [Raid Boss], there actually was a risk of the monster being pushed away before its skull broke. Therefore, he picked a pose that concentrated all that force into a single point while aiming for the relatively thin part of the skull that lay behind the eyeball.

The move worked to great and gory effect. Isaac exploded out of the back of the demons’s skull in an explosion of blood as the monster’s head snapped back, brain matter and bone fragments, landing in a classic superhero pose, dripping grossness.

It stumbled for a few moments, then straightened despite having a hole clean through its skull. Even humans could survive damage like that in theory, so long as no major blood vessels had been hit at overall, the injury was in just the right place. It was something that would be accompanied by major personality change and memory loss, but with a lot of luck, it could be lived with.

But this was a [Raid Boss], those completely lacked any way to be killed in one hit, so even blinded and with what would be catastrophic brain trauma on any other creature, it endured.

Black fire flashed, wildly slashing every which way while the monstrous [Aura] flared to full life, filling the entire space with a constant, low level flame. The only space that was ‘safe’ was the area immediately around Isaac, dyed crimson and reeking of bloodshed as he used his own [Aura] to fend of the attack. As such, the monster still knew exactly where he was even without eyes.

Strike after strike flashed past, columns of fire melting pickup truck sized holes into the ground, kicks and stomps sending out shockwaves that forced Isaac to phase to avoid being blown away.

Isaac snatched the bracer with the clasp for the inscribed core off his arm, threw it in the air and shifted into [Form of Horror], then put it back on, the magical piece of gear automatically resizing.

Then, he charged, scrambling up the demon’s body like a chipmunk straight out of hell, all his claws glowing a venomous green from the applied [Sundering Strike]. And it wasn’t just the regular, good old version of the [Skill], but rather the evolved version that further weakened anything it struck over time. Later on, someone would be able to attack perfectly through those weak points.

More hellfire swept the beast’s hide in an attempt to get him off, near misses scorching his side. Another hand smacked into the monster’s shoulder just as Isaac had jumped upwards, then sent himself flying back down with [Wave Charge], stabbing each claw into the shoulder underneath him with [Compounded Blow] applied to each, blasting apart the base of the limb. It was still mostly attached, but he’d still caused a horrific wound.

Then, Isaac lunged over towards the skull, driving his arm into its ear canal and tearing apart its eardrum with a single swipe.

From there, he started clawing at any part of the skull that looked thin, acting like a rabid wolverine, but that couldn’t last. A [Raid Bosses’] stronger [Skill]-equivalents usually had cooldowns, but all of those things had stuff to buy them breathing room, stuff to prevent them from being torn apart from the inside out and stuff to send little pests flying.

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Isaac leaped away, kicking off an empty wound for good measure, but it was a little too late as a massive shockwave erupted from behind him, smashing into his backside and sending him flying all the way across the space.

Another fiery beam was sent after him. It was off-target by a fair bit, in no part due to its sensory impairment, but even with a last second [Wave Charge] it partially hit.

Isaac screamed in agony as his right eye went blind, his right arm suddenly became extremely hard to move and his right leg crumpled beneath him as he hit the ground.

[Hydra’s Regeneration] immediately went to work, stopping the constant burning sensation and putting out the fires, but the actual injuries were barely being mitigated as his mana pool emptied like a bathtub with a stopper that had just been removed.

As he stumbled off to the side, the core in the bracer flickered as the old one was used up and the new one clicked into place while a vial of the strongest mana potion he knew how to make appeared in his palm.

With narry a thought, Isaac threw the vial into his mouth and crunched down, his mana pool shooting upwards instantly. He’d regret eating glass tomorrow, but for now, it was saving him vital time.

He leaped out of the path of another attack as he charged back in, the [Aura of the Crimson Dawn] glowing brighter and brighter as it sucked in all the blood and viscera that coated the ground, using it to empower itself and fix Isaac. Much of that energy was being funneled into Old Reliable to fuel the [Starflame] burning copies of his claws that he’d embedded all over the demon’s body, poisoning and burning it.

Another flood of hellfire covered the ground, a repeat of the previous breathing room ability, so Isaac leaped back up at the demon’s upper body, tearing apart its throat like a wild animal, [Power Strike] letting him inject [Sundering Strike] ‘poison’ deep into its body.

Isaac’s mana pool ran out once again but he gobbled down two more glass vials. This would massively reduce his natural Mana Regeneration, but for now, he was the mana equivalent of a nuclear power plant.

A devastating backhand smashed him back into the ground and he lay there for a brief moment while his spine stitched itself back together and his mana ran out for the third time.

More hellflame blasted the area but even barely able to move, a [Phantom Step] powered by the last dregs of his mana let him dodge it barely, though the attack’s corona still fried the surface of his skin.

The last dose of mana potions went down the hatch, that was it for mana.

Yet even this badly injured, Isaac charged, striking out at any joints he could reach with [Crippling Blow], massively limiting its mobility while inflicting untold agony upon it.

Until eventually, they were stumbling around like a pair of drunk boxers, horribly injured and barely able to move. In a certain fashion, it looked like they were both in equally bad shape, but that was an absolute lie.

The monster was a [Raid Boss], a kind of creature completely focused on survival and endurance, able to keep moving after having taken a dozen injuries, any one of which would have killed every other species in existence.

Isaac was a mere human with his mana regeneration shot to hell, third and fourth degree burns across a third of his body with lesser ones covering most of the rest, internals broken, while the only thing holding his body together was the healing from the [Aura of the Crimson Dawn], which was, in turn, only able to be kept active since it could be powered by blood.

But he’d timed it well. As he gazed up at the beast, the dome of dark purple fog they’d been fighting in for the last five minutes dissipated, replaced by a smoke-filled sky dotted with jets, gunships and flying [Mages].

Isaac shifted back to human, stumble-ran over to the largest pool of blood and collapsed into it as the world behind him exploded into an orgy of violence.

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