Behind them, eleven others ran wide, aiming for the lion’s neck. A second column of ten undead circled around the lion’s right shoulder, where Elias’ blow struck and pierced it.
Elias gritted his teeth, took one deep breath, and created a lattice of light around himself. Despite the fact that his mana pool had not entirely recovered, he used a second Solar Blade talent to distract.
Silver-gold afterimages licked Solaris Fang’s edge while luminous wings sprouted from his back of pure illusion, drawing the Fire Lion’s gaze his way for an instant.
That instant was enough.
Kai blurred ahead, running in the slipstream of the eleven undead attackers. Two lynx exploded first as flash-fried by close-range hellfire, but their smoldering bodies blocked the monster’s vision of the real threat.
Kai jumped and used the falling Shadow Panther to be his stepstone as he kicked it, shooting toward the eye.
He coated the blade with water-attribute mana and used all of his stored mana to form a needle-thin coiling along the edge.
Thump!
The sword sank into the Fire Lion’s right eye with a sickening simr.
ROAR!
A wave of wrath erupted from the beast’s throat. Its left forepaw lashed out too quickly to be seen with the naked eye. Kai twisted and jumped, but not on ti.
CRACK!
Fiery claws sliced straight through his left shoulder. Flesh, bone, and muscle separated like paper. The severed arm, still clutching the Azure Sword, plumted across scorched dirt and vanished in the fla burst.
Kai’s remaining hand pressed against his chest as the world spun. Pain threatened to drown him, but he forced it into a corner of his mind to heal himself using all of his strength.
The blast had also shattered ribs, cracked his hip, and crushed his back during his hundred-ter flight when he impacted the ground and rolled over continuously.
Heal!
The regeneration prioritized his internal, repairing his bones first. Agony still scread across every nerve, but at least he could breathe.
He downed another mana potion; cool energy rushed into him as his mana instantly beca full once again.
After he spent more than a full bar of his mana to heal himself fully, Kai downed another mana potion.
A mont later a resurrected saber-toothed panther dashed up, Azure Sword clenched between its fangs. Kai crooked a smile.
"Good boy. Now get back in there."
He sheathed the sword, flexed his regenerated fingers, then shot back toward the fight at ninety percent speed.
Blinded on the right side, the Fire Lion’s depth perception faltered. Weeping fla hissed from the ruined socket, but it fought like an enraged thing.
A Glacier Tiger lunged for the spear wound. The lion twisted, jaws wide as it used its skill [Sovereign Bite]—a cone of compressed hellfire spat from its maw, vaporizing the charging tiger and twenty ters of ground behind it.
The undead ranks thinned, yet each death stole more attention from Kai’s true objective, which was to widen the wound.
Elias planted a sky-step high above the lion and slamd both palms down.
"Heaven’s Bind!"
Golden chains lashed out, not to restrain, as he wanted to save his mana, but to distract, wrapping around the lion’s mane like glowing serpents that flared and popped.
The beast flung a claw at him in annoyance, but its trajectory was off, as Kai’s earlier strike had distorted its balance.
Kai sprinted along a semicircle, keeping to the lion’s blind side. Blood zig-zagged from his still-raw shoulder, but he paid it no mind.
Five undead remained in his core unit—two Glacier Tigers, a Vulcan Lynx, a Shadow Panther, and a Steel-fur Wild Cat.
"Suppress the wound," he ordered. "Go."
They imdiately leapt at Kai’s order. Kai followed silently.
The Frost Tiger reached first, slashing into charred tendons. The Wild Cat dove beneath, teeth gnawing on bone.
The lion countered with the [Infernal Tail Whip] skill. Scorpion-like fire spines erupted along its tail. The Wild Cat was pulped. The Panther lost a leg while the Lynx was impaled and exploded in molten chunks.
But tendons in the lion’s shoulder snapped audibly, and its right forelimb crumpled.
"Now, Elias!"
Elias used all of his strength, and Solar Blade blazed alongside Solaris Fang as he traced a six-point star in midair, collecting light mana until his eyesight blurred.
"Dawnfall Spear!"
A fresh lance manifested around Solaris Fang, doubling the length of the strike, and it charged toward the lion at an extrely fast speed.
It drilled into the lion’s back, pinning it down thoroughly this ti.
The fire lion roared so loudly that it dislodged rocks and toppled a distant wagon. Yet the roar also drowned its spatial awareness.
Kai was already in motion. He dashed under the lion’s raised chest as he had a goal in mind: its throat.
He transferred every drop of remaining mana into Azure Sword. The blade turned cobalt, then diamond-clear as water mana chased down its length.
He then modified the Azure Slash skill, creating a densely charged stream of water mana that resembled high-pressure mining cutters as he condensed it using around 300% of his mana. His hands cracked since they couldn’t understand the pressure of his own attack.
Kai then stepped on a mass of burning intestine right away, jumped up, and swung from the right collarbone to the left jaw hinge.
SLICE!
A curtain of shimring blue cut across the lion’s throat. The skin split, and pressurized blood and hellfire jetted out like two geysers.
For one heartbeat the lion was alive. For the next, its head slid forward. The head collapsed with a volcanic hiss, flattening the burned ground.
The body swayed, took three stumbling steps, then fell with a heavy thud. Infernal flas died down to pale coals.
Looking at the dead fire lion, Kai smiled bitterly and sighed in relief. He just realized that he had done sothing unbelievable, as he had never heard of an unranked Awakener killing a 2nd Echelon Rank Beast.
Let alone the beast was at the Peak 2nd Echelon Rank and had a strong bloodline, which increased its combat strength greatly.
A second later, Kai heard a series of notifications ringing in his mind, and when he checked them, he opened his eyes widely in shock, then instantly got thrilled.
[Ding!...
[Ding!...
[Ding!...
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