Chapter 80: Strangeness
"Instant Heal..." as those words slipped through his lips, a faint green glow flickered to life in the palm of his hand, spreading slowly until it covered the wound on his shoulder. The radiance wasn't faint like a candle flame nor gentle like moonlight, but rather it burned vividly, almost like a miniature green sun, pouring all of its brilliance into his shoulder as though determined to stitch together flesh and bone that should have already given up.
Yet, even as the healing magic slowly worked its way across his wounds, Kael knew time was already slipping from his grasp. The monster was closing in, its oppressive presence pressing against the silence of the stone riverbank. But as his gaze fell upon it once more, something seemed off… its long, snake-like tongue had slithered out again, moving erratically through the air, dripping with a strange liquid that shimmered like water... though perhaps it was nothing more than its vile saliva. Suddenly, the tongue lashed toward one of his arms, licking his nails. And then there were its eyes, those yellow orbs that seemed to burn brighter and fiercer with every passing breath.
"Did It… did It see my blood? No... that can't be. But if he has, then it's out of its mind now. Yet how could something mindless even be out of its mind? This is… helling confusing," he thought, feeling his own breath tighten in his chest even as the cuts across his body began closing slowly under the spell's light.
The healing was working but the monster was already only a few meters away.
And still, Kael could not comprehend why it was coming so slowly. Shouldn't it be charging at him with all the speed it had? That was the natural way of beasts.
"Wait a minute… could it be? Did it realize that if it rushed forward it might slip and fall the same way I did? No… is it really smart enough to think that far? Or… did it simply learn by watching me fall?" the thought struck him sharply, and with no time left to linger on the question, he forced his knees to rise, planting his feet onto the ground with what little strength remained.
The healing in his arm was still incomplete, pain biting into the flesh as if to remind him he wasn't ready, but readiness was no longer a choice... if he wanted to live, he had to stand. His body leaned forward at first, weak and unsteady, before he pushed his spine straight and locked himself upright.
But at the same time, the monster had already closed the distance between them; now it was barely a single meter away, its tongue writhing grotesquely as it flicked through the air, and Kael, watching it, felt his stomach twist in disgust.
Strangely, he now had no sticks, no blades, nothing he could call a weapon. Even the stones beneath his feet were slick with moisture, ready to betray him with a single slip. What could he possibly do in such a state? Already he had been struck once, caught unprepared and without proper stance, and even now he only thought he had begun to understand the way this monster moved, though for all he knew, that too was only his own illusion.
There was no plan forming in his head. Plans were luxuries meant for calm moments, and here calmness was a death sentence. Only head-on confrontation remained. His lips curled upward, an expression caught somewhere between a grin and defiance, when suddenly something strange stirred within him. His fingers, almost on their own, curled slightly as though grasping the hilt of a weapon held backward... yet he had no sword, no knife, not even a branch. The movement was so absurd that for a moment he froze, startled by his own foolishness.
"What's wrong with me today? I have to remember… I don't have a weapon with me. I don't. I'll have to fight barehanded. It's the only way to survive this situation."
But then he realized... it wasn't the usual grip for a sword his hand was mimicking. It was something else, unfamiliar yet oddly deliberate. Why would his hand move like that? For what reason? The sensation left him unsettled, almost familiar in its strangeness.
"I'm definitely losing my mind," he muttered inwardly.
Meanwhile, the Hollow-Tongue, as if mocking his confusion, once again tilted its head at him. That single motion, casual and almost curious, ignited a sudden flare of anger within Kael. He hated it... hated the way it tilted its head as though belittling him, as though regarding him not as prey but as something laughably weak, undeserving of respect. That tilt was arrogance, or worse, contempt.
"How dare you…" Kael thought bitterly, teeth grinding.
Then, without warning, the monster lunged forward once again, but Kael did not move. He held his ground, breath steadying against the storm in his chest. In a blink the Hollow-Tongue was upon him, its clawed hand striking straight for his wounded shoulder once more.
"Clever, aren't you," Kael whispered under his breath, "attacking the same place again."
Just before the claws could land, he let his feet slip ever so slightly, leaning his body to the side, risking everything on the balance of that single motion. If he fell, it would be over. But fortune, or perhaps instinct, steadied him. His hand lashed out and caught the creature's arm, just below the elbow, closer to the wrist, and clamped down with all the force he could muster.
Pain lanced through his injured shoulder as he adjusted his stance again, but he held firm.
However, the monster was relentless. Its gaze sharpened, piercing him with a predator's intent, and Kael knew instantly what was coming next.
"Here comes the hard part," he thought grimly.
As expected, the Hollow-Tongue did not waste any time, it brought forth its other clawed hand with a speed Kael had almost failed to register. His eyes, sharpening in that critical heartbeat, caught the truth: this time, it wasn't aiming for his shoulder. It was aiming for the side of his neck.
"So… you've decided to finish me in one strike," Kael thought, breath heavy. "How ironic?"
But then, his vision caught something else, the hand was not the only weapon moving. The Hollow-Tongue's infamous tongue had already extended, whipping through the air with deadly precision. It was aiming for his neck as well, intending to coil around his throat and end him swiftly.
The realization should have frozen him, but instead Kael's focus deepened. As both claw and tongue descended toward him, the distance of a single breath away from ending his life, he suddenly dropped low, driving himself downward in a single sharp motion, his body twisting so that he landed balanced on one leg while the other stretched forward beneath the monster. His injured hand now gripped tighter around the monster's arm even more, using its strength not against him, but as an anchor, as if the very creature that sought to kill him was now the only thing keeping him steady and stopping him from losing his balance.
The claw and the tongue both missed, slicing nothing but air above him. He was safe... safe, but only just, for the strain on his injured arm was agonizing, and he could feel his grip trembling even as he forced it to remain locked around the Hollow-Tongue's limb.
The monster was trying its absolute best to release itself from Kael's grip, thrashing and twisting with all its strength, yet Kael held on stubbornly, even though every passing second only worsened his state, for his hand was still injured and could not possibly endure much longer. If this continued even for a moment more, he would likely lose his entire balance and once that happened there would be no saving himself, because the slightest misstep here meant the end.
However, Kael was not the kind of man who would merely cling to the idea of survival by avoiding and escaping alone. No, just evading the monster's strikes had never been his plan to begin with, for how could a person truly live by simply avoiding forever? If avoidance was all he desired he would never have risked this much in the first place. There had to be another reason indeed, something else that he was aiming for, and it was now about to unfold.
As the beast looked down on him with cruel and burning yellow eyes, Kael, instead of cowering, slowly lifted his gaze upward, and at that instant a smirk curled at the edge of his lips as though he had already accepted whatever outcome this gamble would bring.
"Here we go… Please forgive me," he whispered within the corner of his heart.
And so, when the monster once again forced its arm downward to break free, Kael, rather than resisting it as before, loosened his grip entirely and allowed the beast to tear its arm away, reclaiming his own injured hand in the process. The monster was free now, ready to strike again, its gaze burning even more ferociously than before, yet Kael's eyes gleamed with something else entirely.
For at that very moment his stretched leg moved like a whip and, mustering every ounce of swiftness his body could muster, he drove his boot straight upward, striking the monster in the space between its two legs. The impact landed with such brutal precision that the beast let out a deep and guttural growl, a sound so resonant that even Kael felt his body tremble from its weight.
Yes, this was his plan all along, to strike not with strength but with cunning, to attack the most vulnerable place no matter what dignity he might lose by doing so. For whether the monster was male or female, he cared not in the slightest; luck might make it one thing, maybe he was sure, maybe not, but the way his luck worked, the monster could be a… uhm, or another, or perhaps neither. But whatever it was, he would not let such a chance slip past him. Even if it felt wrong somewhere in the back of his heart, in battle, such things meant little.
"Dignity… who cares about dignity? Certainly not me. I am the most shameless man alive, after all," he thought bitterly to himself, and with that same shameless resolve he leaned against his arms and delivered yet another ruthless kick into that same weak spot.
Another monstrous growl erupted, louder than before, reverberating with pain and fury, and this time the beast seemed to stagger back ever so slightly, unable to lower its body or launch an immediate strike for a few precious seconds. But Kael knew well that such a reprieve would not last, for once that rage fully ignited it would surely descend on him again.
And indeed, sooner than even he had expected, the beast's agony twisted into pure wrath, and with a deafening roar its jagged black mouth opened wide, releasing a sound so defining it tossed Kael's brown hair into disarray as though the very air was shuddering beneath its fury. Its eyes burned crueler than ever, and then one clawed hand, long and vicious with razor-sharp nails, shot downward in a murderous strike aimed to cleave him in two.
Yet before those terrifying claws could reach his body, Kael rolled desperately to the opposite side of the Silent River, scrambling to sit up carefully on the damp ground. But he had barely raised his body before another strike came tearing through the air, the monster's unnaturally long arm and vicious nails sweeping toward him with frightening speed. He had time, perhaps just enough time, to escape, yet his body betrayed him in that instant, refusing to move away and instead thrusting his hand forward, as though instinct itself guided him to attack rather than flee.
His eyes widened in shock. What was he doing? Why was his body moving as though on its own? The beast's claws were already upon him, only a breath's distance from his face, so close that he could make out each dreadful curve of those nails. There was no time to dodge, none at all. And it was entirely his fault for yielding to this strange impulse.
"It's over." he thought, the words echoing like a final toll.
But then, impossibly, his body shifted again without his will, retreating backward with such incredible speed that even his mind could not register the movement in time. The monster's strike missed the fatal mark, yet not completely, for those claws brushed against his cheek and carved shallow lines into his flesh, ripping away skin as they passed.
Blood spilled instantly from the cuts, warm and relentless, flowing down his face like water running from a broken fountain. And yet, he was alive. Somehow, he was still alive.
The Hollow-Tongue turned again, its rage now heightened beyond measure, its growls more furious and its attacks wilder than before, striking the stone beneath their feet as though even the ground itself must be punished. But Kael, though his cheek burned with pain and blood dripped down his chin, found his thoughts strangely tangled elsewhere, as though part of his mind no longer cared about the beast in front of him.
"What was that just now? Why did I thrust my hand forward as though I was casting magic? Didn't it feel like that? And then… when my body moved backward so suddenly, so swiftly, even I could not follow it with my own awareness... what was that? Was it instinct? Or was it something else entirely?"
Even as he questioned himself, the monster's claws came slashing once more, yet his mind lingered on that strange moment, almost detached, as though some other truth was revealing itself in the chaos of battle.
"And it's not the first time, is it?" he wondered, recalling that only moments ago his fingers had curled into a strange grip, a gesture resembling the way one holds a weapon, though it was not the familiar style of a swordsman. "Which weapon uses such a grip? A spear? No… a spear is impossible to hold in the grip I made. Then a bow? No, not that either. A bow requires both hands, so why would I even try to hold it this way? A knife? Hm… not quite. Even though a knife can sometimes be gripped backward, it just doesn't feel right. If your hand loosens even a little, wouldn't it be hard to move it properly? A knife is too awkward like that, you'd be fighting against the weight rather than using it. Then what? What could it be? A… dagger?"
As the thought echoed through him, the monster's claws missed once again, its rage blinding its precision, while Kael rolled sideways across the wet ground, his body collapsing into a crouch as he dragged himself back into a seated crawl, blood still dripping yet his eyes no longer fixed only on the beast but also on the unsettling mystery that was awakening within himself.
"Yes, a dagger... If the dagger's hilt were curved, with lines shaped for my fingers, then the grip would fit perfectly in that position."
As the monster was walking toward him once again, Kael's gaze lingered on its approaching figure, and in that fleeting instant, a strange thought crossed his face, as though an unfamiliar memory had slipped into his mind uninvited, "Strange… why would I want to grip a dagger when I have never in my life used one before. Wasn't sword my specialty? I used sword, right?" he questioned inwardly, confused at his own instincts.
The monster loomed above him, its body casting an oppressive shadow over Kael, and yet this time, instead of striking immediately, it stopped all of a sudden, its stillness puzzling him. Was it planning something? Was it trying to devise some sinister strategy?
But before his mind could wander further into such thoughts, the monster's arm shot toward him with lethal intent; Kael twisted his body and managed to dodge once again. This was not the first time either... he had been dodging for a while now, almost as if his body had already grown accustomed to the rhythm of its attacks. Perhaps it was because the monster itself seemed slower, its movements dulled, allowing Kael to evade more easily than before.
But his mind was elsewhere, wandering far from the battlefield even as his body moved on instinct. His thoughts circled around one persistent question: just what kind of weapon did he truly use? As far as he could recall, he had always wielded a sword. Then why had his hands so naturally formed the grip of a dagger earlier? Why did it feel so oddly familiar?
The more he thought about it, the more unsettling it became, for deep inside he knew there was a certain awkwardness whenever he held a sword. He was not like Seraphina, who had mastered swordsmanship with elegant precision, shaping every swing into an art form. Kael, instead, relied on something else entirely: a patchwork of borrowed techniques, a collection of copied tricks stitched together in a way that barely held, giving him enough to fight but never enough to refine.
That was the truth of his swordsmanship, and perhaps that was also why he had so many flaws... so many gaps. Could it be that the unease he felt with a sword was nothing more than the reflection of those very flaws? Or was it something deeper? He could not be sure, and it made his head ache.
"Am I just thinking too much? Ugh… my head hurts so much…" he muttered under his breath, though there was no one to listen but the beast.
Another strike came, the monster's massive arm sweeping down, this time aiming for his left leg, and though Kael saw it clearly, his thoughts continued to churn, refusing to let go.
No, it was not just overthinking. There were too many things, too many strange incidents happening one after another for them to be just coincidence. First, there had been that impossible reflection he had seen, then the instinctive grip of a dagger, and afterward that strange slip when he nearly cast magic... magic that should not even exist within his reach. He was certain he did not possess offensive spells. His element was for healing, and then there was that other odd element, the one that allowed him to shift his height and form in peculiar ways, but that was it. That was all he had ever known, all he had ever been sure of. Right? Right? Right?
Kael stepped aside rather than rolling this time, letting the monster's claws smash into the stone floor once again. The sound cracked through the air, echoing, yet the claws themselves remained unbroken, their sharp edges refusing to dull no matter how many times they clashed against the unyielding rock.
However, the monster slowed, exhaustion evident in its heavy movements, and Kael thought perhaps this was the chance... his best chance to fight back. But even as he realized that, he hesitated, because the creature's resilience was terrifying; no matter how often its claws slammed into stone, they did not break, did not falter, and so he wondered if even his best strike would matter.
Another arm lashed forward and Kael, in his retreat, crawled backward, but this time his body betrayed him, for behind him rose the vertical cliff wall, the very same that cradled the waterfall above. He had forgotten it, and now there was no space left. His breath hitched, his body ached, his shoulder burned, his face throbbed from the earlier wound, and yet everything around him felt strangely foggy, as though the weight of his thoughts had seeped into the air itself.
Nowhere to run. No path left. He slowed as the monster slowed, both of them locked in the fatigue of flesh and instinct, predator and prey alike wearing thin. He had always thought monsters to be endless, inexhaustible, but now he realized even they could tire. Shouldn't he have known that before?
And then, just as his thoughts circled in weary spirals, the monster stopped. Mid-step, completely halted, its enormous frame looming directly in front of him. Kael's chest tightened.
"What's wrong with this thing?" he thought, his eyes narrowing with suspicion.
And then it dawned on him. His breath caught, panic tightening his throat as the realization struck: the creature was not weakening out of exhaustion at all... it was drawing him into a trap, luring its prey into a corner where there would be no escape.
"Fuck! Once again I'm screwed because of my thinking. That's why I hate using my brain so much. What now?"
For a brief moment, it only stared at him, its yellow eyes locking with his. Then suddenly one massive hand slammed down beside him, not striking his body but pinning the wall near his head. Another arm followed, caging him in completely. His back pressed to the cliff wall, his body forced into stillness. He was caught, trapped, utterly enclosed by the monster's limbs.
And then it leaned closer, its long tongue unfurling with revolting speed, flicking in the air before him.
"Gross… don't kill me with that tongue. Just kill me with your claws. It's better to die that way than this."
The words left his lips in disgust, but he could not move, not as the wet, grotesque tongue dragged across his face. His eyes widened in horror, his stomach churned violently, and for a moment he thought he might vomit from the sheer revulsion of it.
And then memory struck him... how could he have forgotten? How could he be so careless? This monster was infamous for that tongue, for it was not merely for show. No, this creature survived on blood. It drank the blood of its victims, and in doing so grew stronger and stronger.
In his spiral of thoughts, he had almost erased that truth from his mind. That was the trap, that was the goal... to draw him close, to pin him in place, to savor his blood.
But whatever the case may have been, Kael's eyes suddenly turned sharper, far sharper than even he himself expected, and a strange, unsettling sensation spread across his face as his hand shot upward to seize the monster's grotesque tongue; yet even as his fingers closed around it with all the strength he could muster, he realized he was too late, for the foul creature had already taken from him the blood it desired, had already stolen that vital essence in those brief, suffocating moments.
His grip, however, did not loosen... no, he tightened it further, yanking the revolting tongue aside, pulling it away from his face with such force that his arm trembled, and in the same motion he adjusted his footing and hurled his fist forward with unrelenting fury, slamming it into the monster's torso.
Pain shot through his knuckles, a sharp reminder that his hand was still flesh and bone, yet the impact carried enough force to drive the beast stumbling backward, its balance disrupted, its body nearly slipping on the slick, uneven stones before it crashed heavily against the ground.
Kael, on the other hand, swayed where he was seated, his body threatening to give out, but he forced himself upright. How… how could he allow himself to sink so deeply into confusion? Was he truly giving up? Was his mind surrendering before his body had even reached its limits? And why? Why would he yield when he could still see the monster's movements, when even with his bare fists he could inflict damage, when aside from his burning shoulder and bleeding face he bore no mortal wound? What, then, was dragging him down?
He pressed one palm against the cliff wall and, with effort, pushed himself back to his feet, fixing his posture, refusing to bow to the weight of weakness. This time he leaned forward slightly, his stance lowered, his eyes locked on the creature with a deadly sharpness. Those gray eyes of his, always muted and dull in ordinary days, now gleamed with a strange light, almost as though something within him had begun to stir awake. Slowly, he lifted the back of his hand to his cheek and wiped away the mixture of blood and vile saliva that clung there, smearing it aside with grim finality.
"How dare you…" his voice came low at first, almost calm, though his lips curved into something that could no longer be called a sane smile, "…how dare you, you ugly, miserable bitch… how dare you drag that filthy tongue across my face without so much as asking permission. Tell me, do you even have a shred of sanity, a fragment of decency left inside that rotten carcass you call a body? No, of course you don't… you wouldn't understand, would you?"
His breathing grew heavier, laughter almost cracking through his words, not joyous but jagged, like glass on stone.
"You should have known," he continued, tilting his head slightly, his gray eyes glowing with that strange, fevered light, "there is only one person in this entire damned world whom I would ever allow such closeness, one person alone who has earned the right to touch me so? Listen carefully, you rascal, you filthy bitch: only Seraphina... my wife, my beautiful wife... is allowed to place her hands, her lips, her breath against me... do you hear me, you disgusting creature? Only Seraphina! And you… you dared to take that from her. You dared to steal something that belongs to her alone. How dare you… how utterly dare you"
Meanwhile, the Hollow-Tongue jumped up and straightened its posture; however, it didn't attack. Instead, it tilted its head once again, and yellow flames started burning in its eyes, resembling anger... or perhaps revenge.
Then, Kael chuckled softly at first, though it carried a madness that made even his own voice tremble in the air.
"My, my, do you think you've won now, do you think you have cornered me, do you think this is the end?" He straightened slightly, that feral grin still etched across his face. "Hah… hahahaha… Then let me show you just how wrong you are… let me fuck you in a way that you will regret ever existing, you ugly bitch."
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(Chapter Ended)
To be continued...