Chapter 187: One Hand, One Chance
Kael found himself in a perilous situation.
He never expected that while he was shouting with all his might, expressing his feelings, there would be a monster nearby listening to him silently. In fact, it had waited until he had finished his sentences.
'How generous!'
But was that really the thing he should be worried about now?
'Do I even have anything else to do?'
His body was battered, with his left hand completely missing and broken bones scattered throughout his body. There was a hole in his abdomen where blood was still flowing out of it. His tattered clothes were drenched in both dried and fresh blood, making him look like a bloody corpse, except that he was still alive.
He could hardly move in his current state since his thighs and legs had been massacred by the wolf-like beast, leaving him unable to move his lower body at all.
It took him a great deal of strength just to sit up and look around, but even that small movement caused him to suffer a terrifying amount of pain. And that was all his current self was capable of.
As the scythe-like limb came down closer and closer to him, Kael stared at it over his shoulder, his pupils beginning to shake.
'What can I do?'
With no time left, he poured all the strength he had into his right hand, which he had leaned on to keep himself sitting, and tried to throw himself sideways with the help of his chest.
"Argh!"
Though he managed to move his body away, it was of no use. The scythe-like weapon still sliced his back open slightly before striking the ground with a swift motion. The sound of steel meeting against rock rang in his ears as a bone-piercing pain bloomed throughout his body.
Of course, he had never hoped to evade the attack, but only to move away from it enough to minimise the fatal damage.
'Still, it hurts!'
He coughed up a mouthful of blood.
'If this goes on... I won't last even five seconds, let alone half an hour.'
Grinding his teeth, he extended his hand forward and tried to grab the ground.
Although he hadn't noticed it at first, the ground beneath him possessed a strange substance instead of soil. Judging by how soft, cold and strange it felt, it seemed like some kind of black ash or something similar at least. It didn't seem to cover much depth, though. Only an inch or so below the surface, he found something much harder and spiky, which was most likely a stone.
Whatever it was, he closed his fingers around it as fast as he could, holding it tightly. Using it as an anchor, he dragged his whole body forward, the muscles in his fingers tightening as his nails tried to dig into the stone until they broke, yet his grip didn't loosen even for a moment.
By then, the creature had retrieved its limb and fully turned toward him. It descended the scythe-like limb again, but this time aiming directly at the side of his neck. Its face was still obscured by the mist.
Kael narrowed his eyes.
'Shit!'
Before the limb could reach him, he twisted his torso and threw himself forward. His shoulder struck the ground hard, sending a wave of pain rushing through his body.
'Ah!'
Suppressing it, he used the momentum created by his earlier movements and managed to perform a few awkward rolls across the strange ground, barely slipping past the descending scythe.
Soon enough, he found himself lying on his back, but this time he was facing the monster from the side. It was better than showing his back to the enemy at least.
He pushed himself into a barely leaning position once again.
Having failed to harm its prey twice in a row, the creature took a few steps forward, its figure revealing itself for the first time.
As the fog parted aside, Kael first saw its head, which was inverted triangular in shape, with two large compound eyes positioned at its upper ends. Though one of its eyes was heavily damaged, green blood was still flowing out of it as though the wound had been inflicted not long ago. Its mouth was long, while drops of foul saliva glided down from it.
Somewhere below its neck, two strange limbs protruded outward, each made of different types of structures with only a joint supporting them in the middle. The area from their shoulders to the joints was thick, wide and curved outward in the middle like a kite-shaped shield, while the rest of each limb resembled the blade of a scythe, ending in a pointed and sharp tip.
The creature itself was white in colour, while its shield-like sections had pink shades splattered all over them.
Kael was dumbfounded for a moment.
'Huh? What the hell is it? An ant? No, it doesn't look like one. Maybe it's a mantis. Am I... struggling against a damned insect!'
Except, it was twice the size of his own body.
Its left limb, however, hung loosely to its side as though the joint didn't exist, while its shield-like part was torn apart as though it had been struck by something heavy.
'Why is it injured, though?'
Before he could delve deeper into it, the creature lowered its head and shot itself forward while gathering its limb closer.
Kael was, of course, expecting this, so he tried to search the ground behind him to catch something again beforehand.
This time, it didn't take him much time, since he found some spiky stones near him which were very easy to hold.
However, just as he was about to grab one, his hand slipped past it and fell into nothing but air as it swayed there. It happened so suddenly that if his body hadn't been supporting him, he would've lost his balance instantly.
Retrieving his hand carefully, he glanced over his shoulder.
Unfortunately, there was nothing he could see beyond that aside from thick layers of fog. But since he had been able to perceive a metre or two around him until now, and yet he wasn't able to do so here, it was obvious that there was nothing beyond that. Which meant that he was sitting at the edge of a cliff, or at least something higher than two or three metres above the ground.
His eyes widened.
'No wonder those rolls were so easy to perform. I was a fool to believe that I had landed on plain land. But still, why did it have to be a cliff? And why now of all times?'
With his legs immobilized, it was impossible for him to move around without an anchor, so these stones were his only hope... but now, that hope was gone too.
What was he supposed to do now?
Kael grimaced.
'Isn't it one of those situations where the saying goes as mountains at the back and water in the front? Sadly, I can't even make jokes about it, because water is also something I can't survive in.'
As the creature's head reached him, it opened its mouth, revealing its needle-like teeth in hopes of devouring his head in a single bite. Just before it could do so, however, Kael clenched his fist and extended the hand between himself and the creature's mouth like a shield.
'Come on, bastard.'
The creature noticed that something stood in its way, but instead of stopping, it didn't hesitate to bite down on his forearm.
Kael groaned in pain, but he didn't pull his hand away.
He was aware that no matter what happened, he couldn't afford to lose his only hand now, because if he did, he wouldn't be able to heal himself ever again. After all, mages with unsaturated cores like him who couldn't learn the first step of Unus Paths weren't capable of casting magic without their palms, which was why he was supposed to be careful with it.
But after that attack, he was probably dead anyway, so what would be the point of having the useless hand? Or more accurately, what use could a corpse possibly have for a hand?
As the teeth bit deeper into his flesh, Kael didn't sway from the pain, not even a little. Instead, he leaned forward as fast as he could before driving his head into the creature's injured eye, pushing it deeper inside and making the wound even worse.
At the same time, he could feel the monster's teeth sinking deep into his flesh, tearing it apart little by little. Perhaps in a few seconds or so, it would be completely mangled, but he didn't care one bit.
If one strike wouldn't be enough to disrupt it, then he would try it ten times over.
Without wasting any time, he slammed his forehead into the creature's eye a few more times, almost crushing it into shreds. While the creature tried to sever his forearm from the elbow, his hand refused to give itself up yet. Or perhaps the creature's bite pressure was simply far too weak compared to what it should've been, since it was taking more than a few seconds to tear it off.
At some point, the creature loosened its grip on his hand, either because of all the pain it was suffering or because of tiredness.
In his case, however, after all the pain he had suffered from the first floor to the second floor, having his hand bitten was somewhat bearable.
'I will get one chance only.'
Finding the opportunity, he tore his hand straight out of its mouth, but because of its bite pressure, some of the skin and flesh were ripped open and torn apart. By then, his hand itself was soaked in crimson blood.
Noticing that its prey was free, the creature was about to react, but it was already too late.
'And I will make it count... no matter what.'
In the next moment, he drove his hand straight into the creature's other eye, his extended fingers tearing through it like a knife cutting through vegetables. He curled his fingers inside it and gouged out its eye from its head without a second thought.
The creature jerked its head high into the air and let out a shrill, sniffling shriek that reverberated through the empty space.
Because of its sudden movements, his body was pushed back, becoming dangerously close to the edge of the cliff. It was close enough that if he made even a little mistake, he would fall instantly.
The reason why he had attacked its eyes instead of its head or neck was because he wasn't too confident in his strength in this state, not when he lacked a hand. Besides, eyes were supposed to be the most vulnerable place of monsters, and without being able to see anything, it wouldn't be able to harm him either. That was, if he didn't make any obvious movements or sounds, of course.
Or so he thought, at least.
Even after being blinded, the creature somehow threw its scythe straight at him.
Kael stared at the scene with a blank look.
'Me and my stupid thoughts!'
As the scythe was about to pierce straight through his chest, Kael threw the gruesome eye into the creature's mouth.
"You think you can kill me, huh? Dream on."
Closing his eyes, he leaned back as though he was about to relax, letting his body fall from the cliff in the same motion.
'Let's go.'
The familiar wind whistled past his ear as his body felt weightless for a moment.
'It's all or nothing.'
Of course, the moment he found the cliff, his intention had been to fall from it so he could survive the creature. However, then, he remembered that the usual mantises he was familiar with were all capable of either flying or gliding through the air. So, even if he managed to escape it somehow, the creature would follow him through the hell.
However, in most cases, even if a monster possessed a similar resemblance to an insect or animal, there were so many distinctive features that set them apart from each other, with most of them being unrecognizable. Which was why there was still a chance that this monster didn't possess wings.
So, how did he become sure that it did?
It was simple, actually.
When he first fell from the sky, he landed on the creature's back, where some soft parts cushioned his landing and saved him from the impact. Back then, while examining his surroundings, he saw a flower-like thing there, which had to be its wings. Aside from that, he couldn't guess anything else that a mantis could have on its back.
Regardless, if Kael's legs had been somewhat usable at least, he would've brought the creature along with him here. Perhaps it would've been far better if something was there to accompany him here at least. After all, what he did was based entirely on luck, since he wasn't even sure whether there was a ground there below or not. But, if it really was a cliff, then without a doubt, he would die from this fall.
'Still, it's not bad either. Dying on my own is far better than dying after being crushed by a monster or devoured by one.'
Surprisingly, luck was on his side today.
'That was fast.'
Sooner than he had expected, his shoulder struck the ground, but instead of stopping there, his body began to roll as though he was falling down a slide. Everything around him felt like it was spinning in a spiral, not that there was anything to see anyway.
'Fuck!'
A few seconds later, he found himself striking something heavy that almost pierced into his skin, but even so, he finally came to a halt.
His chest rose and fell continuously.
'At last... this injured body can rest a little.'
He took a soft breath, giving himself time to remain still as he waited for his head to stop spinning.
When the dizziness in his head finally subsided, Kael turned it to the side, his eyes gradually regaining their focus.
Unfortunately, the first thing he saw afterward was a white creature silently sitting there on its four legs. Where its eyes should have been, only two gaping holes remained, green blood flowing from them like miniature fountains. It was, of course, the same creature he had been escaping from in the first place.
The corner of Kael's mouth twitched.
'To hell with this life!'
He forced out a smile and said, "Ah... you didn't have to take my words so personally?"
What was the point of making it blind if it was going to track him down here anyway?
'Wait... something's not right here.'
Now that he looked closely enough, the creature was completely missing the two limbs that protruded from below its neck.
'I'm pretty sure I'm not the one who caused it. Could it be that when its attack didn't find me, it kept moving forward in search of me and fell off the cliff on its own? No, that can't be it. Mantises are quite capable insects, and their weight mostly depends on their lower body, so it would've been able to prevent the fall even if it was blind right now. Which means that there might be another reason for it.'
At that moment, the creature lowered its head and drove it forward, straight at him.
Kael blinked a couple of times.
Huh?
'If that's the case, it probably didn't know that I was lying here, right? But after shouting at it, I practically announced my location to it, didn't I?'
He didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
'Why am I so damn stupid?'
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(Chapter Ended)
To be continued...