The others stared, slack-jawed, as Keane danced around the monster's paws, weaving between its limbs and slashing at its exposed joints. Every hit made the sword edge duller, but he compensated with precision, aiming for the exact angle where tendon met bone, where he had struck previously.
The attacks quickly made the beast grow furious as it spun, back paw catching Keane mid-dodge. For an instant, pain shot through his ribs, like being hit by a freight train, but he held. He rolled with the hit, used the momentum to spiral away, and landed on his feet, barely scuffed. "So it can hit me if I fuck up," he mused, eyes gleaming. He was intentionally prolonging the fight to get to understand his capabilities more, and it appeared to be effective.
Now the monster ignored the humans, focusing on Keane as the only real threat, showing greater speed than it initially did when he hadn't intervened. It roared, the sound vibrating the marrow in the bones of those watching, as it charged with a ferocity that almost shook the ground with each step.
Keane let it approach without evading. At the last possible second, he ducked under a swipe and, instead of attacking, kicked off the ground, rebounding up the beast's flank. His hands found purchase in its fur, and he scrambled atop its back, legs locking around the ridge of its spine.
It bucked, nearly tossing him, but Keane dug in, using his ridiculous strength to cling like a barnacle. With his free hand, he stabbed down into the nape of its neck, aiming for the spinal column. The sword bent, then snapped, the blade shooting past his face as he dodged, falling uselessly elsewhere on the forest floor.
"Well, that's done," Keane muttered, abandoning the weapon.
He wrapped both arms around the beast's throat, locking in a rear naked choke. It thrashed, claws gouging at its own shoulders, but Keane held on, tightening with every pulse of his biceps. The air filled with the scent of animal panic, sweat and blood.
For a moment, he wondered if he could just strangle it, but the neck muscles were too dense to see it through. "I guess that won't work… Back to the original plan," he whispered, reaching down with both hands to the base of its skull.
With a grunt of effort, Keane twisted… Bone popped, and for a split second the monster went limp, dead weight under him… Then all of a sudden, the monster's body convulsed beneath him, but even in its thrashing death throes, the thing was a live wire of muscle and hate. The men scattered, one limping, two dragging the unconscious or dead away, and one just gaping upwards, white-eyed, as Keane rode the beast's spine like a demon.
The beast arched, trying to throw him, and instead of resisting like he had been doing, Keane let himself be flung forward, right onto the monster's massive, snapping skull. His fingers sought purchase, burying deep into the fur above its eyes, and he swung himself around , almost straddling the snout, face to face with a set of teeth longer than his forearm.
The beast roared again, mouth opening so wide the jaw cracked. Its breath was a fog of blood and whatever it ate to give it the bad but surprisingly tolerable breath. The inside of its mouth was raw, wet, pink; Keane wondered for a split second if that was a weak spot too, but then he dismissed it… Too many variables.
Instead, he reached for the eyes.
He had never gouged out the eyes of anything before, maybe except for a few dead smoked and fried fishes, but faced with this now his body moved like it remembered, following his plan, fingers stabbing into the sockets. The beast jerked in agony, its scream so loud it felt like the air itself was tearing. Black blood spurted over Keane's hands, hot and viscous, painting him to the elbows. He twisted his wrists, feeling the orbs pop and collapse, and then yanked his hands free.
The monster bucked, blind and furious, while Keane vaulted off, landing lightly on the ground, watching the monster as it kept slamming its head against the ground over and over.
The others stared, mouths agape. "He's… insane," one muttered, clutching a bow, preventing his hand from shaking. Keane ignored them, testing another sword again. He slashed the beast's flank, but the blade dulled, barely doing any damage.
'Useless,' he thought, tossing it aside. The beast, blind and enraged, swiped wildly at him, or at least where he attacked from. Keane easily dodged, switching to fists as the sword won't work.
He struck its side with a couple of punches that hit like a sledgehammer. At least one of the beast's ribs cracked under his knuckles, the beast staggering. 'This is more like it,' he thought, grinning.
He unleashed a flurry of attacks, fists and kicks, each hit inflicting substantial damage. The beast roared, weaker now, its hide bruising under his onslaught. The humans watched, frozen, as Keane circled the beast like a predator.
Keane clung on around its head, bracing his feet against the ridges of bone, and when the moment came, he slammed a fist down on the skull just above the eyes, over and over again.
Each blow landed with a dull, wet sound, like punching a sack of wet sand or soaked dough. The first few hits did little, after all, the skull was thick, not to mention the fur.
That though, didn't last.
The hide split first, then the bone caved, and a paste of blood and pulped brain began to ooze from the wound.
The beast's struggles grew weaker, its movements less coordinated, its roars dissolving into wet, choking gasps.
Keane kept hitting, even as the thing sagged under him, pounding until the head was a cratered ruin and the ground beneath ran slick with black-red gore. Only when the body went fully limp did he stop, breathing hard, fingers numb and dripping with viscera.
For a long moment, there was no sound but Keane's own breathing, not laboured, but visibly strained now. Then, slowly, the surviving men crept forward, staring at him like he was some kind of god… or, more likely, a demon. Their weapons hung forgotten at their sides as they approached.
Keane looked down at his hands, flexing them. The skin was cut in a few places, but not deeply; whatever that beast had in defense, it wasn't enough. The blood was already clotting, sticky and hot. He stood, planting one boot on the creature's snout, and scanned the clearing.
Just then, the system pinged, words flashing…
[EXP Gained: 500]
[Level Up! Level 2 Achieved]