*Bang!!!* *Bang!!!* *Bang!!!*
Benedict fired multiple shots. The direwolves had decided to attack, and the Kimber's shots expelled expanding bullets at full speed.
Each shot hit its target, splattering the wolves' black fur with red as they wrinkled their snouts and growled.
*Sparks!!!*
Deep holes were marked in the stone and bright sparks flew everywhere from the Wargs' claws as they missed their leap towards Benedict, who threw himself to one side, dodging the wolf's first charge.
The second wolf wanted to take advantage of his position on the ground and leapt towards him.
Benedict aimed both weapons at it and fired, forcing the wolf to hide behind the ruins of a column.
Benedict took advantage of this and stood up, running towards a wall to get enough distance from the direwolves.
*Applause!!!*
Benedict holstered his two weapons and applauded calmly, the sound clear with a slight echo.
Immediately, both wolves curled up into balls in pain. Expanding bullets are designed to expand like mushrooms as soon as they come into contact with soft tissue.
Hot red blood splattered the dust-covered ground, the Wargs' leather torn from their flesh along with their fur, leaving large bleeding craters.
Benedict was a type of Outcast known as a 'Spiral', capable of contaminating things with his energy through physical contact. Brub the troll was so focused on his brother Grurk that he did not sense Benedict's presence, allowing him to 'taint' the troll for a prolonged period of time.
Then he just had to twist the energy he left inside him, enough to turn his entire fat body into a grotesque meatball.
"3,2...1!!!"
*Applause!!!*
Benedict clapped for the second time, and the second wolf's right front leg exploded into a bloody spiral flower, all its flesh just a piece of its bone torn from its body.
*Yelp!!!*
The reason Benedict used expanding bullets was that they embedded themselves in the flesh rather than passing through it. Each .45 ACP bullet in Benedict's pistols was stained with his spiral energy and only needed a signal to activate.
Only when they were inside their victims' bodies, of course, was it a weaker method of attack than physical contact; a slap was enough to completely twist humans.
- At the same time -
*Crack!!!*
An imposing, thick pillar of white stone split in two, the thick chain that Damrock had torn from the ceiling in his hands now a super-heavy whip.
William ran around Damrock. His large size made it difficult to notice William's slender figure, and with his speed, he had no choice but to make wide-ranging attacks.
William stopped and shot off at full speed towards Damrock, dodging to the right to avoid Damrock's crescent-shaped blade attached to his left arm armour.
"Stop running, Damn goblin!"
"Is that an insult?"
William took a few steps around the troll, keeping his body close to Damrock's, and when he saw an opening, he attacked.
A long upward slash from the inside of Damrock's arm, the hard black leather split cleanly in two. Less than a second later, he made a wide horizontal cut, the gleaming blade of Titan smoothly slicing through the black iron that the Trolls used for their armour.
"Arghh!!!"
Damrock barely wrinkled his pig nose in pain when his arm was severed from his forearm in a 'T' cut.
"Shit!!!"
William covered his head with both arms. Damrock's black blood had flashes of purple liquid in it, and the little blood that touched William's left hand burned a huge hole, almost to the point of exposing his bones.
He had a high pain tolerance, but feeling his flesh melt was more than a little painful.
Damrock wasted no time and kicked William against the cave wall.
William spun his body in the air, stabilised himself, and scraped the shaft of Titan to come to a complete stop.
"The lizard was right, super regeneration..."
He watched as tentacles of blood, flesh, and bone extended from Damrock's wound, forming a new hand for him.
"It won't be that easy!!!!"
"Gaaaarrrhdh!!!!"
Damrock roared before charging towards William. The troll was no fool; he knew that he couldn't hurt the human unless he aimed for his head, otherwise his majestic, shiny scale armour would stop his attacks. He felt this after kicking him and seeing how his poisonous blood simply slid to the ground as if it were water.
William began to run between the columns, Damrock destroying them as if they were Lego blocks.
"Where are you, annun vurak vicok!!!!"
Halfway through his words, William could no longer understand King Troll.
"Time's up."
The last of the silver skulls had closed its mouth. Damrock turned his head towards the sound just above his right shoulder and lunged to bite.
William slid down the Troll's back and drew Sting from its sheath as he hit the ground. The long sword expanded to its full size.
*Splash!!!!"
There was another burst of blood, this time accompanied by the smell of burnt flesh. Sting's wide blade heated up until it was red hot. As soon as it touched Damrock's skin, it ignited such scorching flames that William felt a burning sensation on his cheeks.
Of the two gold plates William won in the Poe Cup, the second plate, blessed with a perfect carving on an object, was kept until he decided to use it on Sting, his blade made of heat-resistant Beskar steel, which made it perfect for the job.
Unlike his arrows, which melted after one use, the Incineration Rune did its job as a Greater Rune. Without heating Sting's blade, it would have gotten stuck in Damrock's hard knee bone.
William learned his lesson and took a step back to observe, dodging Damrock's chain-covered fist.
Damrock did not cry out in pain, but saliva dripped from his mouth along with a trail of blood. He clenched his jaw so tightly that his fangs cut his palate.
"Oh, unlike a Goblin Queen, you are able to regenerate your lost limbs, no matter if they are cauterised with fire... interesting."
William took a short video of the process while resting his hand on his sword against the ground, which released white smoke as it cooled. It would be a problem to return it to its sheath while it was still hot.
"Anunn Un Ratacutic Dabak!!!!"
Damrock's words were filled with hatred and immeasurable anger. Being humiliated in this way, the Wyvern Eater, by a nameless hero was worse than the wounds.
*Tink*
Sting returned to its sheath, as did Titan. William lifted his chin slightly and looked at Damrock as if he were a worm slightly larger than normal.
"Ziirp told me your second title..."
Damrock could not understand human language, but he had a bad feeling. He felt a cold air gathering around his neck. It was the fourth time in his life that he had felt that peculiar sensation. The first time was when his father almost ate him at birth.
The second time was when he faced the Bone-Eating Wyvern. The third time was when he faced that being whose wounds could not heal, the one that tore his flesh with burning pain.
"He who fears bears!"
Damrock overcame two of the occasions, and on the third, he fled, running away from the giant Silver-Clawed Bear on that small island, in full view of those human hunters.
William clutched his own ribs and his body expanded in size, his muscles swelled, long pointed ears sprouted from his head, fur as black as moonless nights and sharp claws as long as curved daggers took the place of his fingers and white skin.
"Callisto!"
One of the few words the Troll King knew in human language, William now identical to that Bear and the same size as the Troll, only thinner.
"Ggrrooaarr!!!"
William in his Kodiak Bear form roared intensely, his enormous body collided with the Troll and he lunged with a bite straight at Damrock's neck.
Damrock did not flee, he was not going to flee a second time. He defended himself with his left arm, a serious mistake, as William's first attack with Titan was aimed at disarming his armour.
*Crack!!!*
The Bear's bite broke the bones in his arm and cut through his fat. The Troll King's blood would have burned William's mouth if it weren't for his Blood Centipede medal.
The medal allowed him to control the blood as long as it was not inside a body or too far away, conditions that were perfectly met now. The black blood evaded William and fell to the ground.
Damrock hit him with his right fist, still armoured, causing pain to William, who tasted a little of his own blood in his mouth.
"Argghhh!!!!"
Damrock roared in pain as the Kodiak's sharp silver claws cut into his belly and his entrails fell at his feet. The wounds inflicted by a live bear on a black-skinned Troll King did not regenerate.
This was why his herd devoted themselves day and night to hunting black bears in the mountains, using kobolds as their scouts.
Weapons made from bear fangs or bones had no effect since the animal was dead. Many Normie knights tried, as did a few Werebears, but none had the size, strength, or immunity to its acid.
Damrock wrapped his still-intact right hand around William's neck, planning to break it, but it was impossible to do so with only one hand and William standing still.
William pushed Damrock against a column, released Damrock's arm from his jaws, and pressed one of his legs against Damrock's knee.
After a bloodcurdling crunch, the powerful and enormous troll fell to his knees. Damrock still tried his best to break William's windpipe, his thick, jagged claws digging into his fur.
(Perfect!!!)
William's lips in his bear form lifted slightly. If a bear could smile, this would be his expression.
William's fangs expanded and with one bite clamped down on Damrock's head. The pressure increased, his skull slowly cracking with blood pouring from his eye sockets before spilling out.
Damrock's arm fell limply; the pressure of the blood in his skull had crushed his brain from within.
William placed his front paws on his shoulders and pulled, the spine coming out of his back. He unconsciously repeated the same movement that the Black Demon had used on Cayous.
*Splash!!!*
William spat out the head in disgust and began to breathe heavily, his animal instincts almost getting the better of him. Still standing on two paws, he stared at the cave ceiling for a moment, trying to calm himself down.