"As expected of the gut ripper, you can still stand after taking my 'Aircraft Carrier U-turn' move."
Grin flexed his scratched right hand, blood sliding between his fingers.
The blood, brimming with vitality, dripped onto the ground and quickly grew into a cluster of magnificent golden roses.
Unfortunately, most of the energy was consumed during the growth process and could not be reabsorbed.
Blessing of the Forest activated silently, and the surrounding greenery once again began to wither.
A massive amount of vitality surged toward Grin. The wound on his hand healed at a visible rate, his muscles and bones reconnected, and his strength was restored in an instant.
Elsa's eyes were filled with excitement: "Wonderful, you have such a powerful recovery ability? I wonder what would happen if I slashed you a hundred... a thousand times..."
To kill the beast prince who has completed Beastification, one must either use highly destructive magic to turn him into ash or fight him until all the nearby greenery has withered.
"Can your blade last for a thousand strikes?"
Grin narrowed his massive vertical pupils, and a dangerous aura immediately swept across the scene.
Hearing this, Elsa raised her Kukri to take a look. Sure enough, a tiny crack had appeared on the blade.
"Daijoubu, Mr. Beast~ If I lose my fangs, I'll use my claws; if I lose my claws, I'll use my bones; if I lose my bones, I'll use my life. That is the way of the gut ripper."
"Now~ let us begin our slaughter~"
"Until one of us completely turns into nutrients for the soil!"
With a slight twist of her wrist, her Kukri drew a cold silver arc. The wind from the blade tore through the air, emitting a sharp hum.
Before her afterimage could fade, she had already turned into a dark shadow glinting with cold light, lunging straight for Grin's throat—the softest blind spot of the giant beast.
"Courting death!"
Grin shouted fiercely, his massive maw snapping open to reveal cold, pale fangs. A bloody wind blew toward him, but he didn't dodge. Instead, he met her head-on.
He swung his thick forearm horizontally, his claws like ten unsheathed Kukris. He struck at Elsa's waist with immense force, adopting a suicidal style of trading injury for injury.
The human and the beast were locked in a fierce struggle in the forest. Their speed was extreme, and the naked eye could only catch the intersecting flashes of blade light and claw shadows.
Grin's beastly body possessed monstrous strength. Every swing of his claws could snap a tree as thick as a man's embrace.
Wherever his claws swept, rocks shattered and soil flew. The entire woodland was forcibly plowed into several deep trenches.
Finally, Elsa caught the gap as Grin turned—the momentary opening when the giant beast's body rotated.
Bang!
She shot out like an arrow from a bow, pushing off a broken log to suddenly leap higher. She skillfully landed on Grin's broad shoulders and slammed her elbow into his beastly eye with immense force.
When dealing with large magical beasts, aiming for weak points is always the most effective method of attack.
Grin roared in pain as one of his eyes became bloodshot and burst, temporarily losing his vision. His massive body retreated two steps.
This moment of sluggishness was all the experienced Elsa needed to seize the opportunity.
She immediately flipped onto Grin's neck, her hands gripping the beast's fangs tightly, her knuckles turning white from the exertion.
Elsa's smile was tinged with madness as her nails dug deep into the gap between the fangs and gums, forcibly snapping off a section of the sharp beast tooth.
"Shit!"
Grin was furious. He opened his bloody maw and lunged at Elsa.
This move was extremely fast. Elsa couldn't dodge in time, and one of her legs was swallowed into Grin's mouth.
Crack!
The sharp fangs, like massive hydraulic shears, effortlessly crushed Elsa's thigh.
A thick smell of blood filled Grin's mouth.
"Ptu!"
Grin turned his head and spat out the severed limb.
"This taste is far worse than Rem's cooking."
Elsa retreated to a relatively safe distance. Standing on one leg, she showed no sign of pain on her face.
The pervert's face was flushed as she caressed a fang the size of an arm as if it were a work of art.
"Subarashii~ What an exquisite trophy. To obtain this treasure at the cost of only one leg is truly a bargain."
Rustle!
After being separated from the main body, the tooth actually began to crack, and countless tiny plant roots and leaves grew out from the fissures.
Finally, all the vitality was exhausted, and a golden rose bloomed on the tooth.
Blessing of the Forest—if the user's flesh is disconnected from the main body, the life energy within it returns to nature, turning into these unabsorbable flowers, as if maintaining some kind of balance.
Seeing this, Elsa was not disappointed but became even more crazed.
She leaned down and sniffed, greedily enjoying the fragrance of the golden rose.
"Ah~ so beautiful. Mr. Beast, if you die completely, this place will surely become a field of flowers!"
With that, Elsa leaned forward, compressing her remaining leg like a spring, and pointed her single blade toward Grin's heart.
Then she kicked off violently, charging forward like a bolt of black lightning.
Grin swung his massive tail, sweeping Meli over to use as a shield.
As expected, Elsa's movement faltered. She twisted her waist, changing her thrusting technique into a horizontal slash aimed right at Grin's stomach.
Puchi!
The sharp blade slid smoothly into the flesh.
Just as Elsa thought she had succeeded, Grin stomped his foot hard, steadying himself.
He gritted his teeth, his muscles bulging as he firmly clamped Elsa's blade within his flesh.
"Got you!"
Boom!
Grin formed a fist with his right hand and smashed it toward Elsa's head with a sonic boom. At that moment, the massive fist was no different from a locomotive engine.
"To dare challenge a Gold Saint without understanding the gap in power... receive my Lion's Fang!"
Whoosh!
The wind from the fist struck, as sharp as a sword.
Elsa twisted her body at an angle impossible for a human, attempting to avoid the heavy blow.
Unfortunately, with her maimed body, it was impossible for her to complete the movement.
Elsa made a split-second decision, drawing a second Kukri from behind her waist and slashing at his tail while bracing for Grin's attack.
Bang!
Grin's fist finally landed, hitting Elsa's upper body squarely. It instantly snapped her spine, folding her body backward.
The powerful force sent her flying over ten meters, only stopping after she crashed through several large trees.
Elsa's body was twisted beyond recognition, barely retaining a human shape.
Grin pulled out the Kukri embedded in his abdomen, and a large amount of blood surged out from the wound.
Seeing the dark color of the blood, Grin knew that his intestines had still been severed.
"She's damn accurate..."
Under the effect of Blessing of the Forest, all the wounds on his body were healing rapidly, and the missing fangs in his mouth began to slowly emerge.
Despite his recovery ability, the pain of severed intestines still left him drenched in cold sweat.
Surveying his surroundings, Grin felt that things were looking bad.
Through the continuous cycle of injury and recovery during his battle with Elsa, the forest within the effective range was nearly exhausted.
If the density of the nearby vegetation dropped below a certain threshold, he might be unable to maintain his beastly form.
"I'm going to beat you into a rice cake right now; I don't believe you can still resurrect like that!"
This was the best method Grin could come up with.
If he hadn't still been unfamiliar with this massive body, he should have been able to crush Elsa.