With a roar, Max plunged the severed horn into the hornback’s right eyeball.
There was a squeal that shook the surrounding trees as the jelly of the eye broke, spattering pus and goo all over Max’s hand.
A few pieces of red text appeared and disappeared in succession:
CRITICAL HIT!
-30 HP
Sight -33.33%
Yes! Max celebrated.
The horn’s regular 25 damage had been boosted to 30 because he’d hit a vulnerable area, leaving the hornback with just 85 HP, and it also only had 66.6% of its eyesight left.
Max allowed himself a quick glance at the creature’s health bar. It had changed from an emerald green to more of a lime colour, and it was missing a significant chunk from its right end.
It was satisfying to see, but he couldn’t dawdle any longer. The beast was angry, very angry. It was thrashing its head from side to side, snapping its jaw wildly and bucking its back legs off the grass. Max knew he had just moments before he was thrown off.
Quickly swapping hands so that his right was now holding the next available attached horn, and his left was now holding the severed horn, he pulled back his left arm, and with another roar, drove the point of the horn into the beast’s left eyeball.
With a pop, a squelch, and another ear-piercing howl from the creature, more text flashed in red:
CRITICAL HIT!
-30 HP
Sight -33.33%
Having another of its eyes destroyed was the tipping point for the hornback; flailing around manically, it lost its balance and toppled to the left.
Max held on as tightly as he could to the attached horn as the beast he was astride fell onto its side. As it hit the grass, Max tried to keep a hold of the attached horn, hoping he would be able to get back on top when the beast got back to its feet, but the force of the impact of the beast connecting with the grass cracked the base of the second horn, and Max fell to the grass with a heavy thud, now holding two severed horns.
It had been a hard landing. In the top right of his vision, Max saw a flash of red text:
-2 HP
This time the text wasn’t assigned to anything in his environment, and was moving along with his gaze as he looked around. It was accompanied by a green bar just like the beast’s, and the number inside was 48/50.
He had just 50 total HP?
He was surprised at how low it was in comparison to the beast’s, but the more he thought about it, the more it somehow felt fitting for the person he had become over the last few years.
Getting distracted by his stats had cost him; the hornback had already scrambled to its feet and had turned and set its central and only remaining eye on him.
Before Max even had time to get to his feet, the hornback was swiping at him with its front legs, its dirty, razor-sharp claws narrowly missing him as he rolled from side to side, clinging onto both severed horns tightly.
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But Max couldn’t keep the dodging up forever. He had to get to his feet.
After the seventh swipe from the hornback’s left talons, which sent a smattering of earth and cut grass into the air, Max used his right arm to prop himself up and get his feet firmly on the ground.
He immediately put all of the force he could muster into the back of his right heel to propel him away from the attacking beast, but the fraction of time he had lost by hoisting himself up had cost him. As he pelted away, the tips of the hornback’s right claws caught his left forearm, slashing three gashes into the flesh.
Max was too fired up to feel any pain, but he noticed a new flash of red text:
-14 HP
He was now at 34 HP.
As he ran, he noted how the shallow cut from the hornback’s claws had taken 28% of his total health. What would a deeper cut have dealt? Or a bite from its vicious teeth?
He had a gut feeling his HP wouldn’t have covered it.
Knowing he had made some distance between the beast and himself, Max stopped and turned back to face it.
It had its remaining eye locked onto him like a sniper, and was foaming at the mouth with bloodlust. It was about to pounce, and this time he could tell it was going for the kill.
He looked at the severed horn in his left hand, then the one in his right, then back up at the hornback.
He had to kill the thing now.
It had 55/120 HP left, and he had two severed horns that dealt 25 damage each.
“Or 30 if I catch you in that final eyeball,” he muttered under his breath.
He didn’t have time to formulate a more elaborate plan. The beast was charging at him with a ferocity he hadn’t yet seen from it.
The hornback’s head was swinging around so wildly that it was going to be an extremely difficult target to hit. But he had to try.
Putting himself in the stance of a javelin thrower, Max retracted his right arm, then used all the strength he could muster to catapult the horn directly at the final eye.
For a split second, he thought it was going to hit its target, but then the beast’s head made a sharp jerk to its right, causing the horn to spear an area just above its mangled left eye.
-25 HP
He hadn’t hit his target, but the beast now had just 30 HP left. If he could get the eye with the remaining horn…
Max’s heart was hammering away in his chest.
The hornback was almost upon him.
With a final kick off its back legs, it pounced, its hungry jaw wide open, saliva streaming from its blistered tongue and jagged teeth. Max took a hold of the remaining horn with both hands and gripped it as tightly as he could.
As the gaping mouth soared towards him like a cavern, it almost felt like everything was happening in slow motion.
“Fuck yoooooooouuuuuuu!” Max roared, and he drove the severed horn into the roof of the beast’s gaping mouth and up through its final eyeball, bursting right out of the center of the pupil.
CRITICAL HIT!
-30 HP
Sight -33.33%
At the same time, the beast shattered into blue particles, and there was a flash of golden text that glistened with refracted light:
Triocular Hornback Defeated!
+2 Battle Orbs
+1 Beast Orb
It was followed by a short fanfare of celebratory orchestral music. Max still had no idea if these pieces of music were genuinely playing in the area from some hidden speaker, or if they were was just in his own head, but they felt awesome to hear.
Gasping for breath, Max watched as a bunch of stuff popped out of nothing in the air above the grass in front of him and landed with a clatter, a thud, and a jangle.
There were all four of the hornback’s horns, all three mangled eyes, a sizeable slab of meat, and a small pile of gold coins.
With his chest heaving up and down, taking in the fresh forest air, Max couldn’t help the manic grin that tugged on either side of his lips.
He was covered in monster pus, had a gash in his left forearm, and his office clothes were ripped and tattered, but somehow he felt on top of the world.
Despite having been in terrible danger for the first time in 7 years, he felt… alive.
“Wooooooh!” he called, tossing aside his shredded suit jacket, and tearing the ragged remains of his white shirt from his torso. The limited amounts of muscle he had on his upper body were pumped from the action.
He looked at the wound on his forearm, and a small bit of text appeared.
Wound
“You don’t say?” Max chuckled sarcastically.
It didn’t look particularly deep, but he thought it would be best to cover it and prevent any further bleeding, so he pulled the remains of his shirt into a taut rag.
He was about to wrap it around his forearm when he noticed something; wisps of green light were emanating out of the grass and the trees and swirling towards the wound.
“No way,” Max said in awe. “Don’t tell me this is some kind of mystical life-force of the planet come to heal me?”
It had to be.
Max watched as the ethereal green strands soaked into the gashes and became absorbed.
Despite having just fought a three-eyed monster, he couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The forest was healing him. It was going to stitch him up with its magical natural power-
Wait…
The wound wasn’t closing.
In fact, it seemed to be turning from a fresh red colour into an unpleasant yellow-green, and it was beginning to… bubble.
“What the hell?”
As Max focused on the wound, which was now starting to feel hot and irritated, new text appeared beside it.
Infected Wound
Infection Type: Forest Stringworm
-1 HP every 30 seconds
“Oh shit.”