Ezra coughed. Smoke and ash covered him from all sides. He looked at his health at the top right of his vision.
890/1020
Looked like he’d managed to avoid the worst of it. A breeze drifted in and caused the dust to float away. The guild hall had managed to avoid serious damage.
Dumrivil stood to his feet. He was covered in dirt from top to bottom, but he didn’t appear to have any major wounds.
Nobinar groaned. Ppart of his arm was gone. The only thing left was charred skin. He looked at his wound and then vomited on the ground.
Ezra rushed over and applied [Stitch Wounds], stemming the blood flow. His hands shook.
“He has good aim,” Ezra said.
Nobinar smashed the ground with his other fist and stood up.
“W-we’re lucky that we got off this easy,” Nobinar said. “We need to ground him before he hits the guild hall.”
Ezra narrowed his eyes and looked up at the figure of Villscha in the distance.
“Also, can we talk about the fact that the monster is Villscha?” Nobinar said. “Is no one else confused by that?”
“Not me,” Ezra said.
Dumrivil shook his head. “I’ll fill you in later.”
Nobinar grunted and that was the end of the conversation. Ezra lifted Filamenta in his hand. Was there some trick he could pull with [Bind] to achieve flight? Probably, but did he have time to fiddle with that considering how little time they had?
“Could we just have Blaze and Cala fire back with their spells?” Ezra said.
Nobinar reached his hand up and rubbed his damaged arm. “No, that won’t work. There’s no way they have the aim needed to pull that off.”
There had to be a way. “Do we have any archers? Could they take him out?”
“It’s just too fast,” Nobinar said. “If we had any A-rank archers, sure. But all we have are B-ranks.”
Dumrivil stared up at Villscha and rubbed his chin. “What if I throw you up there, Ezra?”
Ezra froze. “What?”
“Yeah, I just, you know, swing you up there, and then you can adjust your flight in mid-air to intercept him. You can even use your thread stuff to get closer.”
“Think about how much strength that would take,” Ezra said. “You’d need a super high stat—“
He paused.
Dumrivil was staring at him with a smirk.
“You hit 100 in Strength?” Ezra said.
“The mutated serpents and the Giant Lizards pushed me over the edge and I got an A-rank skill.”
Nobinar’s eyes bugged out. “You managed to score an A-Rank!?”
Dumrivil nodded.
“[Overdrive]. It looks like I can draw upon my strength and concentrate it in one blow. The more I concentrate, the more powerful the attack, but the longer I’ll be out of commission.”
Ezra raised an eyebrow. “What if you swing so hard that you just end up snapping me like a twig?”
“That probably won’t happen.”
Ezra weighed the thoughts over in his mind. It wasn’t a great idea… but it was still an idea, and nothing else seemed to be coming up. Ezra nodded at Dumrivil.
“Alright, let’s do it.”
----------------------------------------
Ezra placed his feet on the tip of Dumrivil’s massive sword, [Cat’s Grace] letting him balance on it perfectly. Dumrivil gripped his sword and looked up at where Villscha was.
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“Ready?” Dumrivil said.
Ezra sighed. “Just make sure you don’t miss.”
Dumrivil tensed his legs. “Don’t worry about that. I’ll get you up there, just make sure that you take him down, okay?”
Dumrivil squatted lower, then pulled on his sword. The ground cracked underneath his feet, and then the sword swung upward.
Ezra shot up into the air and flailed around for several seconds. Up was down, left was right, and the sky would be replaced by the burning town every couple of seconds.
[Cat’s Grace] kicked in and he instinctively moved his body to straighten up. He blinked through the tears from the wind and tried to catch sight of Villscha. Dumrivil had been shockingly accurate—in a few moments, Ezra would only be 20 feet or so away from Villscha.
But that was still too far.
Ezra held out his hand. “[Restrain]!”
Threads burst from Ezra’s clothes and raced toward Villscha. For a split second, the threads slowed down and it seemed like it wouldn’t make it.
Then they closed the final couple of feet and Ezra rocketed toward Villscha. Villscha looked at Ezra, and then his jaw dropped.
Ezra smashed into Villscha and sent them both tumbling through the air. Ezra held on tight and maneuvered his way onto Villscha’s back. He wrapped one of his arms around Villscha’s throat and used his other arm to stab down into Villscha’s heart.
Villscha cried out and shook from side to side.
“You bastard! Where the hell did you even come from!?” he said.
Ezra poked his head up and saw the state of the wounds. They closed up in front of his eyes like [Stitch Wounds].
Villscha flapped his wings and his flight leveled out. “You’re not going to kill me that easily. The [Parasite] grants me unrivaled regeneration! Even if you tore my head off, my brain has been distributed through my body, making me invincible!”
Ezra stabbed Filamenta up the man’s chin and into his skull. The jaw flapped open.
A gurgle came out of Villscha’s throat. “I already said that won’t work.”
Villscha flipped his body upside down and divebombed toward the ground. If Ezra didn’t move, he’d get flattened like a pancake. Ezra flipped onto Villscha’s front.
Villscha grinned and reached out. Ezra leaned back, but Villscha managed to grab onto Ezra’s jacket. He tugged Ezra close and slammed his head into Ezra’s skull.
Stars exploded across Ezra’s vision. The world bent and shifted in random directions and he felt his muscles relax.
Ezra slipped off Villscha and tumbled toward the ground.
“Oh, hell no!” Filamenta said.
Threads shot out from Ezra again and wrapped back around Villscha.
“How!?” Villscha said. “How are you doing that!?”
Filamenta grunted. “Ezra, wake the hell up!”
Ezra swung through the air. With each second, he was brought closer and closer to Villscha.
Consciousness snapped back to Ezra and he angled himself to grab onto Villscha’s wing. His hands snapped out and Villscha cried as his steady flight curved in a random direction.
“Just die already!” Villscha said.
Ezra reared back and punched Villscha in the back of the head. He did this again, and again, and again, Villscha too disoriented from flying with one wing to fight back.
“It’s not going to work!” Villscha said. “My brain is no longer needed, you fool!”
Ezra pushed himself and stood on top of Villscha, He tugged on the wing.
Villscha staggered in mid air. “What the hell are you doing!?”
Ezra pulled as hard as he could, all 50 of his Strength points poured into this one motion.
“Nononono!” Villscha said.
Sinew snapped and the wing ripped clean off of Villscha’s back. They immediately started to tumble toward the ground. Fueled by momentum, they sailed past the edge of the city walls and toward the barn of some poor farmer.
They crashed into the building.
----------------------------------------
Ezra lifted himself. One of his arms buckled and he fell back into the pile of wood that he’d created when he crashed. He looked over at his health.
[420/1500]
He cast [Stitch Wound] on his body and shuddered. Dozens of cuts closed up simultaneously and flooded his body with pain. After a few seconds, he managed to stand to his feet.
The barn was dimly lit, shafts of sunlight filtering through gaps in the wooden slats. Off to the side of the roof, there was a large jagged hole that allowed a bit more illumination. Stacks of hay lined the walls, casting long shadows across the dirt floor. A few tools—rusted scythes, shovels, and pitchforks—were scattered over the ground. In the far corner, a ladder led up to a loft, where more hay was piled high. The place smelled of old straw and animals, though no livestock stirred.
“You think that managed to kill him?” Ezra said. “Please tell me that managed to kill him.”
Filamenta narrowed her eyes. “Wait, you have a method of tracking them, remember?”
Ezra sucked in a breath. Of course. He went to his titles and equipped [Monster Slayer II].
He was unable to sense anything. There wasn’t a single monster inside his sense’s range. He walked over to the exit of the barn and swung it open. Grass and sunlight greeted him. He took a few more steps into the open field. Had Villscha woken up and made a run for it? What was happening?
He wandered around the field for several minutes until he finally caught sight of something. The wing that Ezra had ripped off was lying on the soil. Ezra’s heart rate increased and he lowered himself to the ground. He stalked forward and watched for any sign of Villscha.
After a few seconds, he spotted the figure of a corpse. He stepped forward and breathed a sigh of relief.
Villscha’s broken body was slumped over by a tree. His eyes were shut and nothing was floating over his head.
He was dead.
Ezra almost fell over from relief. He felt utterly exhausted.
“Hold on, Ezra,” Filamenta whispered in his mind. “Why didn’t you get any XP for the kill?”
“It was cause the fall killed him?” Ezra said.
“Perhaps. But surely his body should’ve turned to ash.”
“That only happens when I stab them, remember?” Ezra leaned in toward Villscha. “Yeah, look at him. He’s dead.”
At that moment, Villscha’s eyes snapped open.
Villscha - Demon (Ascended I) - Phase 2/3 - Lv. 62