Aline knew it would be like this. A Level 4 Beast was not something an S-Class Hound could face alone. But she was not here to win — she was here to fulfill her role in the plan. It was all part of the plan...
“Damn you...” she spat the words through her teeth along with a mouthful of blood, standing up with a sudden movement, her body throbbing with the pain of the impact.
The Aligodon had its back to her. But not out of distraction. Slowly, as if savoring the moment, it began to turn. Its empty, opaque eyes met hers, filled with predatory sadism.
He didn’t need to rush. He wanted Aline to feel it. He wanted her to understand how insignificant and pathetic she was before him.
He would kill, of course. But without haste. Without blind fury. Just the cold pleasure of crushing something fragile under his overwhelming strength.
Aline clenched her fists, her teeth grinding together.
“I’ll charge you double for this, do you hear me?!” she shouted to the sky, her voice thick with defiance and frustration.
The sound of static hissed in her ear.
“Understood… But please, just hold on a little longer…” Gregory’s voice sounded firm, albeit muffled by interference, through the listening point in Aline’s left ear, the other having been lost in combat.
She exhaled heavily, forcing a crooked smile. “Humph Just a little longer. It’s easy to talk from there…”
After the pause was over, the Aligodon shot forward, its powerful hind legs propelling it like a projectile. Aline sucked in air between her teeth and jumped to the side, but this time, the creature anticipated her move. In the middle of the jump, the Aligodon twisted its body in the air, spinning to follow Aline's trajectory, which worked, but Aline thought quickly and kicked the beast's snout hard, using it as a springboard to throw herself even further.
The Aligodon felt its prey escape, but as soon as it touched the ground, it turned its body on its front paws, adjusted its direction and jumped again towards Aline, its claws digging grooves in the ground as it tried to grab her in the middle of its escape.
Aline was surprised by the movement, so she ran even faster, but it wasn't enough, the Aligodon would catch up to her.
The creature's giant jaw was more than enough to swallow her whole, and its teeth were clearly razors that would easily shred skin, flesh and bones. She felt another shiver as an even stronger adrenaline rush affected her body...
She saw the world go into slow motion, deciding then to stop running away and jump up. And so she did…
She used a tree stump that was in front of her as a step to launch herself into the air and do a Backflip as high as possible.
… 2… 4… 6… 8 meters.
Even the Aligodon was left speechless when it grabbed the air and saw its prey jump so high right in front of it. It only reacted when it realized that it was flying towards its back. That's when it opened its mouth towards the sky and waited for its snack to fall.
Aline realized this, she had no options to change her trajectory in the air. But she was not a novice, she had already trained and executed this movement several times and knew about this disadvantage. So, as soon as she jumped, she unsheathed her two tactical knives, each with a blade almost 30 centimeters long and with a handle modified to fit her gauntlet.
When the Aligodon opened its mouth and Aline reached the peak of her jump, it was the perfect opportunity for her to throw one of her knives directly at the beast's throat.
The Aligodon was not afraid of the blades, they would hardly cause damage to its tough flesh and it trusted in that. Unfortunately, the blades were made of Vulkarion, the same material that covered Aline's gauntlet.
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A grayish metal with reddish veins that glow slightly under extreme heat. Known for achieving a sharpness as good as or even better than glass and also known for absorbing various types of energy, gaining density according to the amount of energy absorbed and then slowly releasing it in the form of heat.
Grhuwaaaarhh
It was an effective blow, when the blade penetrated its throat, the Aligodon's roar was a thunder of fury and pain. Its body convulsed and groaned in pain as the blade made of Vulkarion cut through the less rigid flesh inside its throat.
He was forced to close his jaw as a natural reflex due to the pain. Aline took this opportunity to plunge the other knife straight into the Aligodon's back…
GRRRHHHHH
The beast roared even louder… A guttural and sinister sound that reverberated throughout Aline's body as she clung to the knife's handle amidst the brusque and ferocious movements the beast made to free itself from the knife in its back.
Without success… Even though she suffered a little and had great difficulty holding on, the blade was fixed enough to serve as support so that Aline wouldn't be thrown away.
Without success... Even though she was suffering a little and had a lot of difficulty holding on, the blade was fixed enough to serve as support so that Aline wouldn't be thrown away.
Aline felt every spasm of the beast through the knife stuck in her back. The vibration ran through her arms like a shock, threatening to tear her away. But she clenched her teeth and held on tight, her muscles screaming under the brutal tension.
Aline continued to hold on, but not for long. Something was wrong. She felt instinct scream in her mind before she even understood why. Soon the answer came...
The Aligodon's snout began to glow...
Up until this point, Aline hadn't worried, the problem was that the glow didn't just stay on the sharp scales of its snout, now this cold glow spread, running like a fuse along two rows of less aggressive scales, which ran from the snout to the tip of the Aligodon's tail.
The glow grew rapidly, pulsing in an intense blue. Along with the glow came an abrupt, intense cold that dropped the temperature around it. The first sign was the breath becoming visible, releasing thick clouds of vapor that slowly dissipated in the increasingly dense air.
“Shit…” Aline didn’t hesitate. She dropped the knife and leapt away, breaking into a desperate run, but as soon as her feet touched the ground, she felt another change.
The cold seemed to press down on everything around her, making every movement heavier, stiffer. Beneath her feet, the ground cracked subtly, and then came the treacherous glow—a thin layer of ice spreading rapidly across the earth, swallowing the vegetation and coating the fallen leaves with a crystalline film.
But now was not the time to be distracted, Aline put even more strength into her feet and ran at top speed away. She didn’t know how far she had run, but she hoped it had been enough.
A ball of icy blue energy formed around the Aligodon, as if the air itself had been frozen. Soon, this beautiful and deadly phenomenon took on new proportions, expanding rapidly and sweeping away everything around it, expanding at an overwhelming speed.
From afar, there was no sound other than a low, sinister crackling. Furthermore, there was no light being emitted intensely, what there was was only a soft cyan-blue glow that any normal person could admire.
However, as soon as that ball of energy reached a critical mass, the explosion came.
SSSHWWwooooosshhhh BOOOOOMMMMMMMM
That sphere collapsed in on itself and generated a shockwave that traveled almost a kilometer followed by the disturbing noise of the explosion that brought with it frightening consequences.
At the epicenter, everything was swept away within a radius of 30 meters, nothing remained but the frozen ground.
But in the distance, the ground instantly crystallized, trees cracked as their sap froze from the inside out, exploding into razor-sharp splinters. The air itself felt brittle, forming fractals of ice suspended for a brief moment before falling like shattered glass.
Snow began to fall and the ground froze to the point of forming a layer of ice nearly 10 centimeters thick. It seemed as if the entire forest within a radius of nearly 500 meters was in the midst of a harsh winter…
Aline survived, but the cost was a bit too high…
Even though she tried to get as far away as possible and fortunately managed to get out of the area of the initial energy sphere, the secondary icy explosion reached her and she was forced to use her gauntlets as a shield to absorb most of the explosion's energy.
Lying on the ground to reduce the area of contact and her fists together in front of her head to protect as much of her body as possible from the explosion, Aline felt the cold penetrate her skin like invisible knives, burning.
Her limbs became rigid, her back froze right after her clothes, her ears began to necrotize at the tips.
She felt a merciless sleep, but it was a sleep that she knew would be fatal.
The gauntlets absorbed much of the energy charge of the explosion. Still, the thermal shock was relentless. Her lips were numb, her fingers barely responded, and the burning in her lungs only increased.
She survived, but she was almost unable to fight and if she slept now she would never wake up again…