Time slowed to a crawl. Noah's eyes reflected the blood that poured out of him by the gallon. The beam hadn't hit his currently outwardly visible heart but was just as fatal, if not more.

'Dum-Dum. Dum-Dum'

It was strange that in this situation, where he was moments away from death, a part of his brain looked at his beating heart and thought about how the sound of his beating heart that he could hear from his head had a slight delay after his heart itself beat. He blinked. Now was not the time.

Mimicry - Unicorn!

In just a split second, Noah assessed the unicorn as the best monster form to adopt in this scenario. A Lich might have prevented his death, but it was no use against this overwhelming opponent, who could probably just capture him. No, he had to prioritise speed of getaway, and the slow Lich form, which he only knew to use the slow Third Circle - Fly with, would undoubtedly lead to disaster.

The unicorn, however, as a monster known to be infamously slippery, was speedy. Additionally, the unicorn was capable of healing. The horn of a unicorn was even often hunted down for its miraculous healing. However, its fighting capabilities were practically nonexistent. In this situation, the unicorn was a perfect monster, considering that he had no intention of trying to fight the Hero, rather than just run.

With a powerful kick of its hooves, the unicorn, with a green light emanating from the hole in its torso as well as from its horn, turned into a blur as it rocketed through the woods. Leaves and branches were split aside, and the smell of sizzling vegetation permeated the air where the unicorn stepped. But the Hero was no pushover.

'The fucker's right on my tail!'

Noah regretted looking back for even a second as he saw the face of the Hero not even 10 metres away from him, flying above the forest. Noah came to the realization that he was not going to be able to shake the Hero with just this.

'Well, from what I saw in that fight with the Orc King back there, I expected at least this much.'

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At this point, Noah's wound had more or less disappeared under the miraculous healing of the unicorn, even if it had taken a significant chunk of Noah's remaining mana. He had already started this fight with a low amount of mana, but now he was down to less than 10 percent, and things were looking dire.

'I need to take a risk if I'm to come out on top here. I need to do something he might not be able to do that I can do to throw him off. That'll be difficult, though. The bastard's only been here for like three days, and he can do basically everything I can, but better...Wait. Three days?'

This was his key, and he knew it. He had to exploit the difference in experience somehow. Trying to think of something, anything, his mind raced and his eyes furiously darted around. There surely had to be a way he could exploit the experience difference.

Above him, another crackle was heard. Hearing this, Noah forced every muscle in his body to immediately react as he transformed.

'Mimicry - Amphiptere!'

A winged snake with colossal wings that were the length of a dozen fully grown men immediately spread them, rapidly decelerating the monster, which caused the beam that was narrowly about to hit Noah to miss. He witnessed the beam that felt as if the sun itself had declared its wrath strike the ground in front of him and melt a hole that probably went several metres underground.

Not very eager to fly into the beam with his residual speed, Noah rolled his body around the beam, dodging it as if he were hugging the beam like a pole, causing his wings to knock down several trees in the vicinity. Once he had rolled around the beam, he turned his wings from a fully vertical position to one that was at a 45-degree angle to the ground.

At this wing angle, his speed lifted him into the air, and his wings slapped the man who had his finger still pointed downwards to the ground as he flapped to gain further upward momentum. The Hero now lay at the centre of a giant crater on the ground, looking upwards at Noah, who was rapidly gaining altitude in front of his eyes.

While the Hero grew enraged at Noah's offensive manoeuvre, which didn't really do all that much damage to himself, Noah only furrowed his reptilian eyebrows. He was out of mana and could not take on the form of any other monsters. Hell, he couldn't even last in this current form for long. He began to piece together fragments of a plan when a laser struck his tail.

Noah let out a wry grin following a wince. While the beam certainly hurt, he had succeeded in enraging the inexperienced Hero. It was worth it. His plan would not be successful if he wasn't.

Lasers that turned Noah into Swiss cheese began to rain from below. The holes they punctured in his wings disrupted the lift they generated. The wings of the snake could no longer support his flight. With a defiant cry, its wings flapped with more and more ferocity, but its descent only accelerated.

A malefic sneer began to contort the Hero's face.

The shockwave that rippled throughout the land, with the epicentre being the point where the snake fell a few miles away, cemented this in his mind. It triggered a warped, gleeful laughter. This was the bastard that had the audacity to interrupt his kill streak in Verdant Oakwoods, that dared to try to take the moral high ground from him, that even injured him—more than any monster or human in this world had done so far.

The Hero, who had been still lying on his back, lowered his hand that pointed to the skies and turned around, walking towards Eldoria. Noah, was he? He was already beginning to forget his name. Well, not that it mattered. He was dead.