TF Chapter 62 Enraged

***Nathaniel***

I was tired, my body aching enough for me to even feel it even with the adrenaline dulling my senses. I didn't even know how much time had passed since I had been fighting, even with all my attacks being futile.

I dug myself out of the tree, almost gagging at the revolting stench of the blue slimy liquid. This time, I had finally failed in blocking the creature. I had used the spirit core to soak up most of the force, causing it to shatter and scatter its precious stockpile of spirit into the atmosphere.

Cursing was futile. The core had already gone above and beyond in making sure that I could survive this long. Wincing at the new pain in my chest, I crawled out of the tree stem and stood up straight after wobbling for a moment. My legs were getting weak it seems. I had already forced them to surpass their limits multiple times, so now, they were screaming at me.

For the first few minutes into the battle, the monster that is despair had tried to consume me as that metallic defense loomed within my eyes, but after many many exchanges, I had fallen into resignation. That didn't mean that I was about to serve the creature my life on a silver platter though! It was going to have to work for it!

I chuckled while wiping the blue juice from my face and looked at my opponent opposite me, who was unscathed. Those muscles and bulging veins akin to dragons were intimidating, but through its spirit that was still oppressively trying to dig into my body, I detected emotions of puzzlement and bewilderment, not to mention surprise.

Yap! I cheered myself on for making it feel that way. It had probably thought of me as an easy target before, taking me lightly, yet now, it appeared to have acknowledged my strength.

It's body blurred only for me to throw my body to the left, evading a claw swipe that would have otherwise decapitated me instantly. This battle hadn't been without any gains just because I couldn't damage the creature.

No, my visual prowess had improved to the point where I could read its next movements by looking at the twitching of its muscles, like perusing a book. That had allowed me to survive this long, since I could evade before it even attacked, sometimes even dishing out counterattacks, no matter how useless they were.

I kicked at its knee with such force that it buckled a little, its momentum driving it into the tree hole I had just crawled out of. I had learned a lesson about dawdling, so I hurriedly backed away within a few leaps, making sure that I put a few meters between us. The ails of my body were starting to catch up to me, with the next few altercations between us probably going to be my last.

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Strangely, I felt at peace, with even my fighting intent increasingly getting even more roused. For a while now, I had noticed that my spirit was trembling as if heralding something, though even now I didn't know what that was. There was no one I could ask why something like this was happening... Besides, what was the point when I was about to die?

The entire stem exploded, with the tree tilting in the aftermath. Now, this was violent! It seems even the creature had gotten tired of this battle. My face hardened before I decided to gamble with my life. With my entire will, I galvanised my spiritual powers to try and breach beneath my skin.

Being stuck in a guagmire was an apt expression that served to describe my current predicament. Even with me willing the spirit, moving it past the layer of skin was proving to be a very very hard endeavour. It was supposed to come naturally at a certain point in my path as a forger, yet now I was forcing it prematurely... Of course it would fail!

But the current circumstances were very dire for me to consider such things like waiting. Time had already given me the short end of the stick.

The very air exploded right in front of me, my attention shifting from the spirit I was forcing into my body to the monster standing in front of me. Its entire being was radiating such potent bloodlust that it had seeped into its very spiritual powers that were still oppressively pressing into mine. Except for a few dirty spots here and there on its skin littered with mud and juices, there was no visible injury on its body, something that nonetheless causes my heart to drop even though I had already known about the futility of my attacks.

Its muscles twitched, a sign that its left knee was about to strike me, so I tried to shift to my left, to get out of its path only to be shocked by the speed of the attack which caught up to me, with I only managing to lift my own leg in defense, only for a pain to shoot up and my body to be thrown with such force that I didn't even manage to catch sight of any of my surroundings, only feeling my body getting thrust into multiple soft things, probably plants, which failed to slow me down one bit until something finally shattered behind me, yet managed to halt my body.

My chest felt heavy, my breath coming out in protesting small puffs that I was straining to get out. My vision was blurry and swimming around, not to mention the fact that one of my eyeballs was seeing red, a sign that I was bleeding somewhere on my head.

I had been had! It looks like previously, the creature hadn't even been using its all on me, simply probably not wanting to waste its energy... But now, I had just gone and decided to enrage it, or its patience had already been wearing thin, and that last trick had been the incentive it needed to cross into the rage territory.

My body was numb, but I still had plenty of adrenaline still surging inside me, not to mention the fact that my spiritual powers were still providing defense for me. If they hadn't been pulsing, having slipped out of my control temporarily, I would have been exposed to the creature had they vanished.

We had been continuously told that all the lifeforms with some sliver of sentience on this planet, hated us with a zeal. I don't know what the previous descenders had done, but all I knew was that the moment you were exposed, you had to annihilate all the creatures on the scene, or you would be faced with a very relentless hunt.