He was about to ask her for ideas, but he stops when sees her, or rather sees her eyes glow for a moment in the dark. He guessed what she was doing and turned his gaze to the beast waiting for some sign of confusion or an opening to attack.
Although he is surprised by the result. Instead of acting erratically as expected, the beast does not move and is also unaffected thanks to its quick instincts by closing its eyes. But instead of shutting down its sight by closing its eyelids, the beast protects itself with a transparent membrane that served as a second eyelid. Thanks to this, it is not affected by illusions and can use its vision at the same time.
"Ezer…" Lyaria instinctively takes a step back.
"Yes... he has good reflexes or he's too smart. I hope it's the first.” But Ezer suspected that it was the opposite, it is not the first time that he has seen eyes that reflected such a deep and complex consciousness. Those eyes clearly remind him of that beast that had chased him to the edge of the mountains.
"Let's stay out of the water, spread out while one distracts and the other attacks. Judging by the position of his eyes... I don't think he can see to his sides.” Lyaria doesn't need a confirmation when she finishes speaking, they both move instantly.
Ezer moves to the right while she moves to the left, it seems the beast is focusing on Lyaria maybe because of the previous illusory attack. Whatever the reason, Ezer is in the blind spot and locates a weak area under the beast's stomach covered in seemingly weaker whitish scales.
Although before he could decide to attack, he perceives how the wind deforms and approaches him. The tail of the beast worked like a whip that hits Ezer's legs, despite having felt it before, if his responsiveness was not fast enough to evade attacks, it was useless to know them in advance.
The impact occurs at the moment when he was jumping trying to dodge the attack, this makes his body rotate in the air in the opposite direction of the blow and he falls confused to the ground without air in his lungs.
“Ezer!” Lyaria can only watch knowing her little knife won't change a thing, but she does her best to distract the beast by lunging at it anyway.
The beast focuses in on Lyaria, but blindly lashes out with its tail anyway, hoping to crush Ezer who was already getting up from the ground. Several times he had to roll avoiding certain death and when he manages to stand up, jumps over the beast using his tail as a bridge until reaches its back.
Ezer wastes no time and at the moment when stands between the front legs with the beast's neck in front of him, he sticks the point of his sword into the beast's scaly skin hoping to feel the tearing of its flesh, but it doesn't. The only thing he feels is the point of the sword breaking and the sound it made as it did so.
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"Wha-!?" He cannot finish the word when is forced to jump from the beast when it began to turn on itself crushing everything in its reach, it could have been him if he had not reacted in time.
“Ezer.” Lyaria helps him up.
“The tip is broken and I don't think the edge is enough to cut it, I need a few seconds… just a few seconds.” He hand over what remains of his sword, and she instantly understands his intentions.
Ezer immediately takes out the arrows that he had carefully wrapped in leather whose dull violet tips distinguished them. With one hand, Ezer draws the string of his bow to the point where the wood begins to shriek with the effort and his muscles accompany the chorus.
It was a few seconds, although to Lyaria it seemed like minutes. Dodging the jaws of a beast of that size, including extreme caution against sudden attacks from its tail, made the task a grueling, nerve-wracking torture.
Despite Ezer's relative safety thanks to his distance and her distraction, each time Lyaria managed to dodge the attacks by inches he felt his heart stop. Despite all this, he struggles to concentrate and releases the arrow trying to guide it in flight to give it strength along the way.
The beast, with the same reflexes with which it avoided Lyaria's illusions, manages to change the point of impact of the arrow with a quick movement of its neck, avoiding a vital area and diverting it to the muscles with which its front leg began.
A strange sound escapes from the throat of the beast when observing the arrow that penetrated its skin, right between its scales, it removes it with its mouth without flinching due to the tiny wound it represented.
The moment the wound opens, the blood begins to flow uncontrollably as it does not have the iron tip. Ezer smiles at the result, which, however, was not enough to change the situation they found themselves in.
The beast decides to stop testing his enemy, noticing that they did not pose any threat and begins to attack, neglecting his defense, but multiplying his ferocity.
Ezer nocks another arrow, this time hoping for the best opportunity knowing it would be his last. Lyaria is the one who must endure the repeated attacks that only worsen with the accumulated fatigue. Luck runs out when fatigue becomes unbearable, generating a bad move that opens an opening for the beast to taste blood.
She does her best to avoid it, though her leg remains in danger despite her efforts. Ezer can't bear to keep putting her in danger and releases the arrow, relying on his ability to change course if necessary.
The jaw was closing in on her leg and Lyaria instinctively place the sword between the teeth of the beast and her leg. Perhaps it was the edge of the blade or perhaps the arrow that slipped between the beast's teeth at that moment and landed on its tongue, whichever was the case, it was enough to only tear part of its flesh without reaching the bone, saving her leg.
At that moment, a piercing scream and a hiss could be heard that the beast produced when it felt true pain in a long time.
Lyaria felt a deep pain in her leg as the beast's teeth sank below her knee allowing blood to spurt out unrestricted. The damage was light, compared to what could have happened considering the size of the jaws, thanks to Ezer's accurate arrow and his quick reflexes when placing the sword between the teeth creating a space that prevented his leg from snapping in two.
Ezer immediately readies a third arrow without releasing it right away as the beast begins to back away as a precaution. From a distance, he could see how the blood left Lyaria's body through her wound covered in mud and dirt.