-Vol 5: A New Life-

-The Giant Squid Vs. Kenshin: Round 2-

Ater Isabella vanished from its line of sight, the angry giant squid set its sight on Kenshin who was looking at it in pity. Seeing someone of the same species that just hurt it, the giant squid roared angrily and sent many tentacles towards Kenshin’s way, intending to smash him to paste and feed on him. Standing calmly Kenshin had counted the number of tentacles this squid has. It's only 8. Out of those 8, two have some flat ended tentacles that reek of blood and some other chemical substance. Others were just normal ones.

From the skills there were no mentions about these flat-sided tentacles, most probably it’s the squid’s racial trait. Speaking of the racial trait, he remembered about that cannibalistic man. He can freely manipulate his bones, but still, it wasn’t recorded on his skills list. It made him wonder if this was one of the traits of them who chose the path of cannibalism. Evolving their body and giving them new and improved abilities. If that's the case, then it would be too frightening and also clear the fact why that guild called ‘Hell’s Kitchen’ still exists. That new ability becomes an extension of one's body, like how having hands and legs didn’t make one skill…

The giant monster closed on Kenshin and was just about a few tens of meters away from him. Suddenly he moved, with just a flash, he unsheathed his sword from its scabbard and performed a [Earthen Slicer] before rapidly sheathing it. A transparent arc emerged from his sword and traveled at light speeds towards the approaching squid. The ocean water got separated from the formless sword arc, forming a line as it traveled towards the squid. The squid despite its large size could easily move around agilely. It gathered a cluster of its tentacles in front of its face to protect itself from his attack.

The invisible arc of the blade passed through the gathered tentacles, easily cutting them into pieces before forming a deep gash on its large head. The massive sea monster roared in pain as it backed away from Kenshin. Four of its eight tentacles were sliced apart by that one strike as the cut pieces fell loudly into the water.

[-1200]

A high enough damage value floated above the giant squid’s face as it flailed around in pain. His [Earthen Slicer] can cause 2000 damage, the monster had 780 points of DEF. Deducting everything, the monster received only that much damage. Even so, for a monster with 8450 HP, it had already lost 2200 HP. If he could, Kenshin would have spammed [Earthen Slicer], but this skill had a five second cooldown time. Even so, thanks to this usage, he had gained some amount of EXP to that skill.

Even so, the squid proved to be more resilient than imagined. It was able to gain 50PHY means 500 HP every second. So the amount of damage Isabella dealt had already been healed since Kenshin made his move. Knowing this, Kenshin was unwilling to give it time to recover.

He immediately kicked the water below his leg, the [Opposites] had already made them as solid as land and propelled towards the backing away squid. It was quite intelligent, seeing that it had taken some damage, it quickly backed away to heal itself before it could go on the offensive again. With his increased AGI, Kenshin reached near it in an instant. Like Isabella, he used its tentacles to climb all the way to its main body and started to performing sword moves one after another. Nonetheless, his basic ATK is 1489, the equipment bonus was 400 ATK, together it was 1889 ATK. Due to the force created from acceleration and speed of strike, their power increased by a small margin. It’s might was no less than [Earthen Slicer]. He continued to rain down strikes on the head of the squid. With each strike

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[-1000]

[-845]

[-1247]

In a blink of an eye, the total HP of the monster was reduced by 4037 HP points. Kenshin didn’t plan to stop there, just when he was ready for another shot, suddenly one of the padded tentacles of the monster came around towards him. Noticing this, Kenshin used [Air Step] passive and kicked the air around him to dodge the approaching tentacle. The tentacle then changed its direction mid-air and came toward Kenshin’s new path. Seeing this, Kenshin couldn’t help but curse inside his heart, now he could only dodge away from the squid. Using [oppsoits] he kicked the air and jumped away from squid. Thankfully his cooldown time for [Earthen Slicer] had completed, so he offhandedly sends another invisible arc at it.

The invisible arc went at light speeds and impacted on one of the flat pads of the massive tentacle. The squid suddenly shouted loudly, and its flailing became even more intense. Large waves created in the otherwise calm water surface.

[Critical Hit succeeded. X2 ATK]

[-4000]

Since it was a critical hit, not only the damage increased by twice, its DEF also didn’t work. It was in the case for him too, if he had to be directly attacked to head or heart, his DEF wouldn't work, and the damage he receives might triple depending on the severity of the place. Kenshin was very surprised by this, the squid was in no mood to pursue Kenshin anymore, it flailed around and instantly drowned into the deep water, trying to escape from these monsters.

Of course, it was given, after that final attack, its massive HP of 8450 instantly reduced to 417. It had dropped below 500. 417 was less than 5% of its total health, which means it had lost 95% of HP. Normally it would have put any other monster into a state of half death, but this monster had enough vitality to run away. This made Kenshin admire the sturdiness and survival ability of these sea monsters, or it might be that this particular monster was a little special.

‘Tch! It ran away!’ Kenshin muttered but didn’t forget to mark this monster with a hostile flag. Slowly sheathing his sword into its scabbard, he narrowed his eyes and stared at the place where the monster fleed to. The only thing that was visible after this short but epic battle was floating tentacles of the monster.

“That monster…it will return!” Isabella’s voice came from his back. But Kenshin didn’t turn around, he already knew she was there this whole time. She was just out of the monster’s sight, but she couldn’t escape Kenshin’s map once one was marked.

“I know. That monster’s vitality was absurd. Next time, carefully aim at its pads. They are its weak points. It might cause it to receive double damage.” Kenshin spoke before going towards the boat. He didn’t spare a glance at Isabella anymore. He had many things to think about, and some of them related to this girl. It was just for a second, but Kenshin noticed her yellow marker on map turning green…it could only happen if she harbors enough killing intent for him. This was also another reason why he didn’t use his fire abilities or destruction ability. Or else he would have finished that squid much sooner, not allowing it to run away.

Nonetheless, he needs to get away from her, an alley in the dark is more dangerous than a foe in the light. Who knew when she might attack him and kill him, he was in no mood to die and lose a life. They were hard to come by.