Turning around, I found myself face-to-face with the towering figure of the most terrifying beast in the entire forest. Its massive maw, big enough to swallow me whole, dripped with angered saliva. It tried its best to appear menacing, growling low and pressing its snarling face closer to mine. But I wasn’t biting.

As terrifying as it seemed, the blood dripping from its left side and the crimson pool under its right paw gave away its weakness. These might not have been the conditions I was contemplating earlier, but they were good enough. At least now, I could keep the second half of my promise to Mira.

I couldn’t avoid fighting, but getting hurt? That wasn’t part of the plan. With the King severely weakened, and its right leg injured, dodging whatever it threw at me would be easy... right?

Before either of us could move, a low growl reminded me—Horny was still there. I had to take the fight elsewhere.

The King didn’t wait. It seized the first opportunity to attack, slamming its paw into the ground. But a simple strike like that? Not enough. I leapt to the side, dodging with ease, not even needing to augment myself.

‘Take advantage of its weakened right side. Make it waste energy.’

I moved into action, forming a handful of pebbles and using bursts of wind to shift into a better position. I aimed for the wound on its left side. Not to hurt it—pebbles wouldn’t even scratch it—but to annoy it enough to follow me.

And it worked.

I hurled the stones with just enough force to irritate it, circling around the beast. When I ran out of pebbles, the King slammed its left paw into the ground, causing the earth to tremble and throwing me off balance. Its abyss-like eyes gleamed with malice as it hurtled towards me.

Recovering from the quake, I turned and jumped, ducked, and sprinted deeper into the forest, away from Horny. I needed to lead the King to a better battlefield. Fortunately, this part of the forest was full of options. What I called the “puddly area” was really just a giant swamp. I just had to find a large enough section to trap the beast and let the environment work against it.

As I ran, I climbed higher, jumping from tree trunk to tree trunk to gain the upper hand. Perched on the lower branches, I wasn’t completely safe from the King’s claws, but I had enough balance to continue my assault and wear it down.

Whenever I found the chance, I would throw another rock at it, only this time, much bigger than simply pebbles, close to my head in size, and aimed for the path it would take to reach me. This way, with every step it would take, pain would radiate from its wounded paw, slowing it down bit by bit.

And yet, somehow, the King still closed the distance.

It pressed forward with pure hatred, completely ignoring the obstacles around it. While I had to navigate carefully, plotting the fastest escape routes, the King bulldozed through trees, rocks, and anything else in its path with sheer bestial strength.

Thus, I had miscalculated how much time I had, and before I realized my mistake, the King’s massive claw was already swiping at the branch I was perched on. With no choice, I let go, propelling myself downward with a burst of fire. I hoped to make the best of a bad situation, but all I managed to do was fill the air with smoke, blinding myself.

The claws missed, but they tore the branch free, hurling it toward me faster than I could react.

The branch hit me of my forehead, and dazed, I lost my balance and crashed to the ground. A sharp headache pulsed through my skull as I opened my eyes, momentarily disoriented, forgetting where I was and what was happening. But that clarity didn’t last. The second I returned to the present, I shook my head, my vision blurry.

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

Not having the time to even react to the change, I turned toward the unstoppable beast just in time to see its claws, mere inches from my face. Time seemed to freeze in that haze of panic. Instinctively my eyes closed, and I immediately forced them to snap open again. When I did, my vision had cleared, and the claws hadn’t reached me yet. No, more than that—it seemed like what I’d seen wasn’t real. Or... it wasn’t real yet.

The King’s massive claws were still rising, the tips dragging through the mud. I had no room to dodge, no time to channel quint. All I could do was raise my arms in a desperate attempt to shield myself.

A half-breath later, I was yanked off the ground, flying backward at a terrifying speed. But, surprisingly, I was unharmed. The claws hadn’t touched me. Instead, the mud the beast had flung hit me first, carrying me with it.

Before I could be slammed into a tree, ending the fight right then and there, I tore the mud apart by slicing it in half with flamed arms, and simultaneously sent a burst of air beneath me, propelling myself toward the lower branches of a tree. Breathing heavily, with this small distance built between us, I took a moment to catch my breath.

I needed to find a suitable place to finish this, and fast. Escaping the clutches of the beast up until now was nothing sort of a miracle.

‘I really need to stop relying on these. Someday, I’ll run out of them,’ I thought, trying to distract myself from the pain in my lungs as I jumped to higher and higher branches.

Out of pebbles and with my quint reserves dwindling, I didn’t have time to check on the King. But I didn’t need to—it was loud enough on its own, letting out terrifying roars every now and then.

‘How much more can it endure?’

When the fight started, my quint reserves had been full. Now, six minutes into the chase, I was already running low, yet the King—despite its injuries—showed no signs of slowing down.

I was growing tired, but the King only seemed to grow angrier.

Feeling the drain in my core, another wave of dizziness hit me. But I wasn’t ready to give up. I formed a glove of water around my hand and reached for the next branch.

Then, suddenly, I was plummeting.

The next branch was never caught. I saw myself grabbing it, but... I hadn’t.

Now free-falling, I froze in place, the ground rushing up to meet me.

My vision blurred again, distorting the distance between me and the earth below. Everything seemed to shift — the ground felt both near and far, confusing my sense of space. And in that brief moment, the King not only caught up with me but prepared to attack.

Its massive paw and claws appeared to duplicate, or even triplicate — the original (or at least what I assumed to be the original) aiming for me, the second already raised, and the third swiping downward.

Overwhelmed, I gambled on the only move that could save me. Not knowing whether I’d meet the ground or the beast’s claws first, I exploded my quint outward, creating a dense sphere of water around me and hoped for the best.

I hit the ground first. Not because I saw it, but because I felt the impact. A shockwave rippled through my body, but the water sphere held firm. Normally, water would splash and scatter on impact, but this wasn’t just water — it was my quint. The force of the crash demanded everything I had to keep the sphere from shattering, forcing me to hold out until either I broke or the water stopped bouncing.

But I didn’t have to worry about that for long. As I rebounded off the ground, the King’s claws came next, slicing through the protective sphere with terrifying precision.

Once again, I was sent flying. This was the reason I went for water, and not earth. Water’s density absorbed most of the impact, and so, despite how deadly the attack was, I emerged relatively unscathed. Not that there was no pain. In fact, my body was screaming at me to put an end to this. And yet, I was smiling.

Surprisingly, everything had gone perfectly out of this small hindrance.

As I soared through the air, my vision cleared, and I used bursts of wind to adjust my trajectory, moving faster than ever through the vines and branches. When the speed finally began to wane, I grabbed hold of a vine and swung onto a nearby branch, taking a moment to catch my breath and check on the King.

My throat burned as I gasped for air.

Far in the distance, I could see the King’s massive, brawny form charging relentlessly, smashing through anything in its path. But that wasn’t what shocked me.

I had been thrown too far into the swamps; into a place I had never been before. And it was this new territory that made me pause and forget about the King entirely.

Because... I had found where the abyssal eyes would close. Forever.