"So where exactly are we going?" Grayton asked as they walked. The sun was already setting and by now the streetlamps were starting to light up. "You know, if you just told me, I could just portal over there."
"No idea!" Charles shrugged before bursting into a short laughter.
"Don't worry, don't worry, we're still gonna arrive at a rift no matter what." Charles explained. "I just don't know where exactly, y'know?"
"So he can sense rifts?" Grayton thought.
"Whatever, just make sure the journey doesn't take all night." Grayton said.
"Sheesh, kids these days are so impatient!" Charles joked. "What's got ya in such a rush?"
"The faster I can defend myself, the faster I can introduce my friend to magic." Grayton admitted. This statement however caused Charles to suddenly pause in front of him.
"Friend, you say?" Charles said. "That wasn't part of the deal, kid."
"I thought you'd say that." Grayton sighed. "So I'll throw in another favour, how about that?"
"A gamble for sure but knowing him, he probably won't make me do anything outlandish." Grayton thought. "If I'm wrong I'll pay for it. Magic doesn't mean anything to me if I can't experience it with Vincent, after all."
Charles flinched at the proposal. "You shouldn't be making deals with the devil so easily, kid..."
"Only 8th graders and the truly evil call themselves the devil." Grayton rolled his eyes. "And as far as I can tell, you are none of those."
Charles paused for a moment, as if at a loss for words, the flaming orbs behind his mask flickered. "Ya think so?"
"What? Don't get all sappy now." Grayton raised his eyebrow. He didn't expect that kind of reaction. "I'm just saying my opinion based off what I know so far."
"I guess he really is weak to compliments..."
"Heheh, I s'pose yer right." Charles said, recovering his composure. He almost seemed bashful for a moment. "Well, I don't have no need for a second favour but..."
"He's denying the favour?" Grayton thought, mildly surprised. "Well that settles it, I'm sure he doesn't have any bad intentions.. At least against me."
"If it really is just one more person, it should be fine. As long as ya don't blab about it to anyone else." Charles explained. "Oh would ya look at that, we're here!"
Grayton looked up to see Charles pointing at what seemed to be an abandoned mansion estate. He saw broken windows, extremely tall grass, and overgrown vines creeping all over the mansion walls and most likely reaching inside as well through tall, rusty fences.
"The issue is getting inside there." Charles said.
"Easy." Grayton reached down into his hip area and revealed a leather utility belt that Vincent sewed for his needs. There were three vials strapped on the belt containing the potion of weightlessness. He had a lot of fun testing these out for the past few days in which he found out that drinking one of these allowed him insane mobility by jumping and bouncing between street poles and walls.
The only issue was that if he were to make a mistake or misscalculate a bounce, the lack of gravitational force acting on him would suspend him in the air for a few moments, leaving him vulnerable until his feet touches the ground once more.
"No." A tendril appeared out of Charles's body that latched on to Grayton's hand, stopping him from reaching the vials. "It's too risky to fight under the effect of those."
"C'mon, I'll manage." Grayton said, swatting the tendril away. Despite his protests, he heeded Charles's warning and gave up on drinking the potion. Instead, he opted to simply climb over the fence, a trivial task considering his current mastery over mana. Though he hadn't achieved his goal of creating microscopic hairs to stick to walls, he had grown quite adept at channeling mana around his body.
Grayton leaped onto the fence, grabbing its metallic bars with mana infused hands. With the support of his legs, he pulled himself higher and higher up the fence with ease and soon found himself at the top. He carefully vaulted over to the other side, making sure not to get poked by the rusted spikes at the top. From there, he simply let go of the fence and allowed himself to fall down.
The four meter meant nothing to his empowered legs, but he still landed with proper technique. He squatted as soon as he hit the ground and planted his right hand on the ground, using it to absorb the remaining impact of the fall.
Charles nodded at the landing as if we was pleased by the discipline. "You've gotten quite efficient with handlin' mana, haven't 'tcha?"
"I try not to run out of mana if possible." Grayton said. "Now what? We barge in?"
"Yep." Charles said as he approached a huge pair of doors. It was in such bad condition that its rusted hinges could not open properly anymore, and when Grayton exerted more force to try and open it, its hinges literally crumbled, resulting in the door falling backwards and slamming into the floor, throwing up a cloud of dust.
"Ach!" Grayton coughed as Charles watched, amused. "How do you even manage to neglect a mansion this much?"
The smell of rat feces and mold assaulted Grayton's nostrils as he entered the mansion. There were cobwebs and dust bunnies everywhere he looked and there were multiple species of overgrown vines rooted everywhere in the walls. Weirdly enough, the electricity still worked inside the mansion so at least it was well lit.
"Why would anyone pay electricity bills for an abandoned estate?"
But what really stood out however, was that the second Grayton took a step into the mansion he suddenly felt the air get heavier. It was an oppressive, for lack of better word, aura emanating from deep inside the mansion, causing his hairs to stand on their end. For just a moment, Grayton was paralyzed by the sensation.
"Woah, that's quite strong." Grayton thought as he shook himself awake.
"Is this where I'm going to fight, Charles?" Grayton asked, concerned. The enclosed hallways and the overall filth of the area made the place a nightmare to move in.
"Course' not!" Charles laughed. "We'll choose a more open room."
"Choose?" Grayton asked, confused. "I thought the undyings would ambush me wherever?"
"Normally, that's the case." Charles said as he continued to lead Grayton deeper into the mansion. "But did ya forget? As long as I'm here they won't even show themselves!"
"Right." Grayton nodded.
"And they don't usually do ambushes; only the rarer, more intelligent ones do that." Charles explained as the two went by what seemed to be a decayed staff kitchen before entering another hallway. "They're bloodthirsty little devils, the lot of them. They'll immediately start swarming ya the very second I exit the place, I'll be my life, or should I say, my death on it, Heheh!"
"Alright..." Grayton said. "At least I don't have to fight in these decrepit hallways."
"By the way," He continued. "You still haven't told me exactly how to deal with a rift."
"Just keep killin' them till they stop comin' out." Charles answered. "Rifts need undyings to sustain themselves with tainted mana; get rid of 'em and poof!"
"Simple enough." Grayton said. The two reached the end of the hallway as they spoke. After a short consideration, Charles took a turn into a stairway leading to the second floor, signalling him to follow. "Should be fun as long as I'm careful."
Despite his proclamations, Grayton felt sweat accumulate on his brow. He was quite nervous and his heart started to beat faster as the reality dawned on him that he was poking the nest of horrific beings like the one he fought just a week ago. Despite that, he couldn't help but notice another feeling bubbling within his chest. Alongside his fear and apprehension was an unmistakable feeling of thrill and anticipation.
"Ah, I'm just hopeless aren't I?" Grayton smiled wryly. "Was my life really so uninteresting that I would find this kind of thing exciting?"
"What's wrong, kid?" Charles asked, noticing Grayton's tense stature. "Nervous? Don't worry, at yer level, you could beat undyings like last week no problem! A rift this small won't be that hard." The ghostly figure assured as he vigorously patted his back.
"Small, huh?" Grayton looked around the decrepit halls. He could feel the potent malicious aura encompassing the entirety of the mansion. "If this is what he considers small, I don't want to know what big is."
Soon enough, the two reached another pair of doors. Pushing them open revealed a huge ballroom. The humongous room was lit up by four crystalline chandeliers. There was a fine layer of dust and gravel on the marble floor and vines occasionally poked out of cracks in the wall. There were pillars supporting the roof each in between the chandeliers wrapped in brown wallpaper that have mostly peeled off, revealing the white cement behind it.
"Hey, kid, you really don't feel anything walkin' around in this mansion?" Charles asked as Grayton examined the room.
"Hmm?" Grayton closed his eyes, trying to focus his senses. "You mean the tainted mana? Yeah, I guess I feel it's hostility, but it's nothing more than an unpleasant feeling, like there's someone watching me."
"Y'know, most people would be super on edge in yer position." Charles said. "I never intended to actually let ya fight; I just wanted to show ya what rifts feel like but ya seem just fine standin' around one."
"It's nothing compared to your miasma." Grayton reasoned. There were times during his training when Charles would get carried away and let some of his control slip. At those times he felt truly powerless. His body would freeze up and he would lose all strength in his legs as well as his will to fight. Compared to that, the tainted mana in this mansion might as well be fresh mountain air.
"Not to say I'm completely unaffected, but..." Grayton stretched his hands upwards. He still felt a sinking feeling in his stomach, as if there was an invisible force trying to make him run away, or let himself be taken by the darkness but it was still manageable. "I'm still in good enough condition to fight. Plus we've got the perfect stage, so why not?"
"Hrmm..." Charles paused for a moment before shrugging. "Welp, since its come to this, might as well."
As soon as he finished the sentence, Charles's viscous body started to convulse intensely. Soon after a myriad of leather handles burst out of his upper body. These handles were connected to various different weapons such as scimitars, katanas, longswords, and much more.
"Take your pick! Or would ya rather fight bare-handed?"
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Somewhere else...
A group of three people walked through the bustling streets of Cornucopia town. Though they were all clothed differently, each of them wore a silver badge on their right shoulder with the shape of two A's mirroring each other, one of them upside down inscribed on them. The group consisted of two girls, one boy, and a grey chartreux cat.
"Finally! Cornucopia town!" One of the girls exclaimed. She had short stature and fair skin. She wore a black skirt and a blue t-shirt along with black stockings and heavy duty boots. Her thick hair had a slight purple hue to them that almost reached her waist. She sprinted in circles around the other two, her eyes beaming with excitement. "I haven't been here in ages!"
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
"Calm down, Clarabelle. Don't draw any unnecessary attention." The boy said as he caught Clarabelle by her shoulder at one of her rotations, stopping her abruptly. He was a fairly tall man wearing a black skin-tight t-shirt that accentuated his well-toned muscles. He also wore cream coloured taekwondo pants and sported a pair of black running shoes. He had short black spiky hair that was unevenly cut, suggesting that he cut it himself.
He spoke in a coarse deep voice and his expression was that of mild annoyance and boredom, indicating this was a common occurrence. "We're here for a mission, not on vacation."
"Come on!" The girl whined. "This mission has no time limit remember? I'm sure the people at Aegis won't mind if we take our time. And how many times do I have to tell you? Call me Clara like everyone else! Like imagine if I called you Christopher all the time, how would you feel?"
"Tch, you're too loud." Christopher said. "Whatever, a mission is a mission, and we need to stay alert for the entire duration; from start to finish, understand?"
"Since when did you become so strict?" Clara smiled playfully as she rapped the boy's back. "Relax a little, there's no way Aegis would send rookies on dangerous missions, even with us being way stronger than usual rookies, so let's just enjoy the easy missions for now! Just enjoy~"
"I agree..." The other girl said after a delay. She had pale skin and short red wavy hair that she decorated with a simple hairpin. She was dressed in a turquoise blouse accompanied by a very long and frilly orange skirt. "Despite our... Over-qualifications, we are still registered as rookies in their database. The Aegis Association won't send rookies on even remotely dangerous missions. This mission was listed as a simple survey mission, after all."
"You make a good point, and I would agree with you, if not for the fact that it was Elijah who sent the request. When it comes to that husk of a man, there's definitely something we're missing about this mission. " Christopher said, rolling his eyes. "And you would know that, had you actually read the briefing properly, hmph."
"O-oh... Sorry..." The girl shrank dejectedly.
"Oi, Chris! Stop bullying the newbie!" Clarabelle said as she suddenly leaned in to hug the girl to her surprise. "Don't take anything he says too seriously, Aisha. He's just grumpy 'cause he doesn't have a cool hair colour like us. What an extra, am I right?"
"Well excuse me for not looking like I was born out of a radioactive cesspool." Christopher angrily retorted.
Clarabelle giggled at his reaction while Aisha was still in her clutches, contemplating whether to laugh along with Clarabelle or hold her silence to avoid angering Christopher further. She ended up settling for a quiet snort and a smile that she covered with her hands.
"Seriously, that guy..." Christopher continued to grumble as he walked ahead of the two. "The nerve he has sending you on a witch related errand knowing your history. I'll make sure to give him a good beating once I get back."
"Aww, so sweet!" Clarabelle teased before turning to Aisha while pointing at his back. "See? He's a real softie once you get to know him!"
"...Fuck off."
After another few minutes of walking, Christopher took a turn into a dark alleyway and the rest of the group followed wordlessly.
"Alright, first order of business." Christopher said once the three made it deep enough. "Aisha, you saw that white building we just passed by, right? Teleport us to its roof."
"...Alright." Aisha complied after hesitating.
"Can you do it or not?" Christopher stepped closer to Aisha, noticing her hesitation. "If you can't, just say so, I won't berate you for it."
"...I can do it; I'm confident." Aisha said. "I just... didn't expect to need to use it so suddenly."
"Alright then, get us up there." Christopher nodded.
"...That's it?" Clarabelle stared incredulously. "Hey, no fair! When I say I can do something you ask a million times before you're convinced and even then you still ask for proof!"
"That's because I trust Aisha here to be a mature individual who doesn't sugarcoat or exaggerate her words to make herself look better... Unlike someone." Christopher sighed.
"Hey!”
"Enough, enough." Christopher waved his hand in front of the pouting Clarabelle. "We have a mission to do."
Without further conversation, Aisha grabbed ahold of both of their conversations and after a short delay, the group disappeared and reappeared on the roof of the building.
"Woah, that's... Disorienting." Clarabelle sighed while looking around her new environment. As she did, she noticed her friend Aisha huffing and puffing, seemingly out of breath. "You okay, Aisha?"
"Y-yeah. Just... give me a moment." Aisha said as she stumbled backwards and sat on an air conditioner unit. "Three people is a bit draining for me."
"Well, I guess it's my turn then." Clarabelle said before turning around and suddenly lifting her cat into the air, vigorously rubbing the feline. As she did, more and more fur started to part from the cat, scattering in the wind. "Ahah! You're shedding so much, Alexander!"
"Focus on the task at hand, please?" Christopher reminded her.
"Hng, what a mood killer." Clarabelle pouted. "Well you heard him, Alexander. Would you mind telling us where the rifts are? You wouldn't riiight? You're a good boy, riiight?" She cooed, kissing the pet multiple times on its forehead.
The cat let out an irritated meow in her embrace. It started sniffing around and ended up lazily stretching its paw toward a building in the distance: A decrepit, old mansion.
"Over there, huh?" Christopher asked rhetorically. "That's a really sharp sense of smell."
"I know right? Isn't my Alexander just amazing?" Clarabelle giggled as she rubbed the feline's belly.
"Hmm." Aisha stood up to gaze at the mansion. "That's... far. I don't think I can transport you guys that far... Not in one trip, at least."
"That's fine, it's not like we're in a rush or anything; we'll go by foot." Christopher said.
In that exact moment, the mansion suddenly collapsed upon itself. The destruction appeared to be caused by a sinkhole under the mansion, causing the middle section to sink and dragging the whole structure down into destruction. A cloud of dust started to rise from the ruins, making further observations impossible.
"Elijah..." Christopher muttered under his breath while the rest of the group stared with wide eyes. "Aisha, get us as close as you can, we'll run the rest of the distance." He commanded.
----------------------------------------
Grayton Lauretius, half an hour ago
Grayton stood in the middle of the now empty ballroom, stretching. Stuck on the floor beside him was a long cutlass, his weapon of choice. It had a longer reach than most short swords and a hand guard. This made Grayton deem it the perfect weapon for someone without any sword fighting experience as he could just swing it around and probably hit something.
Charles had just left the room and was in the process of leaving the mansion entirely. Of course, he will return with a completely suppressed aura to spectate the fight in case something goes wrong but that will take some time, leaving Grayton unsupervised at the start of the swarm.
"Should be fine as long as I don't die within the first 30 seconds." Grayton thought as he pulled the cutlass out of the ground. He started extending his mana to coat the blade of the sword. "Since conventional weapons are ineffective, Charles said I have to do this to enhance my attacks. Simple enough, but will I be able to maintain this during battle?"
As if on cue, a beast lunged from behind Grayton as soon as he finished coating his sword. He deftly stepped out of the way, having heard the beast's heavy footsteps before turning to face the beast, pointing his cutlass at it. The undying had a quadrupedal form unlike the last one. It looked like an oversized lizard with 2 bloodshot eyes on each side of its head. It had dagger-like claws that sank into the ground when it landed and whip-like tail.
"So you're the bravest one, huh?" Grayton said, fully knowing the beast could not respond. "More will come soon, I better finish this quickly."
Grayton ran forward, rushing toward the beast. He swung his sword upward but stopped running right before it would hit the beast, letting the sword slash at the air harmlessly.
"Whoops!" He exclaimed jokingly.
The undying had swiped its claws at Grayton, hoping to catch him when he got in range to attack, but missed as Grayton didn't enter its range. With its claw uselessly in the air, Grayton smiled knowing his feint had worked. He continued his assault by taking just a step forward and brought his sword back down, onto the undying's head.
Unfortunately, the beast had jerked its head to the side, letting the blade hit its neck instead of its head. This maneuver saved its life as Grayton's sword could not pierce through enough of its tough flesh to decapitate it. Instead, the cutlass got stuck, lodged deep inside the beast's neck muscles. It let out a low snarl and appeared to grin as it swiped its claw at the now immobile Grayton. However before its strike could hit, a golden light enveloped its vision and the beast was no more.
"Ah, and I thought the feint was perfect." Grayton said, turning away from the disintegrating corpse. He channeled more mana into his cutlass, learning from this mistake. "Well, this is fine as well, I suppose. I need to kill these things with the portals to grow stronger, after all. So!"
Grayton pointed his cutlass at the other end of the grand ballroom. There, he saw a plethora of smaller, weaker looking undyings clumped together, as if waiting for the optimal time to strike. "You all will be fuel for my growth."
"Was that line a little over the top? Nah, I don't care; it's not like anyone's gonna hear me."
He ran toward the mass of undyings as soon as he finished his sentence. The undyings responded by rushing toward him as well. Grayton grinned as he swung his cutlass around wildly cutting through the waves of deformed snakes, spiders, and other similar creatures. Multiple squeals and shrieks could be heard as he ran through the crowd, rotten blood splattering everywhere.
His wild charge resulted in multiple claws and teeth grazing all over his body, but since he ran through the undyings too fast for them to land a meaningful attack, it only resulted in shallow cuts and scratches. As the initial swarm of weak undyings thinned out, Grayton started to spot bigger, stronger-looking undyings coming after him. He saw a giant fly floating before him, pointing some sort of proboscis at him. Its throbbing core was clearly located in its abdomen.
The revolting creature launched some sort of bony dart from its proboscis, causing Grayton to jump to the side to dodge.
"My gut is telling me those things probably contain some sort of poison." Grayton thought as he shifted to the side to avoid another bone dart and swatted another with a mana protected arm. "Can't seem to reach it either... Well, here goes!"
Grayton channeled mana into his sword hand before winding it up and throwing his cutlass at the fly. The sword flew at blistering speeds and hit the fly before it could even react, knocking it into the ground. Once it was immobilized, Grayton conjured an inverted portal and aimed it at the fly's abdomen, ending it instantly in one wet explosion.
However, two similar undyings dove at him from the ceiling before he could celebrate. They were in the shape of a human-sized bat with the addition of goat hooves for feet and the beady eyes and gaping jaws of an anglerfish. The two attacked him from two sides at once, unhinging their maw to terrifying sizes, seemingly attempting to swallow Grayton whole.
"You guys are pretty smart; attacking me when I've discarded my weapon" Grayton complimented.
Instead of dodging out of the way, Grayton smiled and willingly outstretched both of his arms, plunging into each of their maws. The beasts were overjoyed, thinking they scored themselves a free meal. However, they quickly found themselves unable to clamp their jaws shut. The bats glared at him with rage frenzied eyes that Grayton responded to by grinning and tilting his head to the side in a taunting motion.
He had formed a rod shaped construct on each of his hands, extending from the bottom of their jaws to the top. The rods had inward facing hooks at their ends, preventing the undyings from pulling backwards. This frustrated the bats to no end, causing them to start violently snarling at Grayton.
"Woah, you guys are freaky!" Grayton laughed. There was no mistaking it anymore, as he stared at the beast's bloodshot beady eyes, its long and razor-sharp teeth, dripping with rancid saliva, a sight that would terrify any sane man, he felt pleasure. Why did he find this so thrilling? What about this was so fun? Those question bounced around his mind, finding no answer.
His thoughts were interrupted when another, more intelligent undying entered the ballroom. It had an ape-like appearance and carried a steel beam. It looked at Grayton's position and sneered before letting out a guttural raspberry like that of an orangutan while throwing the steel beam like a javelin at him. However, an idea popped into his head as he saw the beam speeding toward him.
The beam struck Grayton right on his belly, and yet, he didn't react; there wasn't even any sound, the beam just silently stopped right in front of him and fell down with a thud. The only indication that there was an attack at all, was that his grey trench coat seemed to violently billow at the time of the "impact", as if it had been blown by a particularly strong gust of wind. The attack had seemingly no effect on him which perplexed all the semi-sentient undyings in the room.
"Oh my god, that was so close! I had to come up with that one on the spot! Hahaha!" Grayton shouted, his voice echoing around the room. "You guys wanna know how I did it? Do you? Alright! Since you guys asked so nicely I'll tell you!"
"You know how everything that moves carries a force? Yeah that includes your attack just now! Had that blow connected normally, the force from that throw would have transferred to my body and crushed my gut!" He started to ramble. The undyings surprisingly stopped attacking and let him monologue. Some of them were still perplexed by the feat while others were too scared to approach.
"Even if I created a mana barrier at my abdomen, the force would still break through and kill me! So, what I did was- Oh, it's genius really, I coated my body in a layer of mana as thick as I could and transferred the force from your attack via the ripples it made into my coat before it even touched my body! It's easier said than done, but if done correctly like just now, it makes something like your attack that would normally crush my guts no problem as effective as hitting a napkin with a sledgehammer! Look! My coat isn't even damaged! Hahahahaha!" He laughed, before stopping abruptly.
"By the way, my portals are off cooldowns."
Grayton conjured two, max-sized portals inside each of the bats. He didn't know where their core was so he figured his lack of knowledge would be covered up by raw power. Their beady eyes widened as they felt their imminent demise and in just a golden flash, their upper bodies exploded, spraying viscera everywhere and leaving their lower bodies to disintegrate into a fine mist, freeing his hands.
Just a week ago he had been running away from witches way stronger than him, just a week ago he had barely survived against an undying just a little less powerful than the one in front of him. But now, it was different.
He continued to walk forward, picking up the grimy cutlass on the ground on the way. He held the cutlass up in front of his face toward the undying before twisting the blade to the side to see his own reflection on the bloody surface. He saw his grinning face covered in viscera staring back at him. It was the face of a disturbed man, a face he shouldn't make. And yet, it felt very fitting.
The grin on his face turned manic as he realized the real reason why this was so much fun, why he felt so alive in the moment. It wasn't about being untouchable, not about growing stronger. Instead, what really drove him was the agency he felt as he cut down his adversaries. For the first time in his life, he put an incredible amount of effort toward something he actually wanted to do. He wasn't bound by the will of his past self nor his parents'. For the first time, his decisions meant something. Whether or not he triumphs, whether or not he lives, was decided completely by his own hard work. And the freedom of it all was addicting!
He threw his arms and body backwards and started to laugh maniacally once he reached this enlightenment, staring straight at the run-down ceiling. He laughed like he never laughed in his life. He giggled like he would never again. The stings from his wounds, the blood and guts splattered all over his coat, it didn't matter to him, nothing did. The only thing that stopped him was the lack of breath he eventually faced.
"Get a grip; you're not invincible." Grayton thought to himself after his mind cleared a little through deep breaths. He pulled himself forward from his position and wiped the filth off his face. "Still, though..."
Grayton readjusted his coat and looked straight into the eyes of the undying before him. He grinned wider as he channeled mana into his legs and propelled himself at the ape at breakneck speeds. The sudden acceleration allowed no room for the undying resulting in a swift decapitation as Grayton ran his cutlass through the monster.
However, the undying's core seemed to have been located elsewhere as the beast still thrashed around. However, instead of acting shocked or disappointed, Grayton chuckled as he turned around and pointed his sword at the undying, as if expecting an outcome like this. He was almost grateful that the undying didn't go down that easily.
"Isn't this way too fun?!"
----------------------------------------
Charles(?)
"This kid... Is totally insane!" Charles thought as he spectated the fight while hiding in the boy's shadow. He had reentered the ballroom in his suppressed form just in time to see a steel beam hitting slamming into the boy. He genuinely thought the he was a goner until he started rambling on and on and talking to the undyings like they were responding to him. "Really... Looks like I've been raisin' a little battle junkie."
Grayton charged at the headless undying, dodging to the side and squatting to the ground to avoid its wild thrashes. While on the ground he sweeped one of the beast's legs with his own, knocking it off balance. Once it was down, he started mercilessly cutting into it while laughing.
"Hehey! This hairy and meaty body of yours makes it really hard for me to find where your core is at, so let's play a game!" Grayton exclaimed as he carved the cutlass deeper and deeper into the beast. "It's called: will I find your core? Or will you die from the cuts before that? Ahahaha!"
"Heheh, looks like life still holds surprises for a dead man." Charles quietly chuckled.