MMORPG: Ascension of the Strongest Spirit Master
Chapter 38: A Tough Battle

Chapter 38: A Tough Battle

The Eclipseborn, seeing his attack fail and the intruder still standing, now radiating the scent of a powerful beast, let out a low, guttural growl through clenched teeth.

Without hesitation, his massive frame became cloaked in deep, writhing shadows, and in the next instant, he launched forward with terrifying speed.

He moved like a living bulldozer of darkness, using his Shadow Lunge to close the distance. With his jaws wide open, he tried to crash headfirst into Vlad, his massive jaw snapping close a second later.

But all they crushed was cold, empty air.

Vlad stepped away at the last moment, his right hand cloaked in a ghostly white aura turning into a dark blur. His sharp claws, augmented by his reinforcement skill, dug into the giant’s skin.

’He tough,’ Vlad thought, seeing his attack barely leave a scratch on the Bear’s iron-like skin.

The morphed claws of the gauntlets were easily on par with an epic-grade blade, so the failure to do serious damage wasn’t due to his weapon, it was the damn creature’s unnatural defense, its impenetrable skin too resilient to be pierced.

The beast dug its claws into the ground and shifted to the right using its pure brute strength. With mere meters separating them, its jaws opened wide, stretching to an unnatural limit.

As if shaped by an unseen hand, the shadows around the beast twisted and solidified, forming a pair of massive, spectral jaws lined with glistening, razor-sharp fangs.

With a thunderous lunge, the creature unleashed its Eclipsed Maw skill. The dark jaws snapped shut around Vlad in a blur of darkness, leaving no gap, no escape route, only crushing inevitability.

However, once again, Vlad slipped away, pulling to the left and avoiding the crushing jaws, but this time, as if expecting his escape, the Eclipseborn was prepared.

The beast, cloaked in shifting shadows, stood on his hind legs and came crashing down with a thunderous impact. The ground trembled beneath the force, and from the point of impact, a wave of condensed darkness surged outward, a tidal rush of shadows, crashing forward like a black tsunami.

Vlad watched the encroaching wave rush forth, but he also felt the earth tremble almost instantaneously, indicating that behind the tide, the Bear was charging straight at him, using the Eclipse Maul skill to mask its deadly assault.

One wrong move, and he would find himself in the beast’s jaws.

So, instead of leaping upward to avoid the wave, Vlad pivoted and jumped back, eyes still locked forward. A second later, the shadow tide struck him head-on and sent him skidding across the ground, reeling from the blow but mostly Unscathed.

In a dark blur, five razor-sharp blades sliced through the dissipating shadows and came for Vlad, who had sensed them seconds ago, so he ducked beneath and delivered a reinforced punch to the knee of the Bear as he dashed past him.

The Eclipseborn slammed his other claw down but missed Vlad, and with a snarling twist, the creature spun, jaws stretched wide like a split mask, and lunged again. Air hissed between its teeth as it snapped at

empty space, missing him by inches.

Vlad slipped past his maw and dug his claws into the shallow wound from his previous attempt, and this time, his dark finger came wet with blood.

The beast spun, its lightless eyes filled with cold annoyance as they settled on Vlad. With a low growl, the shadows dancing across its back began to swell, growing darker and denser, swiftly twisting into shadowy tendrils.

It had used Shadow Bind, done playing the game of catch with the infuriatingly fast human. Two tendrils burst forth as the Eclipseborn charged after Vlad.

Vlad slipped back, narrowly dodging a tendril that whipped in from the left, then stepped aside just in time to evade another that shot down from above.

He sliced the ones that got too close, but the Eclipseborn was relentless, coming at him head-on, each of wild swings capable of dealing crippling damage.

The only thing keeping Vlad from being torn apart was his heightened senses and the increased speed granted by the Duskstalker essence coursing through him.

’Wait.... Wait for it,’ Vlad silently repeated, his mind calculating every action of Eclipseborn with pinpoint accuracy.

As a tendril coiled around Vlad’s leg, the Bear lunged, its jaws stretching wide, and with only meters between them, a crimson vial flashed into Vlad’s hand.

He hurled it straight into the beast’s gaping maw, the thin glass vial shattering on impact, and in an instant, the volatile liquid ignited, erupting into a bloom of red fire that engulfed half of the Bear’s face.

Vlad activated the Bloodclaw skill of the Bloodhound Ring, and a sickly blood-red aura surged to life around his hands, sheathing the obsidian blades in crimson, bloody claws.

He cut through the shadow tendrils that came for his left and tore the one binding him. Vlad stepped forth, watching as the dark giant rushed forth, his lightless eyes peeking from behind the blaze of flames covering two-thirds of his face.

The massive jaws engulfed in flames came at Vlad while he also swung his claw from the left, keeping it low to the ground, making sure he could only move back.

However, the beast gravely underestimated Vlad’s ability to fight if he believed the simple footwork was all he could do.

Vlad stepped onto the giant claw and climbed up in one swift motion, his right-hand fingers pressed together like the tip of a spear.

In a crimson blur, he struck, slicing through the still-burning flames and plunging straight into the beast’s eye. Unlike its fur-clad skin that was tough to pierce, the eye offered little resistance.

The claws dug in slow at first, then faster, ripping deep into the socket. Vlad curled his fingers into a fist and yanked back, dragging a trail of viscera, blood, and gore with him.

The creature shrieked in rage as agony overtook its senses, flinging its arm sideways in a desperate attempt to hurl Vlad off, and he successfully did, but his trouble did not end there.

As Vlad flew through the air, a vial of murky green liquid appeared in his hand, and he hurled it at the freshly ruined eye with pinpoint accuracy.

It exploded on impact, the liquid hissing like acid as it burrowed into the wound, escalating the Eclipseborn’s suffering into a full-bodied roar of blind fury.

"RRRROOOAARRRRRRR"

For the first time, the Eclipseborn roared, his lightless eyes showing more than just pain and rage. They showed life and his struggle against the spirit that was forcefully possessing it.

’4000 Damage’

’8000 Damage’ ’Critical hit’

’2000 Damage’

’6000 Damage’ ’Critical hit’

A multitude of damaged numbers floated before Vlad, and seeing them, he could not help but click his tongue.

The damage was far worse than Vlad had expected because the explosive potion only did four thousand in damage, and without the crit damage bonus, the poison potion did three thousand.

This was when the Bear was not even using his defensive skills, and as if reading his mind, the shadows dancing on its black dissolved on its skin, encasing it in pitch-black armor.

Now, it would be surprising if the potions did even half their original damage. This was also why Vlad had waited for the perfect opportunity to use his potions, knowing his trick wouldn’t work twice.

The semblance of conciseness that appeared in the Eclipseborn eyes disappeared after just a moment, and with a guttural growl, it slammed its claw to the ground, sending thin cracks spiderwebbing through the stone beneath.

The Eclipseborn activated multiple skills in unison: Strength of the Colossus, Shroud of the Eclipse, and Hollow Crown.

The already towering Bear began to swell, his hulking form growing larger as his lightless eyes deepened, reflecting a power that now surged within it.

Shadows around him writhed and rushed forth like tendrils, hungry to devour what light illuminated the cave. A simple crown manifested atop his head, radiating with a thickening shadowy miasma.

Strength of the Colossus amplified the Eclipseborn’s attributes by 40% for sixty seconds. The Shroud of the Eclipse summoned a ten-meter dome of pitch darkness.

Lastly, Hollow Crown diminished his presence so completely that even creatures a full rank higher would struggle to perceive him.

Vlad frowned, understanding that while injured, the Bear was far from critical condition, so there was no reason to use all its skills.

But he also understood that it was not the Eclipseborn who took these actions, it was the spirit controlling it.

Vlad’s eyes adjusted to the growing darkness as he slipped back away from the grasp of the dark dome, which drowned nearly half of the giant chamber in pitch darkness.

He stopped a few meters from the wall, his expression tense as he pushed his senses to their limit, knowing he would only have a second to react before the colossus would be upon him, ready to strike.

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