MMORPG: Ascension of the Strongest Spirit Master
Chapter 39: Desperate Attempt

Chapter 39: Desperate Attempt

A colossal shadow standing nearly five meters tall tore through the dome of shadows, and in a dark blur, massive claws were upon Vlad, moments away from slicing him to death.

Vlad, guided by his inhuman instinct, used Dash combined with the ghost weave. The world blurred as he stepped away, slipping beneath the claw, which missed his torso by inches but shredded the stone beneath him like parchment.

Vlad snapped upright, already layering Reinforcement on his right arm and the crimson claws. As the ground beneath his feet shook, he swung his claws at the wound on the Eclipseborn’s neck.

A surge of power pulsed beneath his skin, his muscles humming with tension as his claws dug into the giant’s iron-like skin.

It wasn’t enough. Not for this thing.

The beast turned and swung, and once again, Vlad ducked under it, but the sheer force behind it hit him like a hammer of wind.

Vlad stepped inside and delivered another attack at the same spot on the neck, drawing more streaks of blood. He knew that without delivering a crippling injury, his chances of survival were slim, let alone achieving victory.

The colossus shrugged away the injury and swiftly shifted. His massive maw, lined with blades for teeth, snapped before his claw vanished in a dark blur.

Vlad used Ghost weave to step back just as a claw the size of a scythe shredded the air beside him.

His body trembled from the effort of executing the footwork multiple times in mere moments. A jolt of pain ran through his left leg, and his muscles felt like they were on fire.

The Eclipseborn swung again, and Vlad barely slipped past the raking claw, feeling the air scream as the few-foot-long blade carved through it.

"Fifty seconds," He thought. "Just fifty more seconds."

A third strike came straight down, giving Vlad no time to think. He pivoted on his lead foot, spine curving like a whip, and vanished again, reappearing at the beast’s flank.

Every fiber of his back screamed in protest, all overloaded, pushing past the normal limits to make his movement possible.

Ghost Weave was not a simple movement.

It was prediction, timing, and spatial instinct honed to a razor’s edge, and Vlad had mastered it over years as a soldier through many close battles. Rarely did he ever have to push his body into unknown territory.

It was one thing to push past the physical limit, but it was a completely different matter to make your body achieve something it was not accustomed to.

Vlad’s mind was sharp and brilliant. Every angle, strike, and step the Eclipseborn took was read like a script he had memorized long ago.

This was his domain, and he knew what to do just as quickly as his eyes saw it, but his body was not.

It was like a hunter’s soul trapped inside a child. The instincts of a hunter, the experience of a killer, but without the stamina, the strength, and body control to back them up.

The worst part of such limitation was that Vlad barely felt it since he was accustomed to fighting in pain and pushing past his limit.

As seconds ticked by, Vlad kept moving in and out, avoiding every attack while delivering his own without the slightest error.

For a moment, it felt like victory was within reach since nearly thirty seconds were gone, and the Eclipseborn was bleeding profusely from the deep wound on his neck while poison still hissed and bubbled on its ruined eye.

Thanks to the constant bleeding, its health had already dropped by a third, plummeting by nearly five hundred points every second.

Victory felt more and more within reach.

But just then, as Vlad stepped away from an incoming attack, trying to reach the giant’s blind spot, pain gripped his leg as some muscle inside snapped, making him freeze and nearly stumble.

While he did not fall, the short pause prevented him from evading the incoming claw. As the long, pitch-dark blade came at him, Vlad could only raise his hands to protect his body, all the while jumping back to soften the blow and avoid getting sliced into pieces.

Vlad was sent flying back to the other end of the chamber, and for a moment, his mind was consumed by the Terrible pain of minced flesh and broken bones.

He snapped back to his senses as the pain grew dull thanks to the warrior’s focus skill. As he landed, he quickly felt the pain of a broken achilles tendon in his left foot, and with a quick look, he realized that the damage to his arms was also bad.

While Vlad’s arms didn’t suffer deep cuts from the claws, thanks to the immense protection offered by his legendary gauntlets, the gauntlets offered no protection against the brute force behind the swing.

So, the muscles on his right arm were torn and broken, but it was not so bad that it would be considered crippled. The real damage was done to his left arm, as it was a mangled mess with broken bones jutting out of the torn flesh, and blood was seeping out of the skintight gauntlets by handfuls.

He had no time to assess the extent of the damage as the colossus bear was already charging at him, so in an instant, Vlad took out an explosive potion and threw it at the giant feet.

The potion exploded, doing a pitiful amount of damage to the charging giant, but it obscured its vision, giving Vlad the few precious seconds he needed.

Vlad dashed to the side as he drank a greater-grade healing potion and, in the same breath, doused another on his broken arm.

In the next instance, he threw a second explosive potion right in front of him, and instead of going further right, he turned, ignored the pain in his foot, and rushed toward his previous position.

The dark giant tore through the wall of growing flames, its massive frame turning to its left where he expected his prey to be. Instead, he found pale crimson struggling against the darkness.

The Bear turned with a low growl, but Vlad had already thrown two more explosive potions to cover his presence, one inside the dark dome, the other to the far right corner.

Vlad needed at least thirty seconds for the worst of his wounds to close, and in the same amount of time, the strength boost that the Eclipseborn had received would fade away.

So both were in a hurry, one to prolong it and the other to end it as quickly as possible.

Instead of charging toward one of the flaming walls to flush out Vlad, the Bear rose onto its hind legs, shadows coiling around its front paws like miniature tornadoes, and then it came crashing down with the force of a giant’s hammer.

"BBOOOMMM"

The chamber ground shook under its weight, and a two-meter-tall tide of shadows gushed out, covering the dozen meters in a mere moment before decimating both walls of flames with ease.

Vlad raised his gauntlets and reinformed his entire body, facing the dark shockwave head-on, and in the next moment, he dropped down, narrowly avoiding a dark spear that tore through where his head had been.

He rolled to his left, avoiding another spear, but he underestimated the Eclipseborn as a long shadow, like a massive faceless snake, came from his right and quickly took hold of his leg.

Vlad turned and tore through the shadow, only for another to take its place, and a heartbeat later, a spear of darkness slammed into his side, punching through the hardened leather of his dark armor and hurling him backward.

Vlad fell to the floor, blood filling his mouth as he watched the colossus shrouded in shadows close the distance, its single colorless dark staring him down.

Gritting his teeth, Vlad took out two potions, one vile green, and the other crimson red, but instead of throwing them at the charging giant, he gritted his teeth and braced for a bloody and painful clash.

The Eclipseborn was upon him; its jaw stretched wide, its sharp obsidian fangs glinting in the darkness, and the next moment, the massive jaw came at him, going straight for his head.

Vlad’s health was down to 44% and was dropping rapidly, and there seemed to be no chance of his victory, but he was not ready to give up, at least not until there was even an ounce of strength left in his body.

Vlad slipped his head aside at the last moment and, in a flash, pushed his left arm into the giant’s open maw, swiftly crushing the crimson potion; all the while, he swung his right hand at its mutilated eye.

As the massive jaw closed on his arm, its razor-sharp fangs failed to pierce the legendary gauntlets, but that did not matter as the sheer force behind it was enough to crush Vlad’s bones and muscles.

However, the beast suffered even more as an explosive potion came alive in his mouth. The red liquid bloomed into a crimson explosion, and fire seared his inside as it spread out.

At the same time, the potion vial pressed between Vlad’s palm and the open wound on the colossus’s eye shattered. The sizzling acid clung to the hollowed-out socket like gum, bubbling as it seeped deep into the wound.

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