Duskbound

Chapter 45

The phantasmal spear in his hands lacked the reassuring weight Velik was used to. It was easy to compensate for, but it also served as a stark reminder of just how fragile his makeshift weapon actually was. The only saving grace about the whole thing was that his counterpart was nowhere near full strength.

Why it wasn't dead was a mystery. Velik was sure he'd scrambled the monster's brains, but somehow, it was still upright. Neither were anxious to attack, not after so many injuries. The healing potion was doing its work, but at a much slower pace than the system-provided ones. Maybe they weren't as overpriced as he'd grown to believe, instead simply being far too powerful for the use he'd been putting them to.

While the potion slowly knitted him back together, he was happy to wait for the wolf to make the first move. It might eventually recover itself, but he doubted it would heal as fast as he was. Time was on his side – he'd be in better shape and there was a chance of Torwin showing up to help soon.

Much as it rankled him to admit it, [Apex Hunter] had been right when it warned him that this monster that wore his name was stronger than him. He was probably smarter, but that wasn't bridging the gulf in their abilities. Worse, he suspected there were at least two more skills he hadn't seen it use yet. Hopefully, they were both passives that contributed to the monster's overall combat capabilities and not attacks it hadn't felt the need to use yet.

The wolf made the first move. It still swayed on its feet, but it started a seemingly-drunken stumble that quickly morphed into a clumsy run. Getting struck by one of those flailing legs would probably break bones, so Velik quickly leaped out of the way. The trees couldn't really stop the wolf, but they slowed it down enough that it had a hard time bringing its size and weight fully to bear.

When it did manage to close the distance, Velik slashed at its face with his spear. It struck the snout and immediately shattered, not slowing the wolf in the slightest. Mentally cursing, he called on [Phalanx] to create four more spears and flung them at the wolf's eyes. There weren't any good weak spots, not unless he wanted to try repeating the maneuver that had gotten him lodged in the monster's mouth. Without his real spear to help, he didn't see that working out so well – not that he was willing to risk it anyway.

How do I kill you? he thought as he formed a new spear.

He kept ahead of the wolf, mostly because it had suffered a traumatic brain injury that should have already killed it. The fact that it was on its feet at all felt like a cruel joke. That it could not only move, but kept fighting, made Velik wonder if some god had a personal grudge with him. Whatever the cause, he couldn't deny that the monster was still a massive threat.

[Phalanx] was his only means of offense, but the problem was that it wasn't really meant for that. The spears were supposed to ward off blows from multiple sources, not penetrate heavily-armored monsters. He'd been using it wrong since the day he'd gotten it in the hopes that he could force it to merge with his actual combat skills, and that wasn't working. Without the earring boosting his mystic stat by fifteen points, he wouldn't be able to so much as scratch this monster.

Slipping through some thick branches to put another tree between him and the wolf, Velik materialized another spear. [Kinetic Charge] was the only way it was getting through anything, and even then, only if he shaped it into what was essentially a six-foot-long needle. Poking tiny holes was the best he could do. The spears didn't even have the decency to survive the pinprick.

Short of merging a skill in the middle of combat, again, his best chance at surviving was to reclaim his broken spear. Half a weapon was better than what he was currently using. The problem was that, while he was keeping ahead of the champion, he wasn't really putting enough distance between them to circle back around. He was also vaguely aware in the back of his mind that he was well outside the boundary of the wolf's domain, but it continued to pursue him anyway.

There was no escaping then. Offense was out as long as the best he could do was throw [Phalanx] spears up between them. [Kinetic Charge] was quickly wearing him down, and all [Apex Hunter] had to say about the fight was that he'd been an idiot not to run the second he'd spotted the wolf.

If I can't get away from it and I can't get around it, there's only one thing left to try.

The healing potion had been working on him for a few minutes now, and he was as close to full strength as he was going to get. It was time to be bold. He dodged around a tree, pivoted hard on his lead foot to circle the trunk, and darted past the wolf, coming so close that he actually wove between its legs as it reacted to his sudden change in direction.

As he'd hoped, the tree being there prevented it from spinning around and snatching him up in its jaws. He'd even accounted for the possibility of it kicking at him with its rear legs and managed to dodge that. He was ten feet past its back end and silently congratulating himself for his daring risk when the wolf's tail slammed into him.

Velik saw it coming just in time to throw himself sideways and soften the blow. It still blew him off his feet to sail fifty feet through the air. He narrowly missed clipping a tree on the way, not through any skill or foresight on his part, but to blind luck, then struck the ground and bounced twice.

He rolled to his feet, shook his head once to try to get some of the blurriness out of his vision, and scrambled forward as best he could without running into something. At best, he had seconds before the monster caught up with him, and he couldn't afford to waste a single one.

Unsure if he was even going the right way, Velik took off running at full speed. The sun had fully set by this time, but even with the blow he'd just taken making it hard to focus, the darkness hid no secrets from his eyes. The sound of crashing trees behind him let him know that the wolf was coming after him and how far back it was – not as far as he would have liked, but maybe far enough.

There!

Without slowing down, Velik threw his body into a no-handed cartwheel and snatched up the top half of his spear. The shaft was only two feet long, its end a bundle of splinters with cracks running up through the wood. It probably wouldn't withstand the rigors of combat, which meant he had, at best, one final shot with it. It needed to be a good one.

He looped around the next tree and saw the wolf coming for him. Blood seeped out from between its teeth and splattered in great blobs to the carpet of dead leaves and churned earth beneath it, and little rivulets stained its black fur from all the pinprick strikes he'd given it. He'd definitely hurt it, just maybe not enough to give him the opening he needed.

One thing he'd learned was that [Kinetic Charge] was more versatile than he'd thought when he'd first picked it. His weapon wasn't the only thing he could build up energy behind, though doing it to his body put an uncomfortable amount of strain on him. Discomfort beat death, however, so when he started charging at the wolf, his half-spear gripped in his hand, his every step felt like he was straining against invisible hands trying to hold him back.

He watched the muscles in the wolf's chest and legs tense as it shifted its weight to lunge at him, teeth bared. It wouldn't make the mistake of letting him back through those obsidian shards without tearing him apart again, and he knew it. Even if he could somehow trick it and slip between its jaws, he didn't think half a spear was going to cut it.

So, when he leaped, he aimed higher. Empowered by [Kinetic Charge], he flew forty feet into the air. The wolf, slowed from its many injuries, reacted with relative sluggishness. Had Velik tried this at the start of the fight, it would have picked him out of the air, chewed him up, and swallowed him. This time, it was too slow.

Its neck flexed as its head snapped up, trying to keep track of the rapidly approaching [Duskbound] human. Even wounded, it almost got him. A fang slashed across Velik's leg, slicing deep and knocking him into a spin that ruined his aim.

One chance. Don't screw this up.

His body completed the first revolution and the wolf's face came back into view. Velik's half-spear was out of position to strike, and without being able to use his second hand to help control it, he struggled to fix that problem. Without thinking, he activated [Phalanx] and created a phantasmal shaft that reached up and twined itself around the broken remnant of his old spear.

On the second revolution, he was ready. He thrust the spear forward with both hands and released every bit of [Kinetic Charge] he was still holding onto. The spear sank into the monster's eye, all the way past where it transitioned into conjured material, halting about five feet back. That thing has to be scraping the back of its skull. It's dead. Please, be dead.

Velik slammed bodily into the wolf's snout, rebounded into open air, and fell thirty feet to the ground, where he lay still and stared at the dark shadow looming over him. Come on. Die. You're dead. Where's the system message?

The wolf's face peered down at him, one of its crimson eyes ruined and weeping black blood. It took a hesitant step forward. Then, without warning, it toppled sideways.

[You have slain Velik the Black Fang (champion elite, level 44).]

[You have taken a champion seed from its former owner, Chalin.]

[Champion seed's current reserves: 0/270.]