System of the Beast Slayer [litrpg Adventure]
Copyright© 1999 by CaffeinatedTales
Chapter 152
“Bzzz—” Gwyhyr cut through the air, carrying the soft, trembling hum of cicada wings.
The sword was too fast, as if it had cleaved the sunlight itself. The snow-bright blade drew a straight line from left to right, unstoppable as a battering ram, and hacked into a thigh layered in horned keratin and dense muscle.
Flesh and blood burst apart. Dagon let out a howl of pain, its attention instantly yanked toward the instigator, Letho. Crimson eyes spat twin streaks of murderous light as tower-like arms smashed down at the Witcher from above.
The Witcher, however, moved with the agility of a wildcat facing a natural predator. He arched his back and sprang away, tail-up in instinctive balance, barely slipping past the giant palms.
Then he refused to relent, circling within the triangular space before him, striking with feints, rolling aside to evade, provoking without pause.
There was more than one Witcher!
Bald-headed Letho held the front, while Roy seized the opening and rushed behind Dagon. Cold intent flashed across his face, veins blackened and crawling beneath the skin, as Plow Guard drove him forward in a sudden lunge!
“Pfft—”
The silver sword plunged straight into the hollow behind Dagon’s knee, the wound driven deep enough to scrape bone!
Black blood sprayed.
The instant the strike landed, Roy dropped flat and rolled away from his original position. Almost at the same time, one of Dagon’s arm-claws, thick as a man’s waist, swept through the air with terrifying force, scything across the space where he had been.
Dagon meant to seize this frenzied little insect and crush it into pulp.
It grasped nothing but air.
The missed strike left an opening straight ahead!
Letho raised his steel sword diagonally before his chest with his right hand, while his left fingers flew, tracing an Axii Sign with exquisite precision. When Dagon turned its face back, it ran straight into the Sign, its mind instantly clouded, freezing in place.
One second—
The two Witchers struck together!
Gwyhyr in Letho’s hand flashed upward like lightning, stabbing into the creature’s thick, stubby neck. Flames burst forth as he dragged the blade sideways, savagely slicing open an artery and tearing a vast gash.
Roy blurred into motion, stepping on Dagon’s leg, lower back, and spine in succession as he vaulted onto its shoulder. His wrist twisted, the blade turning from horizontal to vertical, and he drove it down with brutal force—
Half the sword sank deep into the creature’s crimson left eye!
Without the slightest hesitation, he spread his arms and leapt from the giant’s body like an eagle taking flight, hitting the ground in a roll to bleed off the momentum.
When he turned and rose again, Aerondight was already back in his hand, as if it had teleported there.
Behind him, Dagon’s left eye, stripped of any obstruction, had become a horrifying pit of mangled flesh. Black blood poured out in torrents, white steam billowing thickly across the ground.
Dagon wailed, its remaining eye locking onto Roy, brutality and hatred nearly spilling out of it.
Then it charged.
Its massive body crushed across the scorched earth, gravel exploding outward. Black Gull Island seemed to quake as if struck by an earthquake!
A shadow like a small hill slammed down upon him. The wind hit like steel blades, stealing Roy’s breath, yet there was no fear in his dark-gold pupils. Calmly, he traced a pattern with the fingers of his left hand and thrust an Axii Sign straight into the path of the charging giant.
At the same time—Intimidate!
Under the double effect, the behemoth froze for a tenth of a second. The youth used the opening to dart aside.
Still, he was a fraction too slow.
With a sharp pop, the Quen shield around him shattered like a soap bubble.
Then a colossal force lifted his body into the air, flinging him far backward before he crashed heavily into the ground.
After a long moment, Roy struggled to prop himself up, his body on the verge of falling apart, and spat out a mouthful of blood with a pained expression.
At that moment, bald-headed Letho once again took the pressure for him.
Dagon slammed its fists into the ground in a frenzy, pounding again and again, while Letho before it seemed to dance on the edge of a blade.
Though wielding only a steel sword, he abandoned offense entirely. His body became an untouchable gale, footwork light and precise, weaving and slipping through every blow.
He moved so fast it exceeded the limit of the naked eye, creating the illusion of three afterimages flashing around Dagon, as if three Lethos were attacking at once.
...
Roy wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth and pulled Gabriel from the void.
He stepped forward, index finger snapping repeatedly. As the bowstring thrummed, several bursts of blood flowered across Dagon’s back.
After suffering repeated heavy blows, its strength waned, its movements slowing.
Then purple light flared beneath its feet, the glow of a Yrden trap.
Its reactions and speed were further reduced.
Under the sun at the center of Black Gull Island, a bizarre scene unfolded. Two “small” human figures leapt and darted around a monster with a maw like an abyss, catfish tentacles, and crocodilian skin.
The disparity in size was enormous, like lions and hyenas on the open plain.
Yet the two Witchers were viciously cunning. They never fought head-on, instead moving at high speed, changing direction, dodging and harassing without pause.
Their coordination was flawless. One drew the attacks, the other struck at whatever weakness Dagon exposed, over and over again.
Swordlight, Signs, and bolts rained down in a relentless barrage!
Dagon’s body erupted with swirling, multicolored light, the effects of Blade Oil, Paralyzing Venom, Gwyhyr’s burning cuts and savage blows, and Aerondight’s spell-breaking power.
Just one minute.
It looked as though it had been carved apart by a thousand blades. Shattered flesh and bone littered the ground, and not a single intact patch of skin remained on its black, horned carapace.
Its reactions grew sluggish, until at last, in a final flash of dying fury, it mustered its remaining strength and swung both arms with terrifying speed, blasting the two men away.
Then it opened its abyssal maw and howled at the sky. An invisible sonic shockwave swept the field. Amid flying sand and stone, the two Witchers, just climbing back to their feet, felt their eardrums bulge as if a thousand hands were clawing through their minds, their bodies swaying on the brink of collapse.
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