Chapter 103: Running for Their Lives 2

“Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!”

A sharp pain shot through Kent’s head, and for a moment he nearly blacked out.

Then another burst of agony tore through his broken arm, shocking him awake again.

He had not even managed to get back on his feet before raising his uninjured hand and firing off a rapid succession of Wind Blades.

He did not aim at the Hellhound.

Instead, he sent the blades flying wildly in different directions.

At the same time, Kent yanked something from his belt.

A small iron sphere.

Without hesitation, he hurled it toward the spot where the Hellhound stood.

Only then did he grab Daphne and continue running.

“BOOM!”

Kent had taken only a few steps when a tremendous explosion erupted behind them.

He did not even turn around.

He simply kept running.

In his mind, he had five minutes.

The Wind Blades and the iron sphere—one of his newly designed grenades—had both been used for the same purpose.

To confuse the Hellhound’s senses.

Magical beasts possessed perception several times sharper than that of ordinary humans, and a legendary creature like the Three-Headed Hellhound was bound to be even more sensitive.

Kent had released the Wind Blades to conceal the moment he threw the grenade.

And when the grenade exploded, the violent magical fluctuations it produced would interfere with the Hellhound’s ability to sense their movements.

Meanwhile, the blinding effect of Illumination could last for roughly five minutes.

That should have given Kent and Daphne five precious minutes to escape.

The plan came entirely from years of gaming experience back on Earth.

On paper, Kent had calculated everything perfectly.

Unfortunately, reality did not always follow the plan.

“AOOOH!”

THUD!

THUD!

THUD!

Kent had barely begun to believe they had bought themselves five minutes when an enraged roar exploded behind him.

Heavy footsteps thundered through the tunnel.

Kent glanced back.

His heart nearly stopped.

The enormous silhouette of the Hellhound was charging through the brilliant light of Illumination like a violent storm.

It was coming straight for them.

“Faster, Daphne! Faster!”

Kent shouted desperately.

“I can hear the water now!”

The sound of rushing water ahead had become unmistakable.

And Kent remembered one crucial thing.

Hellhounds could not swim.

That single thought somehow squeezed another burst of strength from his exhausted body.

His pace quickened, and he kept urging Daphne to move faster.

But something was wrong.

Daphne did not answer.

Kent turned to look at her more closely.

Her face was deathly pale.

There was blood at the corner of her mouth.

Kent froze.

Then he saw it.

A deep wound ran across Daphne’s back.

Judging from its shape, it had almost certainly been caused by the Hellhound’s teeth.

Kent had no time to think.

He immediately hoisted Daphne onto his back and kept running.

His jaw clenched so tightly that his teeth cut into his lower lip.

Blood seeped from the broken skin.

It was not that Kent did not want to use healing magic on Daphne.

He simply could not.

The Hellhound was right behind them.

The moment he stopped to cast a healing spell, both he and Daphne would die.

Facing an enraged Hellhound at such close range, Kent knew perfectly well that neither of them had the slightest chance of surviving a direct fight.

“AOOOH! AOOOH!”

The Hellhound continued roaring behind them.

Boulders that stood in its path were smashed apart beneath its charge.

Ironically, those obstacles were the only reason it had not already caught them.

And in its fury, the creature seemed to have completely forgotten that it could use magic.

That was perhaps the greatest difference between magical beasts and humans.

No matter how intelligent a magical beast might be, rage could still overwhelm its judgment.

Kent could barely feel his legs anymore.

They no longer seemed to belong to him.

But every furious roar behind him served as a reminder.

He could not stop.

He had to keep moving.

“Am I going to die?”

“Am I really going to die here?”

“Daphne... this is my fault. I dragged you into this.”

Tears streamed down Kent’s face as he muttered under his breath.

He could clearly hear rushing water nearby.

The sound was growing louder and louder.

Yet no matter how far he ran, he still could not see the river.

By now, there was not a trace of strength left in his body.

Kent was no longer truly running.

He was simply forcing his legs to move forward, one mechanical step after another.

“Huff... huff...”

Kent’s eyes were bloodshot and wide.

His face was smeared with dirt and dust, while tears and blood had carved several thick streaks across his cheeks.

He gasped desperately for breath, yet his pace never truly slowed.

The reason he could still keep moving was Daphne.

She was still lying across his back.

Kent’s uninjured right hand had already begun to feel something warm trickling over his skin.

He knew what it was.

Daphne’s blood.

Despair was beginning to swallow him whole.

Ahead, there was still nothing but the same enormous tunnel stretching endlessly into the darkness.

Kent regretted everything.

If he had known from the beginning that the creature chasing them was such a massive Hellhound, he should have turned back the way they had come.

The original passage had been barely more than two meters high.

A Hellhound standing over four meters tall could never have squeezed through it.

But now it was too late.

Just as hopelessness threatened to crush him completely, Kent suddenly felt a cool sensation rise from the soles of both feet.

The two currents of cool energy surged upward in an instant and spread throughout his entire body.

As the refreshing sensation continued circulating through him, more and more of it seemed to pour endlessly from beneath his feet.

His legs, which had been completely drained of strength only moments before, slowly began to recover.

Power returned to his muscles.

Even his exhausted mind gradually cleared.

“Daphne... little girl, you have to hold on!”

Tears continued running down Kent’s face as he shouted hoarsely.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to see the trees on the surface?”

“And the rabbits with those huge ears?”

“I promised you, didn’t I?”

“I’ll take you up there myself!”

A faint voice drifted past his ear.

“Kent... is that... really true?”

Daphne had always loved asking Kent about the surface world.

The sensation beneath Kent’s feet grew stronger.

His speed increased with it.

Bit by bit, he began widening the distance between them and the Hellhound.

Hearing Daphne answer brought him a small measure of relief.

But he knew she needed treatment immediately.

Her slender body would not be able to endure much more blood loss.

So Kent kept talking loudly, refusing to let her drift into silence.

“Yes, Daphne!”

“I’ll take you to eat sweet honey peaches.”

“And crispy pine nuts.”

“And all kinds of things you’ve never tasted before...”

“Kent... I’m so sleepy...”

Daphne’s voice had become terribly weak.

“So... sleepy...”

The rest of her words came in broken fragments.

Each one was softer than the last.

Until finally—

there was nothing.

“Daphne?”

Kent’s heart tightened.

“Daphne!”

He called her name twice.

There was no response.

At the same time, a rush of damp air struck his face.

Kent’s heart leapt.

Water.

They had finally reached it.

But the hope lasted only an instant.

The next moment, his heart sank.

The tunnel ended at a cliff.

To the right, an enormous waterfall plunged downward with a deafening roar.

That was why they had been able to hear the water from so far away.

And it was also why, no matter how long they had run, they had never seemed to reach it.

Kent stopped abruptly.

Daphne lay motionless on his back, her condition unknown.

Behind them was the Hellhound.

Ahead was a sheer drop.

Kent peered over the edge.

Below was nothing but darkness.

He could not tell how deep the abyss went.

At that moment, despair finally settled over him completely.

There was nowhere left to run.

Kent sank into utter despair.

Even the steady currents of cool energy rising from the soles of his feet could not dispel the hopelessness crushing down on him.

There were only two paths left.

One was the tunnel behind him.

The other was the abyss in front of him.

And both looked like certain death.

The Hellhound behind them might still be temporarily blinded, but for a creature that was at least Level Seven and had spent its entire life in the depths of the Underdark, blindness was little more than an inconvenience.

Turning back would mean death.

Jumping from the cliff hardly offered a better chance.

Through his enhanced vision goggles, Kent could see several hundred meters into the darkness below.

Yet even that much was enough to tell him that the drop was far too great.

If he and Daphne jumped from such a height, their own weight alone would be enough to leave them gravely injured upon impact.

And that was assuming there were no hidden rocks beneath the water.

In truth, death was by far the more likely outcome.

Even if, by some miracle, Kent survived the fall without being badly injured or knocked unconscious, he still had only one usable arm.

There was no way he could fight his way to shore against the enormous force of the waterfall with only one hand.

The far more likely result was that both of them would be swept away and dragged into some underground river.

“Damn it!”

Kent’s grief and frustration finally erupted.

“If I hadn’t followed that Earth Lizard, we never would’ve ended up here! That damned—”

He shouted in despair.

By the time the cry left his throat, Kent had already made up his mind.

He would gamble on the jump.

Even if he was going to die, he would rather fall into the abyss than become prey for a magical beast.

Who knew what that enraged Hellhound might do to them before finally killing them?

But halfway through his furious outburst, a thought suddenly flashed through Kent’s mind.

The Earth Lizards.

His eyes widened.

Magical beasts were territorial creatures.

If the Hellhound was the dominant predator of this region, then the Earth Lizards living here could only be part of its hunting grounds.

Otherwise, the Earth Lizard leader would never have fled merely from hearing the Hellhound’s roar, without even seeing the beast itself.

That alone proved something important.

This was not the first time the Earth Lizards had run from it.

And if the Earth Lizard leader had escaped through this area before...

then there had to be a way out.

A route that did not end in death.

The only problem was finding it.

Kent gritted his teeth and forced himself to cast another Illumination spell.

He no longer had time to search the entire area carefully.

There was only one practical method left.

He would follow the Earth Lizard leader’s footprints.

It was the simplest method imaginable.

But right now, it was also the fastest.