Chapter 525: The Behemoth
Chapter 525: The Behemoth
The massive beast barreled toward Moon, its massive legs tearing chunks of stone from the ground with every stride.
The fog parted around its frame, swirling violently in its wake.
Moon moved. He didn’t dare to try to meet the charge head-on. Going toe to toe with a body refiner’s raw momentum was suicide.
Instead, he activated Air Step and launched himself in the sky at an angle, the air carrying him out of the charging lane. The behemoth thundered past, its shoulder grazing the spot where Moon had stood a moment before.
Moon did not waste the chance, at such a close distance, he struck his sword against the behemoth’s flank as it passed.
Moon’s lightning-wreathed sword carved a deep gash.
~SHRRK~
The behemoth roared and wheeled around with surprising speed for its size as blood sprayed.
Moon darted in close, his blade flashing in a series of quick strikes aimed at the beast’s legs and underbelly.
Each cut bit deep, the bleeding effect from Weaponmaster tearing the wounds wider, the lightning crackling into its muscles to disrupt its movements.
In retaliation to the powerful attacks, the behemoth swung its massive claws, each swipe powerful enough to level a building, but Moon read the attacks and slipped between them, albeit with some difficulty.
The beast grew angry. Its yellow eye burned with rage as strike after strike landed on its body while its own attacks found nothing but empty air.
When Moon kicked off into the air with Air Step and rained down lightning from above, the behemoth swiped at the space where he hovered, missing repeatedly. No matter how much it roared, it could not bring Moon down.
A deep, frustrated rumble built in its throat. It couldn’t reach him. Every time it committed to an attack, the small figure simply wasn’t there anymore.
Once the duration of Air Step finished, Moon landed on the floor. Before he could change direction, the behemoth’s tail whipped around faster than ever, catching Moon across the chest before he could fully reset his footing.
The impact threw him backward through the fog, his body skidding across the stone.
Hiss! Moon sucked in a cold breath in pain.
Watching this, the beast’s eye flashed with satisfaction. A low, pleased growl rolled out of its throat, the body refiner revelling in the single hit it had finally landed.
Moon rolled to his feet, wincing, a bruise already blooming across his ribs.
"Not bad." He muttered, wiping a thread of blood from his burst lip.
After receiving the massive blow, Moon stopped fighting on the beast’s terms. He began alternating his range deliberately, weaving in and out of the engagement like waves striking the sea bed.
Moon would close in, land three or four lightning-charged cuts, then Air Step back out of reach and hammer it with ranged spells before it could counter.
Lightning bolts cracked across the behemoth’s hide, straining its muscles. Ignite bloomed across its flank, blue fire stripping its resistance and burning into the wounds his sword had opened.
The behemoth pushed through it all, its body refiner durability refusing to quit. It was losing, but it wasn’t broken.
For the first time, Moon decided to try out his new element seriously.
Cryomancy skill activated, ice slowly forming from his palm.
The beast’s eyes narrowed at the new element being shown. It couldn’t believe its eyes, it had lived for countless decades, and had seen all sorts of powers. But in comparison to the small human before it, it had never seen such a versatile creature ever.
Controlling the five basic elements, and two advanced elements was something it never dared imagine.
A wave of frost crashed over the behemoth’s legs, and the Freezing Cold effect took hold immediately.
The beast’s movements began to decrease. Its next charge came at reduced speed, frost crawling up its limbs with every passing second.
Moon layered another ice attack onto it, then another, the frost accumulating, the cold biting deeper, stacking on itself until the behemoth’s massive frame was visibly struggling against the encroaching stiffness.
The ice did what fire and lightning couldn’t. It took away the one thing the behemoth had that could put Moon in trouble, its speed.
A slowed body refiner was a body refiner waiting to die. Deaths came in all sorts of ways, and death by a thousand cuts was the death that was awaiting the behemoth.
By now, the beast was a ruin. Deep cuts crisscrossed its entire body.
Burns were spread across its entire body, and frost began to eat at its eyes. Moon had been trying to get at its eyes, but it was really difficult, the beast was focused on protecting its eyes more than attacking.
Hence, even though it was durable, it was still dying. Thankfully, after the countless injuries he had placed on it, the behemoth’s defence had decreased greatly.
Which allowed Moon to target the eyes whilst it thought he would target the body.
Ptui!
Blood sprayed from its left eye as a frost lance struck it whilst it attempted defending against his Ignite attack.
The behemoth cried out in pain, losing control of its body for a moment. Blood ran freely from a dozen wounds, pooling beneath it on the cracked stone. Its breathing came in ragged, heaving gasps as it tried to understand what had taken its vision.
Moon smiled. At last, his attack towards the behemoth’s eyes had managed to land. During the fight, he had lost himself in trying out his various skills against the behemoth, gauging his skills’ power level on its powerful body.
The result? He was pleasantly satisfied.
Moon wasn’t unscathed either. Bruises darkened both his arms. His ribs ached from the tail strike. His left hand hung slightly lower than the right, the fingers not quite closing all the way. He had cast Minor Mend on it earlier after the behemoth’s claw clipped it, but the healing hadn’t fully taken place yet.
The hand still throbbed, weaker than it should be.
He shook it out once, then raised his sword for the final exchange.
It was time to end this.
Moon channelled three skills in succession, his most punishing combination.
One that he had been planning on testing.
"Fire, Lightning and Frost. Three special effects... I wonder if it will survive" Moon muttered to nobody in particular as he began his preparation.
Once his two powerful spells—Ignite and Lightning Raiju—were ready, Moon sent them hurling towards the dying beast that could not dodge any longer.
Blue fire erupted across the behemoth’s chest, sinking into its hide and stripping away what little fire resistance it had left.
Lightning Raiju came right after. The purple wolf leapt from his hand towards the burning, soaked body of the behemoth and found every conductive path at once.
Ice Storm came at last, the quickest of the bunch to cast. The barrage of icicles rained down from above, frostbite blooming across the burning wounds, the contrast of searing heat and biting cold tearing through the beast’s already failing constitution.
Purple lightning. Freezing ice. Blue fire. All three slammed into the behemoth.
The beast didn’t even have time to roar.
The combined attack of these three elements detonated across its body in a storm of colors. The lightning ravaged its soul. The fire consumed its flesh and the ice shattered the frozen, brittle muscle.
When the elements finally dissipated, what remained barely resembled the creature that had charged him minutes earlier. Its broken body collapsed to the ground, smoking, frozen, and split open, nearly unrecognizable.
[You have killed the Level 54 B-Rank Behemoth]
[You have gained 8,000 Lives]