Chapter 755: Moon vs Dotted Leopard

The dotted leopared used the wind element to launch itself, propelling its already-blinding speed to something far greater, the air itself hurling it forward. The distance between them vanished in less than an instant, faster than anything the leopard had shown so far, and faster than Moon could react.

And then it was there, directly in front of him, inside his guard, jaws already opening, claws already rising, having crossed the entire gap in the blink of an eye.

Moon’s eyes widened.

He reacted on pure instinct.

He twisted his body and drove his blade forward even as the leopard’s claws came down, committing to a strike rather than a block, trusting his offense over his guard. His sword bit into the leopard’s side, Cryothunder tearing a frozen, crackling wound into its torso.

But he couldn’t fully evade in return.

The leopard’s claws raked across him, and what would have torn out his throat instead carved a massive gash across his chest as his twist pulled the vital point out of the strike’s path.

Blood sprayed across the ground. The claws opened him from shoulder to sternum, deep furrows gouged through flesh and muscle, and the force of it hurled him backward.

Moon hit the ground and skidded, pain exploding across his chest, hot blood pouring down his torso, soaking his clothes. He gritted his teeth, a sharp hiss escaping his mouth, his vision flashing white for a moment at the shock of the wound that very much reminded him of his first ever death.

That nearly took my head off.

The thought made him wake up. Whilst his offense had leapt forward with Cryothunder, his defense hadn’t.

His constitution was the same as it had been, his ability to take a hit unchanged, and against a Surpasser’s strike, a few of these direct attacks could end his life. He could hurt the leopard now, but if it landed a significant hit on him, he’d die.

The imbalance was stark, dangerous and needed to be accounted for in his next exchanges.

He forced himself upright, his legs hardly carrying him back to create space, and cast on the move.

Minor Mend. Cleanse.

Healing energy flooded the gash across his chest, the torn flesh knitting together, the worst of the bleeding stanching, and Cleanse scrubbed away the shock and the edge of the pain that threatened to slow his reactions. The wound closed enough to keep fighting, though it still burned, and throbbed like a line of fire across his chest.

Watching him retreat, the leopard didn’t give him the respite.

It came rushing again, wind already gathering around its body for another explosive lunge, refusing to let him recover, pressing its advantage against the wounded human the instant it sensed weakness.

Moon couldn’t afford another exchange like the last. He needed to force it back, to reset the fight on his terms.

Tempest Symphony.

His blade erupted into a storm of motion, Cryothunder blazing all over it, and Phantom Strikes layered across every cut, filling the air between him and the charging leopard with a blurring curtain of real and illusory blades, each one trailing frost and lightning.

The leopard couldn’t tell the true strikes from the false, and it couldn’t charge through a wall of frozen, crackling steel without impaling itself. Its lunge faltered, the beast forced to twist and recoil to avoid the storm, backing off rather than pressing in.

Moon drove it back a full several meters, buying himself the breathing room he desperately needed, his chest heaving, blood still seeping through the half-healed gash, his frost-and-lightning blade held ready.

The two faced off again across the newly opened distance, the leopard snarling, wary now of the storm of blades, and Moon breathing hard, wounded but very much standing.

Alright. Lesson learned. I can hurt it, but I can’t trade with it. One mistake and I’m dead. So I don’t make mistakes. I control the distance, I land my attacks, and I end this before it ends me.

He wiped the blood from his mouth, settled his stance, and fixed his eyes on the Surpasser leopard, the real fight only just beginning.

Moon reached into his storage ring and palmed a handful of runes, keeping them hidden in his grip, his plan already forming.

He engaged again, but this time he fought differently.

He kept his distance, using Air Step to stay mobile, trading careful strikes rather than committing, and all the while he moved across the terrain with purpose, dropping something as he went, pressing it discreetly into the ground mid-motion where the leopard’s attention wouldn’t catch it.

Then he began to lure.

He let his guard appear to drop, gave the leopard an opening it couldn’t resist, and when the beast’s eyes flashed and the wind gathered around its limbs for another explosive lunge, Moon retreated along a path of his own choosing, drawing the leopard directly over the spot he’d prepared.

The leopard committed, wind rocketing it forward across the ground.

The explosive rune detonated beneath it.

A burst of fire erupted upward, catching the leopard mid-lunge and moving it off its trajectory. The blast didn’t do serious damage, but it wasn’t meant to. It disoriented the leopard completely, throwing off its wind-boosted charge, scattering its focus, leaving it tumbling and dazed in the open for a critical fraction of a second.

Exactly the window Moon needed.

He was already moving, Cryothunder blazing, and his blade found the disoriented leopard before it could recover, carving a deep frozen gash across its back, the fused element searing and freezing the wound, lightning chaining through its muscles. The leopard snarled in pain and surprise, lashing out blindly, but Moon was already clear, having struck and withdrawn in a single clean motion.

The leopard recovered, enraged and now wary, and the dynamic of the fight shifted.

It grew cautious of its footing, watching the ground, hesitating before each wind-boosted lunge, no longer willing to charge headlong after the human.