This bastard had to have thought I was joking. I stretched my hands right there on the spot, my right hand first, then my left, then rolled my neck, then my legs.
Nature’s first son was still glaring at what I was doing. Finally, I stood. The flas around stilled, and the Emperor’s Presence began to circle . Slowly, the white flas gained red edges and began to look more nacing.
I stopped for a mont and stilled with them. It seed that, right then, the beast finally recognized that its tricks had not worked on . The bastard flinched, let out a deafening roar, and barreled towards .
But no big deal. Despite its terrifying speed, I was already prepared this ti. I didn’t try to focus my eyes and track it. That was pointless. I knew it was sothing I couldn’t do. So instead, the mont I saw it vanish, I didn’t bother with where it had gone, where it was going to co from. I didn’t bother tracking with my eyes at all. What I commanded at that instant was a large wall of fla that climbed up fast, and as the beast entered the wall of fire, I reinforced it. The beast didn’t imdiately co out.
Of course it couldn’t. This fire was the kind used to slt tal, and perhaps it burned even more viciously than that. Unless the creature had a hide more resilient than iron, I didn’t see how it wasn’t going to feel the pain and slow down for at least one second.
One second was all I needed.
The beast ca through the fire wall screaming.
Its white chest fur was scorched black in patches, and the blue-gray hide along its left arm had cracked and split where the heat had blistered through. Smoke poured off its body. Its green eyes were wild with rage and sothing that might have been surprise.
’Good. Feel that.’
I was already moving. I closed the distance before it could plant its feet, and I drove my right fist into the thing’s stomach. The flas coating my hand detonated on contact, a concussive burst of white fire that ate into the cracked hide and spread. The beast doubled forward, and I didn’t give it ti to recover. Left hook to the ribs. The fire punched through fur and seared the flesh beneath. Another right, this ti to the sa spot on its stomach, driving deeper into tissue that was already screaming.
The beast swung. I saw the arm coming, thick as a tree trunk, and ducked under it. The wind off the swing tore leaves from branches above . I ca up inside its guard and hamred an uppercut under its jaw. Its head snapped back, teeth cracked as fire licked up the side of its face and the beast stumbled two steps back, shaking its massive skull.
"Co on," I said. "Co ON."
It ca. The backhand caught in the chest before I could slip it and launched off my feet. I hit the ground, rolled, and was already standing before the pain finished registering. Sothing in my chest shifted in a way ribs weren’t supposed to shift. I spat blood and didn’t care.
The beast charged again. I planted my feet and threw a straight right directly into its charge, eting force with fire. My fist connected with its shoulder. The impact jarred through my arm all the way to the socket, and for a second I thought my wrist had shattered, but the flas detonated against its hide and the beast’s montum broke. It veered sideways, crashing through a burning tree that collapsed across its back.
I was on it before the tree finished falling. Left. Right. Left. Each hit a small explosion of white fla against gray flesh. I was aiming for the sa spots, the cracks, the blistered patches, the places where fire had already chewed through its natural armor. I could feel my knuckles splitting inside the fla gauntlets but I kept hitting. The fire was doing the real damage. Each impact spread it deeper, let it burrow further under the hide where it couldn’t be shaken off.
The beast roared and caught my left arm mid-swing. Its grip was crushing. I felt bones grind.
So I coated my entire head with fire and headbutted it.
My forehead cracked against its bovine snout and the fire surged on contact, engulfing the creature’s face. It bellowed and released , clawing at its own eyes with those massive hands, and I staggered back cradling my left arm. It wasn’t broken. Maybe... Probably? I couldn’t tell and it didn’t matter.
The beast was burning. The patches of fla I’d embedded in its hide with every punch had spread and connected, tracing a map of fire across its torso and shoulders. Everywhere I’d hit, white flas ate inward. The sll of scorched fur and cooked at filled the clearing.
It charged again. Of course it did. The stupid thing was as stubborn as I was.
This ti I didn’t et it head on. I sidestepped and threw every ounce of spirit essence I could into my right hand. The fire condensed, white-hot, until the air around my fist warped and the grass beneath it turned to ash. I pivoted my hips the way you’re supposed to when you want to put your whole body behind a punch, and I drove it into the beast’s knee as it thundered past.
The joint buckled. The sound it made was wet and final. The beast’s own montum did the rest, carrying it forward on a leg that no longer worked. It crashed face-first into the forest floor and carved a trench through the dirt, finally stopping against a tree that cracked but held.
I stood over it, heaving. Blood ran from my nose, my knuckles were raw at inside the flas, my left arm hung at an angle that made nauseous to look at, and every breath sent a hot spike through whatever my ribs had beco.
The beast tried to rise. Its arms shook. The fire was still burning into it, spreading through the cracks in its hide like roots growing in fast-forward. It turned its massive head toward and let out a sound that wasn’t a roar anymore. It was lower than that. Guttural. Almost a groan.
I limped closer. The flas around my right hand sputtered, dimd, then blazed again as I fed them more essence.
"Stay down," I said. My voice ca out hoarse, barely above a whisper. "I’m telling you this as soone who’s too stupid to do it himself. Stay down."
The beast’s green eyes locked onto mine. For a mont, sothing passed between us. It must have been the recognition of one stubborn thing looking at another.
Then the purple glow returned behind its eyes, and the sickly violet pressure began building again. Its fear manipulation. It was going to try the sa trick twice.
I grinned and tasted blood.
"Wrong move."
I buried my fist in its skull before the wave could form.
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