Chapter 150: Spiraling Skyward
Wind and lightning burst beneath Ryan’s feet with reckless force, propelling him forward again and again. Blue-violet light trailed behind him like an afterimage.
But it still was not fast enough.
That thing was too fast. In a straight sprint, it was at least twice as fast as he was.
The crash of splintering trees ca closer and closer, each impact louder than the last—
BOOM!
The final tree fell.
Ryan glanced back once, and his pupils shrank.
The creature had already closed to within ten ters of him. Its jaws were wide open, those jagged fangs still hung with scraps of flesh and bark. In its dark yellow slit pupils burned the excitent of a cat toying with a mouse.
Ryan gritted his teeth and hurled himself sideways.
The thing shot past him and crashed into a giant tree thick enough for two n to encircle with their arms.
The trunk shook violently. With a crack, it tilted to one side, but it did not break. The creature staggered two steps, caught itself, turned around, and fixed its gaze on him again.
Ryan panted as he pushed himself back to his feet.
His eyes swept over the surroundings.
It was utter devastation.
During that chase just now, the creature had smashed down at least twenty or thirty trees. They lay everywhere now, toppled in all directions. So had split clean in half. So had been uprooted. So had been sent flying far away.
Wood splinters, branches, and churned-up dirt were scattered everywhere.
The beast had forcibly carved out an open clearing around them.
A faint movent touched the corner of Ryan’s mouth.
Then he turned and ran again.
The creature lunged after him.
This ti, Ryan did not run in a straight line. He wove between the trees.
Left, then right, then cutting through another gap. Every so often, he glanced back and hurled a fireball over his shoulder, smashing it into the creature’s face. The fireballs burst open in showers of sparks, but the thing did not even blink. It rely shook its head and kept coming.
Even so, it slowed a little.
The trees still could not truly stop it, but every trunk it smashed through forced it to slow, turn, and accelerate all over again.
Ryan darted through the narrow gaps like a slick loach, always just beyond its reach.
BOOM—another tree fell.
BOOM—another.
BOOM—BOOM—BOOM—
The thing grew more and more irritable as it chased. It no longer charged in a simple straight line. It started swaying left and right, trying to predict Ryan’s route.
But Ryan was too slippery. Every ti it thought it had cut him off, he slipped through the last gap between its claws.
Yet Ryan himself was also reaching his limit.
His legs were growing weaker. His breathing was growing heavier. Even with Syl replenishing his Mana, stamina was sothing that could not simply be restored. He felt like a bowstring pulled to its utmost limit, liable to snap at any mont.
It was ti.
He abruptly stopped.
The creature paused for an instant as well. A flicker of confusion crossed those dark yellow slit pupils.
Ryan turned to face it.
Then he raised a hand and began casting.
The water elent in the air started gathering.
The temperature plumted. A thin white frost ford over the surrounding trunks.
Countless ice crystals condensed into existence, gleaming with frigid light.
The creature stopped advancing, wary now, its gaze locked on those crystals.
Ryan slashed his hand downward.
The crystals exploded outward, transforming into a storm of ice spears, ice spikes, and spinning ice discs that shot toward the creature in a dense barrage.
The thing did not dodge.
It did not even move.
The ice spears struck its body with a series of sharp clanging sounds and shattered into glittering fragnts.
The ice spikes hit its face and shattered.
The ice discs slamd into it and shattered.
All of those frozen projectiles were like eggs thrown against stone. They broke apart completely.
The creature shook itself once. The icy debris slid off its black fur, fell to the ground, and quickly lted.
It looked at Ryan, and in those dark yellow slit pupils there seed to be a touch of mockery.
Was that all?
Ryan’s expression changed.
He kept casting. More ice crystals ford in the air. More ice spears and spikes shot toward the creature.
But this ti, it did not even bother to stop. It charged straight through the barrage. The ice projectiles exploded against its body in clouds of frost, shrouding it in white vapor.
Within that haze, many of the ice spears clearly flew wide, burying themselves deep in the trunks of the surrounding trees.
The creature paid no attention.
Its eyes were fixed only on Ryan.
It wanted to tear him apart.
It rushed him. A massive claw swept across in a horizontal arc.
Ryan rolled backward and narrowly avoided it. The claw tips sliced through the air before his face, and the gale from them made his skin sting.
He sprang back up and ran again.
The creature kept chasing.
The trees around them were growing fewer and fewer. In this latest exchange alone, it had smashed down more than a dozen more trunks.
Now the entire area had opened up into a broad clearing—circular, more than a hundred ters across.
Around the edge of the clearing lay the broken trees, strewn about in every direction.
At the center, only a few of the thickest giant trees remained standing, their trunks studded with the ice spears that had missed their mark earlier.
Ryan ran to the middle of that clearing and suddenly stopped.
He could not run anymore.
He bent over, bracing his hands on his knees, gulping down breath in huge, ragged gasps. Sweat dripped from his face and vanished almost instantly into the moss.
The creature stopped as well.
It stood at the edge of the clearing, watching him. In those dark yellow slit pupils was the satisfaction of a cat playing with a mouse.
It began walking toward him, slowly and deliberately. Every step was planted firmly, its claws gouging deep trenches into the earth.
Ryan lifted his head and looked at it.
There was no fear in his face.
No despair.
If anything—
The corner of his mouth curved upward just slightly.
The creature did not notice.
It had played enough.
It opened its jaws wide, baring those jagged fangs, and hurled itself at Ryan.
Its seven- or eight-ter-long black body rose into the air like a mountain collapsing downward. Those enormous claws spread wide, their tips flashing with cold light—
Ryan moved.
He did not retreat.
He did not dodge sideways.
He jumped upward.
Wind and lightning exploded beneath his feet with everything he had. Blue-violet radiance burst into a blinding flare, launching him skyward like an arrow. At nearly the sa instant, three items dropped from where he had been standing.
Three red potions.
The creature missed its prey completely. Its massive body slamd into the ground instead, both claws smashing down directly onto the three potions.
BOOM—
An explosion erupted.
All three explosive potions detonated at once. A pillar of red fire shot skyward, and the shockwave was violent enough to blast apart a hilltop. Dirt and broken wood were hurled flying in all directions. The creature itself was blown bodily into the air, flipping once before crashing heavily back to the ground.
Ryan dropped out of the air and landed on one of the ice spears embedded in a tree trunk. He looked down.
The creature lay sprawled on the ground, struggling to rise.
Its black fur had been scorched into charred patches. A great wound had been torn open across its back, exposing vivid red flesh beneath. Blood seeped from the injury and dripped onto the ground.
It raised its head and looked at Ryan.
There was no more mockery in those dark yellow slit pupils. No more playfulness.
Only pure, unfiltered fury.
It opened its jaws and let out a roar.
The sound was not loud.
It was sharp and grating, like tal scraping against glass. The air itself quivered. The ice spears embedded in the trees rattled and began falling one after another. Ryan clapped both hands over his ears, feeling as though his eardrums might burst.
Then the roar stopped.
The creature moved.
Its four limbs drove against the ground, and it launched itself at Ryan once more.
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