The village chief deflected the spiked hammer with his black spear, veined with lapis lazri. It seemed to be crafted entirely from obsidian, from the long hilt to the sharp blade at its tip.
The chief was gritting his teeth, having just protected Soli from an attack that nearly crushed his skull. The monster retracted its tail,He opened his jaw freeing Soli's hand, and quickly backed away.
The chief shot Soli a sharp look and He threw a dagger next to him , then turned his gaze back to the beast.
"Go and kill it!" That was the meaning he read in that look. and the chief furrowed his brows,
"Easier said than done , you fool!" Soli was grinding his teeth, barely able to breathe. His vision was blurry, his body trembling. He could feel his broken ribs shifting inside him as they tried to knit back together, sending waves of agony through him. He could even hear it—the sound of his bones and tissues mending. It was a deeply unsettling noise.
He pushed the pain down, channeling it into a force that drove him forward. He grabbed the dagger and took his first steps toward the beast. They were slow, shuffling steps, but it was the best he could manage in his condition.
The monster whipped its tail upward and slammed it back down—not aiming for the Chief, no—but directly at the exhausted Soli, who looked like an easy target, weak enough to be taken down in a single blow.
But the Chief deflected it again, though this time the impact forced him back a step. The tail's momentum was far stronger now.
The tail hovered in the air before crashing down with even more force toward the Chief, who had clearly become a real problem for the creature. He could actually block its attacks. The monster's ultimate weapon was useless against him. But it didn't stop. It raised and slammed its tail over and over, even trying to feint, but it was no use. The Chief stood firm against the destructive tail like an unyielding wall.
Meanwhile, Soli's vision had cleared a little, but not completely. Blood still pooled in his eyes. The swelling on his face had gone down slightly, and he could move a bit faster now, but his breathing remained heavy and labored. His healing was progressing far too slowly.
As he shuffled forward unsteadily, something strange about the beast caught his attention. It hadn't moved from its spot, even as Soli slowly approached. Given how pitiful he looked, the monster had to know Soli was at his weakest.
"Why doesn't this bastard attack me?.."
It seemed that to wield its tail with such power and precision, the creature had to remain firmly planted. Maybe that was their second weakness. But Soli didn't dwell on this new discovery. Only one thought consumed him: driving the dagger in his hand straight through the lizard's skull and ending all this misery. The rest of his mind was completely fogged over.
But as soon as he got close, the lizard's remaining eyes snapped toward him, blazing with pure rage. Yet, it did nothing. It just let Soli approach, until he was standing right in front of it. There was no distance left between them.
Soli stared with his blood-filled eyes into the beast's furious ones. He slowly raised his weapon. The lizard didn't move, didn't roar, didn't do anything. It just stood there, one eye fixed on Soli, its other intact eyes watching the Chief. Soli gritted his teeth, his brow furrowed, and then he drove the dagger down hard toward its already injured eye—the weakest point now.
Slaaaaasssh!!
But... Soli's hand, still tightly gripping the dagger, thudded to the ground.
He stared at his severed hand, now a fountain of crimson blood. A scream erupted from the deepest part of his being, so powerful that blood from his throat sprayed from his mouth.
"AAAAAAARGH!!... DAMN IT!!"
He fell to his knees, clutching his severed wrist with his good hand, staring at it in horror. Above him, the lizard let out a series of mocking, guttural laughs.
Then, something dark crimson glinted behind the massive lizard. Blood! It was dripping from one of its other tails—one of the slender ones. It had three tails in total: one thick, dark one covered in sharp, spiky scales, and two thinner ones. Had he forgotten about the other tails? No, he hadn't, but he'd dismissed them because the previous lizards hadn't used them, not the one yesterday nor the one in the hut.
The Chief glanced at Soli, who was kneeling on the ground, screaming in agony as he clutched his severed wrist. His gaze then darted back to the tail, and he shouted, trying to be heard over the chaos, but it was useless. The monster's mocking laughter was deafening.
Soli, slumped on the ground and holding his maimed arm, grew quiet and weak. He had lost too much blood, and his slow regeneration was draining what little energy he had left. He stared up at the laughing beast with exhausted eyes, the sound of its ridicule pounding in his ears.
"Shut up."
He mumbled the words quietly, as if it were just an internal thought. But the roaring laughter drowned him out completely.
"Shut up."
His exhausted, blurry eyes could barely see. He was trapped in a hazy delirium. He couldn't see the monster clearly, but he could still hear its loud, laughing roar.
"Shut up."
Amidst all the chaos, the creature's noise slowly blended with the delusions in Soli's mind, making them stronger. He saw a figure standing before him, laughing hysterically.
"You... are weak."
"Shut up!" His voice grew louder, bit by bit.
"Shut up!"
"Let me out... and I will end your suffering and torment."
"Shut up!"
"You don't deserve all this pain."
"SHUT UP!"
The unknown figure screamed at him:
"Leeeet meeeeee... OOOUUT!!"
Soli lifted his head toward it and roared:
"SHUT THE HELL UP!!"
The standing figure vanished, and he was back in front of the lizard. He looked down. His severed hand was still gripping the dagger tightly on the ground. He lunged for it, pressed his bleeding stump against the hand holding the dagger, and used his good hand to pry the fingers open and wrench the dagger free.
Soli fixed a furious glare on the creature. He braced himself with the dagger, planting it on the ground to push himself upright. He was already right in front of the beast; no need to advance. Instead of raising his arm and risking another amputation, he held it behind his back, exposing his right side—the side where his hand had just been severed—to the sharp tail. All he needed to protect now was his left hand, his brain, and his spinal cord.
The monster whipped its slender tail back and forth, slicing into Soli 's body like a knife cut the leaves. he gritted his teeth, enduring the cuts, and pushed closer. Then, in one swift motion, he thrust his remaining hand toward the beast's eye.
The lizard let out an earsplitting shriek, its perfect control over its cutting and crushing tail shattered.
Soli was weak, so the dagger didn't sink all the way in on the first try, but he pushed with everything he had. Then...
Shhhlllllpff
The creature's tail plunged into Soli's stomach, tearing a gaping hole.
"UGHHHHH!.."
A scream erupted, filled with a spray of crimson blood. The agony was so intense that Soli and the monster screamed in unison, their voices rising in a symphony of pain and death. Both were suffering, but only one of them was going to die.
Soli pushed with the last dregs of strength in his pierced and bleeding body, while the monster kept driving its tail deeper, the hole in Soli 's stomach widening to accommodate it.
The sound of tearing flesh and muscle came from both of them. Their agonized screams...
Each trying to drown out the other.
Then, the final inch of the dagger slid into the lizard's skull. A violent shudder wracked the creature's body before it let out a final, deathly rattle and collapsed to the ground.
That familiar, gentle shockwave washed over Soli, the one that had once felt so soothing. But he felt no comfort now. Only searing pain and utter exhaustion.
[Shards Acquired]
The voice chimed in his ear just before his vision went black and he fell unconscious to the ground.