Rather than launching an attack after shedding his armor, Altaïr activated Demon Mode and sprinted at full speed.
The Regios Armor Set was a suit of full-body heavy armor, outweighed only by the super-heavy equipment worn by heavily armored vanguards. It weighed more than Altaïr himself.
Once rid of it, Altaïr felt almost weightless. His steps were so light that the sensation felt strange. His speed had risen sharply, and his agility when turning had improved by at least thirty to fifty percent.
As he ran, he pulled out a bottle of Mega Dash Juice and drank it.
This was no time to be sparing. Losing the armor had markedly improved his speed and agility, but without its protection, he was as fragile as paper before the Monster.
The Regios Armor Set offered no effective protection against the Monster's lightning. Its metallic properties actually made it a liability by attracting the arcs, but its physical defense was impeccable.
Now even a glancing blow from an unelectrified claw could severely injure him or take him out of the fight altogether.
He had to use every means at his disposal to push his speed to an unprecedented limit, one that would keep the Monster from laying so much as a claw on him. Only then would he have a chance to survive and perhaps even defeat it.
The Hunter's actions snapped the Taikun Zamuza out of its curious scrutiny. As it watched him race away, it felt mocked.
It rubbed its claws together several times, and surging currents enveloped its body. Its slender but powerful legs drove against the ground, launching it high into the air toward the distant Hunter.
Altaïr never took his eyes off his opponent. By the time the Taikun Zamuza began rubbing its claws together, he was already prepared.
He remembered this move all too well. The residual arcs from this very attack had paralyzed him earlier, leaving him helpless against the assault that followed and ultimately costing him the fight.
Back then, he had done everything he could to open a gap of more than ten meters, yet he had still failed to escape the spreading, dissipating arcs completely.
Now that his speed had improved so dramatically, could he evade it?
He did not know, but he had at least prepared one contingency.
If he could dodge it, he still had a chance in the fight to come. If not... there was no point considering what would happen afterward.
Altaïr eased off slightly, leaving himself enough control to change direction. The instant the Taikun Zamuza leaped, he cut sharply to the side and sprinted at full speed.
This was a crab, not a bird. It could not adjust its landing point in midair.
For all its intelligence, it had launched itself toward the path ahead of the fleeing Hunter. It had never expected him to veer off so abruptly, and its attack missed.
But when its claws slammed into the ground, violent currents radiated outward in a ring.
"Crackle! Crackle..."
Arcs scattered and leaped through the air, forming a brilliant ring of lightning with a ten-meter radius. Beyond it, smaller remnants continued spreading for several more meters like an enormous blue net.
Unburdened by armor and propelled by Demon Mode, Altaïr had opened a gap of more than twenty meters from the Taikun Zamuza. The dissipating arcs jumped through the air, straining to spread even farther.
This time, however, he was far enough away. With no intermediate conductor to carry them, the arcs could not reach his body directly.
Before they could disperse completely, they seemed to come under the pull of some unseen force and converged in a single direction.
Their target was the Regios Helm he had cast aside earlier, now lying on the ground nearby.
The sharp metal horn atop the helmet acted as a lightning rod, drawing in the dissipating arcs.
It worked.
A smile tugged at Altaïr's lips as he cleared the attack unharmed.
The lightning around the Taikun Zamuza had already faded, while the impact of its landing had buried both claws in the ground. For the moment, it could not pull them free.
Now it was his turn.
Altaïr pivoted again. Tyrant Blade [Heaven Swallower], wreathed in blood-red fighting spirit, traced an afterimage through the dim cave. More than twenty meters vanished in an instant as he charged straight up to the Taikun Zamuza.
The Taikun Zamuza reacted with astonishing speed. It concentrated its strength, wrenched its right claw free, and swept it horizontally at the approaching Hunter.
Altaïr was completely unarmored. That seemingly ordinary swipe could shatter his ribs or even cleave him in two.
But he did not retreat. Instead, he accelerated again and vaulted over the claw the instant it swept within reach.
A flash of blue flickered in his eyes and vanished. The moment his feet touched down, his speed climbed another notch. He twisted through his hips and legs, spun around, and slashed diagonally across the Taikun Zamuza's face.
Carapace shattered, and blood sprayed through the air.
"Kiiyah!" the Taikun Zamuza shrieked, rearing back in pain.
In its current form, its carapace was thin and its body small. Its resilience and ability to absorb punishment fell far short of what it possessed in its rock carapace or red armor forms.
Altaïr had noticed the same thing.
From one perspective, he and the Taikun Zamuza were remarkably alike. One was a "glass blade" that had traded defense for absolute speed; the other was a "glass cannon" that had traded defense for devastating electrical attacks.
He would shatter at a touch. His opponent could not withstand many blows either.
The first to make a mistake would die!
Empowered by Demon Mode, Altaïr snapped his wrist around. His blade flowed from the diagonal cut into a Rising Slash, dropped into a Descending Slash, then swept through a Spirit Fade Slash.
The blade blurred into an afterimage too fast for the naked eye to follow. He unleashed all three strikes at a speed far beyond normal, completing the sequence in less than two seconds.
In the blink of an eye, several more intersecting wounds split the thin carapace across the Taikun Zamuza's face. Hissing in fury, it twisted its body, finally tore its left claw free, and swung at the Hunter before it.
Altaïr had kept a fraction of his strength in reserve. He immediately spun into a backstep, and the pale claw passed so close to his chest that it nearly grazed him. His Spirit-wreathed blade circled his body, knocking aside the rubble carried by the blow.
When he landed, Altaïr slid back half a step to bleed off the force. He snapped the blade to one side, and his fighting spirit surged higher.
Without a moment's hesitation, Altaïr sheathed his weapon and sank into a low Iai stance.
At the same time, the Taikun Zamuza thrust its right claw forward like a spear, aiming to run the Hunter through.
The blade flashed free almost the instant it entered the sheath, meeting the incoming claw at an angle.
Altaïr could never knock that thrust aside with his own strength alone, nor did he mean to.
With a turn of the blade, he deftly shifted the claw off course by a hair. Then, borrowing the tremendous force transmitted back through his weapon, he spun away, slipped past the spiraling claw by the narrowest margin, and surged toward the Taikun Zamuza once more.
Iai Spirit Slash!
The curving slash carved another long, deep gash across the Taikun Zamuza's chest. Blood sprayed, and the Hunter's momentum rose another notch.
He followed with another burst of ultra-fast blows, a frenzy like a Blade Dance.
The Taikun Zamuza hissed in pain. By now, it understood that fighting the Hunter at close range was sheer folly. It would shatter him with one overwhelming electrical assault!
Weathering the Hunter's Blade Dance, it withdrew both claws and tucked them close against its body. As its frame contracted, the pale blue crystals along its limbs and back erupted with powerful currents.
The moment Altaïr saw this, he broke off his attack and retreated rapidly to open the distance.
Electromagnetic force lifted the Taikun Zamuza into the air, and its body began spinning faster and faster.
Altaïr remembered this move too. The last time, after he had been paralyzed, this was the attack that knocked him unconscious.
"Vwoom..."
With a low hum, the Taikun Zamuza became a rapidly spinning ring of electrical light and shot forward like a cannonball.
Seizing a window that lasted less than a second, Altaïr sprinted two steps and hurled himself sideways, narrowly evading the charge's astonishing speed.
He rolled to his feet as quickly as he could and turned toward the direction the Taikun Zamuza had flown.
But the Taikun Zamuza was gone. It had vanished into one of the pitch-black holes riddling the cave walls.
Altaïr remembered how Sajji's explosion had lured the Taikun Zamuza away earlier, only for it to shoot back out through a hole in another direction. He understood at once.
The Taikun Zamuza had burrowed passages throughout the rock walls surrounding the cavern. It was using that complex tunnel system to race through the stone at unimaginable speed.
From now on, it could attack from any direction!
Ordinary rolls and dives would be all but useless against a relentless chain of ultra-fast charges from every direction and angle. To survive, he would have to become even faster than his opponent.
Altaïr drew a deep breath, struggling to calm the strange thrill mounting within him, and raised his sword as he settled into a focused stance.
"Show me how fast you are..."
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