"GRAAAHHH!!!"
The Vilegnaw roared again. It was a thunderous and bone-vibrating sound that rattled the air.
Myles moved around its bulking body while staying low and fast. His boots kicked up dust and fragments of shattered concrete.
He slashed and hit whenever he saw an opening. He slashed across a tendon, stabbing into a fold of hard flesh, and smashing his pipe into joints where bone jutted through the black mass.
Each cut started shallow, the monster's hide resisting his blade, but his passive skill: Bloodthirsty Slash kept building in him.
Each wound he inflicted fed the next wounds and what had begun as shallow slices soon becoming a bit deeper, carving jagged red and black lines across the Vilegnaw's writhing torso.
The creature's tentacles lashed out in retaliation.
Myles ducked one of them then rolled under another tentacle, but a third tentacle caught him across the ribs.
The attack knocked the air from his lungs and sent him staggering.
His body screamed in pain but there was no time to dwell on it because another strike came from above. He dodged and the attack shattered the floor where he'd just stood.
Nadine stayed back. Her eyes locked on the chaos.
She gripped her crowbar so tightly her knuckles were pale, but she didn't rush in yet to the chaos.
Myles was weaving in and out like a madman and any wrong move would have her skewered by a tentacle meant for him or even got hit by his attacks.
She waited for the rhythm, the moment the monster's fury thinned into something she could exploit.
The soldiers were still scattered in the background, their focus being on pulling their wounded comrades out of danger.
Markus was being patched up, Ryan barking orders while still firing in short, controlled bursts, trying to draw the monster's eyes away from Myles.
Then Lilian moved again. Her face set in cold irritation.
She raised her palm and a burst of black and purple fire spiraled from her hand, slamming into the side of the Vilegnaw's head.
BOOM!
The flames crackled, clinging to the beast's flesh before being snuffed out by its unnatural regeneration.
"Tch… this is bullshit," she muttered under her breath because her attacks were too small. She was already forming another orb.
The violet fire swirled faster, heat rippling the air as she launched it straight into the monster's open maw.
BOOM!
The impact staggered it for only a heartbeat, but that was all she could buy him.
Myles took the chance. He darted under a sweeping tentacle and drove his blade up into the base of another tentacle.
The flesh parted easier now. It became thinner and weaker after the damage accumulated.
Black ichor sprayed over his face and clothes, its stench making his stomach twist.
But he grinned anyway.
Every strike came faster now. His knife tore through one wound, then another. Those cuts deepened the damage he'd already caused.
The Bloodthirsty Slash skill made his arms feel like they were moving with predatory instinct, carving open weaknesses faster than the Vilegnaw could seal them.
The monster's regeneration slowed. It was tiny fractions of a second at first, but enough for Myles to press harder.
His face was streaked with blood of both the monster's and his own. His teeth bared in something halfway between a snarl and laughter.
Every spurt of ichor was proof that he was winning ground, forcing the thing back inch by inch.
The air around them was thick with heat, smoke from Lilian's attacks, and the stench of spilled blood.
The Vilegnaw slammed another tentacle into the floor, spraying stone and dust, but Myles was already gone from that spot and circling to its blind side.
He felt alive. More alive than he had in years, as his attacks landed harder, deeper, and faster.
The monster's furious roars grow louder with every wound.
After what felt like forever, the Vilegnaw's movements grew more sluggish.
Its tentacles no longer snapped like whips but swayed with a drunken heaviness. Deep gashes marred its hide, ichor spilling freely.
Lilian's eyes narrowed. She could feel that this thing was dying.
"Myles! You have to hit its heart!" she shouted over the roar and chaos.
Myles didn't answer. His gaze locked on the beast's massive torso, knowing exactly where that pulsing core would be buried. This will be hard, but not impossible.
Without hesitation, he burned through the last of his mana.
He uses [Shadow Bind!]
The shadows around him surged upward like a tide, twisting and knotting into black tendrils.
They wrapped around the Vilegnaw's limbs, its torso, and finally its writhing tentacles.
The creature froze in the middle of its attack, its movements strangled by the crushing dark shadow.
Myles had been saving this for the final blow.
Myles charged. His boots pounded the broken floor, each step pounding in his ears.
He leapt onto the monster's front part of its body, gripping one of the shadow-pinned tentacles as a foothold, and drove his knife straight into the left side of its chest.
He stabbed once.
Twice.
Three, four, five savage thrusts.
Each one tearing through flesh and cartilage toward the frantically beating core.
The Vilegnaw let out a piercing, guttural scream. Black ichor erupted from the wounds.
Its massive body thrashed weakly against the shadow binds before finally collapsing with a bone-shaking crash, sending up a wave of dust and debris.
The shadows unraveled, fading back into the ground.
Myles stood over it with a heaving chest. His knife dripped with steaming ichor.
The beast's final shudder rippled through its body and then it went still.
The monster finally died.
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