Chapter 38: A Tough Battle
The Eclipseborn, seeing his attack fail and the intruder still standing, now radiating the scent of a powerful beast, let out a low, guttural growl through clenched teeth.
Without hesitation, his massive frame became cloaked in deep, writhing shadows, and in the next instant, he launched forward with terrifying speed.
He moved like a living bulldozer of darkness, using his Shadow Lunge to close the distance. With his jaws wide open, he tried to crash headfirst into Vlad, his massive jaw snapping close a second later.
But all they crushed was cold, empty air.
Vlad stepped away at the last moment, his right hand cloaked in a ghostly white aura turning into a dark blur. His sharp claws, augmented by his reinforcement skill, dug into the giant’s skin.
’He tough,’ Vlad thought, seeing his attack barely leave a scratch on the Bear’s iron-like skin.
The morphed claws of the gauntlets were easily on par with an epic-grade blade, so the failure to do serious damage wasn’t due to his weapon, it was the damn creature’s unnatural defense, its impenetrable skin too resilient to be pierced.
The beast dug its claws into the ground and shifted to the right using its pure brute strength. With mere meters separating them, its jaws opened wide, stretching to an unnatural limit.
As if shaped by an unseen hand, the shadows around the beast twisted and solidified, forming a pair of massive, spectral jaws lined with glistening, razor-sharp fangs.
With a thunderous lunge, the creature unleashed its Eclipsed Maw skill. The dark jaws snapped shut around Vlad in a blur of darkness, leaving no gap, no escape route, only crushing inevitability.
However, once again, Vlad slipped away, pulling to the left and avoiding the crushing jaws, but this time, as if expecting his escape, the Eclipseborn was prepared.