Chapter 94: Gareth Vael
Derek stood on broken ground, his sword arm trembling from fatigue, blood dripping down his jaw. The shadows that had once danced with precision around his limbs were now flickering, unstable and already stretched thin.
The monster loomed in front of him.
Four arms. Two deflecting incoming spells and attacks with precision. Two swinging at him with bone-breaking force. Its birdlike head twisted unnaturally every time it struck, screeching in short bursts as if mocking him.
This thing was strong. Too strong.
He had seen strength before. He had been much faster than this monster. But this... this was raw madness, the disparity in strength was too much.
Around him, the battlefield was a mess. The once proud rogues of the Loose Leash now lay scattered across the forest floor, their hands blistered, weapons shattered, some too injured to even crawl away. These were not rookies. Every one of them had cleared over a hundred gold dungeons. But even they had been overwhelmed.
And it wasn’t just the monster’s strength.
It was its precision. Its speed. The way it used the very stolen weapons that once held it back as deadly extensions of its limbs. It fought like it had trained for this exact scenario. It didn’t rampage wildly. It was a perfect execution.
Derek parried another strike, his body jerking from the force. His own blade, the sleek black sword, drawn from shadows and legacy cracked slightly on contact.
He grimaced in pain and fatigue but his will power was not so easily broken.
Another arm slashed toward him. He ducked, pivoted, slashed but the second pair of arms already swung low, nearly catching his ribs. Only by twisting midair and sliding over the ground did he avoid it.
Even then, it grazed his armor.