37 First Encounter (3)

She pulled herself away from the brick wall, and a few loose and cracked bricks crumbled to the ground behind her. She staggered for a moment but quickly regained her balance.

She glared in Damon's direction. He had barely moved from his position. His approach toward her was neither slow nor fast; he had a casual pace and stride. In his hand, he held the sword with which he had struck her, still coated in a thick layer of energy. He held it loosely. A smile was etched on his unsettling face.

"You came all this way just to kill me, and this is all you've got? Sacrificing your humanity, becoming a Fiend, and failing. Is that what you thought? That I was only C-rank and that a Fiend's physique could make up the difference?"

His seriousness vanished, replaced by mockery and lightheartedness. Whatever threat he had received from her before had disappeared. When he was about three steps away from her, he swung his sword. The air around the sword spread out and exerted pressure on it, causing it to descend more rapidly with minimal air resistance.

Lilith barely caught a glimpse of it—just enough to sidestep it. The sword missed its intended target but still grazed her arm, drawing blood. She ignored the pain and stabbed her dagger at his abdomen.

Damon didn't avoid or block her attack. The dagger aimed at piercing his abdomen, but it didn't faze him. Instead, he swung his sword downward at her left arm—the one she had swung—the one that drew blood during his attack.

An arm for an arm. Lilith heard the words he would have thought in her head. She tightened her grip on her daggers so much that it hurt. Bastard.

The sword came down, and she dove to the side, but once again, it struck her shoulder. Her shoulder was fractured and burnt. Going limp, her grip loosened for a moment, and the dagger nearly slipped from her hand. She infused the bone with eldritch energy and secured it in a way that allowed her to use it while still holding onto her dagger, no longer wasting energy.

In the altercation, her dagger, unlike Damon's sword, failed to penetrate or injure his lower abdomen. She was forced to avoid it early on, and even when her dagger hit, it couldn't cut all the way through; the blade was too dull. Its rank was too low, D-rank. However, the dagger didn't need to inflict a deep wound. In the first place, it had never been her intention.

She aimed for a scratch that would draw blood, and the blade was sharp enough to achieve it. Her dagger's effects, Energy Curse and Bleeding Curse, worked, but one scratch wouldn't be enough. 2, no 0.5 percent energy and blood drain for every attack; it wasn't a good trade-off for the damage she had taken.

[EP: 245/525]

It's not enough. Faster.

She lunged forward behind him, pushing her legs to move faster, straining them further, and slashing. Damon spun, swinging his sword like a baseball bat. She was already prepared for this, though.

Lilith crouched as a heated sword swung overhead. The sword missed, and she kept moving, her daggers landing another hit on his lower abdomen. She aimed for the wound. It didn't puncture but left bloodied scratches, which were deeper than before.

Something's wrong. Lilith threw herself to the side in an attempt to escape its range, but she moved too slowly. His attack was too fast to evade. So she resorted to the one thing she could do.

She disoriented Damon, causing the sword to change direction. 'Sensory Deception'. It couldn't deceive him for more than a second before he would notice. She only managed to slightly divert the sword, reducing the damage, before it struck her side.

Crack~

The attack threw her backward, and she lost her footing. She collapsed near the cracked brick wall, with a brick shard stabbing into her right side. The pain had gone unnoticed. It was there, but that pain was overshadowed.

The pain was so intense and all-consuming that she no longer sensed her surroundings; her thoughts were incoherent, almost nonexistent. It felt like serrated, hot blades were stabbing every inch of her left elbow and down. She was screaming more loudly than she'd ever screamed in her life.

[Calm down. Fight.] A voice echoed in Lilith's mind. It brought her back. The pain was present with no escape, but diminished. She could think, move, hear the surroundings, feel the sharp discomfort of the shard stabbing just above her abdomen, and smell the blood emanating from her. It was all there.

Her forearm, wrist, and hand were injured. The bones were shattered, and her muscles and skin were mangled and torn. Her dagger, the one she had used countless times by now, had fallen from her hand. It lay in pieces, shattered on the ground, with a few fragments piercing into her skin. She was now left with only one arm and a single dagger.

The pain didn't matter, nor did the loss of an arm or a dagger. She succeeded. She diverted the attack from its target, which would have ended the fight and her resistance. Her greatest loss was the element of surprise. 'Sensory Deception' only affected individuals who were weaker or at the same level, not those who were stronger. It didn't mean it couldn't happen, but the chances were reduced. She saw it firsthand; Damon saw through it at the last second.

Lilith stopped the blood flow beyond her elbow. If she wanted to keep her arm, she would have to end this. She had taken too much damage, and her initial plan couldn't work in the long term as she had expected. It was made on the spot without knowing Damon's strength or abilities and had holes in many places, but it would have to work.

She tried to stand but was stopped halfway through. The sword swung down toward her, aiming to strike her waist. Lilith rolled to the side, gritting her teeth as her remaining dagger returned to her inventory.

She then propelled her body upward and stood, taking out a corpse from her inventory and throwing it to use as a distraction, while also employing 'Sensory Deception' as she kept moving. With one powerful blow, Damon obliterated the corpse and reduced it to mincemeat. He broke free from the illusion immediately afterward, but it had distracted him long enough for her to launch an attack. An attack was imminent; he couldn't evade it or launch a counterattack.

Lilith placed all her weight in her footsteps, drew Scarlet, her soul-bound spear, and thrust it forward at a slight upward angle. She was an amateur with the spear, and if she hadn't been this close, she would have failed. She aimed the tip of the spear at the same spot where she had struck with her daggers: his lower abdomen.

The spear pierced through the weakened layers of skin and stopped when a quarter of the shaft was embedded. Lilith took advantage of the aftermath to flee, hoping that Scarlet could hinder his pursuit. The absence of footsteps or his voice approaching her confirmed it, at least for the time being.

Where's the nearest dungeon?

[Go north.]

Rhea listened, and then she ran.

…

She failed. So close; she estimated ten steps away.

Damon threw Scarlet and aimed it to pierce her head. She was forced to change her path, and by the time she could jump in, Damon attacked from behind.

Lilith barely dodged the attack. She noticed him gritting his teeth and the change in his fighting style. He now took her seriously, not holding anything back. If he did that, she would die. She tried to edge herself closer and closer to the gate with every attack he made, but it became increasingly difficult. Damon seemed to have realized her intention.

Damon surged forward and grabbed her by the collar of her cloak. Before Lilith could react, he blocked off the airflow to her mouth and lungs and removed her hood, revealing her appearance. She tried to break free, but every attempt failed. She had her back to the gate.

Five steps away.

"I was going to play with you and then kill you," Damon said angrily. "But things changed."

Lilith glared at him and then relaxed her body for a moment. His anger could be used in her favor.

She cast 'Sensory Deception' for the third time. It didn't work. It was natural for the third attempt to not work against Damon, who was prepared for it. The illusion didn't even materialize; it shattered the instant it was cast, but it fueled his anger and clouded his mind.

His concentration hadn't waned, and his hand still clung persistently to her cloak, but it wasn't enough. She lifted her leg and kneed his abdominal wound Scarlet made.

"Gah!"

He lost concentration and released Lilith, who didn't waste the opportunity. She kicked off his chest and launched herself into the gate. As she entered, Damon screamed, "I'll kill you!"

Once she made it inside, Lilith immediately shouted, Close it!

Behind her, the edges of the gate rapidly shrank and soon disappeared in a soft flash of light. Before Damon could enter, Ayin had closed it.

Thanks… I. The exhaustion overtook her, causing her to lose consciousness.