45 Weakness

As if a dense fog had suddenly been lifted, Kasdeya looked at her surroundings in confusion, right as a wave of fatigue hit her body and she barely kept her eyelids open. The strain she had placed on herself forced her to sit on the ground, quite hard, and resulting in subsequent cursing when she fell on her tail.

"What the actual hell is this thing?!" Kasdeya cried while staring at the corpse of the monkey.

In an attempt to restore some energy, she grabbed the monkey's corpse and took a bite out of it, and then winced slightly and spat it out as it felt exactly the same as biting a rock as a normal human. She might've been able to break it with her jaws if she wasn't in her current exhausted state but, as she was now, that would be impossible.

Inspecting it closer, Kasdeya noticed that, what from a distance looked like fur, was actually various interlocking plates with a fur-like texture. Not being discouraged, she then proceeded to tear off the natural armor starting at where it was fractured at the neck, revealing very normal flesh beneath which she immediately toar into.

Unfortunately, even after finishing off the entire creature, she wasn't fully satisfied but, considering the fact she had eaten something over twice her size, she imagined that her current body just had an insane metabolism.

'Heh, at least I won't get fat.'

Now that there were no immediate threats and she had a relatively satisfied stomach, Kasdeya's eyelids became weighted with boulders and it was all she could do to not collapse on the spot.

'Maybe it wouldn't be so bad to have a quick rest.' Kasdeya thought while lying on the solid surface, right when death was glimpsed through slightly lowered eyelids, plummeting down from the heavens.

Her eyelids springing open, Kasdeya lunged off the side of the rock and attached to the cliff wall right as the platform she was just on vanished with an almighty crash and the hunter streaked by.

Watching the shattered outcropping plummet into the abyss below, Kasdeya didn't waste any time and forced her battered body to move before the hunter flew back up. Though, with every movement, she felt weakness through her body and noticed that she couldn't exert the same movements she was performing before her runnin with the monkey.

[Name: Kasdeya Votumea

Race: Runic Devil

Gender: Female

Age: Ageless

Level: 23

Strength: 41

Endurance: 52

Soul: 78

Luck: 3

Assignable Points: 6

Current Effects: Weakness

Weakness:

Due to the influence of a mental attack and subsequent attempts to resist, your body and mind have entered a weakened state.

-25% soul

-30% strength

-30% endurance]

'Well this explains it.' Kasdeya thought bitterly while quickly glancing over her status page.

'My current physical state is equivalent to how I was back when I was still a greater devil, or maybe just after I'd evolved? Anyway, not important, what is important is the damn dragon wannabe which is currently flying toward me again!' Kasdeya cried in her mind as the hunter let out a screech while flying towards her from below.

Despite feeling like she was about to collapse 5 minutes ago, now Kasdeya didn't feel tired in the slightest, though the significant decrease in stats was quite evident as she couldn't perform the insane leaps she was pulling off earlier. She assumed this abrupt change was because she was in danger and most likely as soon as she got away the fatigue would be even worse.

Quickly glazing over her shoulder, Kasdeya saw a smaller rock pillar rising high above her only a few metres behind her so she started cycling her mana and infused her limbs before jumping, just making the distance and grappling onto the cliff face and then moving to the side as the hunter raked its claws across the opposite wall.

Climbing round the pillar, Kasdeya then crossed a narrow and naturally formed, stoney bridge that connected it to a nearby cliff face, almost slipping in the process and while crossing the large gap to the next cliff face she glanced into the air and saw the hunter doing a loop and preparing to rush her again.

Arriving at a small natural path on the side of the cliff, Kasdeya started running across it as the hunter finished looping and came directly at her from the side.

Leaping forwards and tucking her tail into herself, Kasdeya narrowly avoided getting squished between the hunters claws, which it had used to brace against the cliff, and the stoney wall.

Landing on all fours, Kasdeya scrambled upright and narrowly missed a claw swipe as the hunter stared at her with evident annoyance.

With it so close, Kasdeya could clearly see it's features, it seemed to be something resembling a western dragon. Though its body wasn't particularly long, it vaguely resembled a dragon plus it had a long dragon-like tail, a short, dragon-like head with horns, and additionally wings shaped like that of a dragon as well as claws and spines. Kasdeya estimated that it was about 4ish metres long.

[Level: ???

Race: Lesser Demonic Wyrm]

'Wyrm? Is that some sort of dragon?' Kasdeya briefly thought as she started sprinting away with the hunter now clambering on the rocks behind her.

The hunter started quickly gaining ground on Kasdeya, so she pushed her tired body even more in order to get away from the predator. Looking ahead, Kasdeya noticed the end of the path ahead of her so she started cycling her mana once again and empowered her legs right as she leapt from the path to the next cliff and while she was still in the air, she turned her head in an attempt to gouge how far away the hunter was and saw that she was only a metre out from its arms reach and it was already starting to swing its claws at her.

Lacking the required strength to maneuver out of the way in the short time available to her, Kasdeya decided to gather up as much mana as she could in the second she had and specifically imbued it into the surface layer of her skin in an attempt to raise her defense.

Though much to her surprise, instead of lingering and empowering the surrounding tissue like it did when she imbued her muscles, the mana was rapidly absorbed into what she previously thought were aesthetic markings, causing them to glow and a feeling of power to flood her body.

With this newfound strength, which seemed even greater than when she wasn't weakened, Kasdeya just managed to move out of the way of the Hunter before it crashed into the cliff side, though as if on instinct, as she caught onto the wall again Kasdeya dug her right hand claws into the stone and controlled her mana to forcefully carve a large fire rune onto the wall, resulting in the cliff bursting into flames and then immediately exploding as the hunter gouged out part of the rock.

The wall spontaneously exploded, scorching the hunter and knocking it off the surface it was trying to cling to as large rocks fell onto its injured body and it plummeted into the abyss below.