Kong

A massive hand quickly launched itself from the forest below Kayn as he was flying over, and he wasn't able to dodge it as his reaction was just a touch too late. The hand ended up with both of his wings in its grip before whipping him down to the ground at a speed faster than Kayn's eyes could follow.

Only a moment later, Kayn had to jump out of the way before another hand came flying down at his body trying to turn him into meat paste. He belatedly started feeling massive amounts of pain coming from his back, and upon looking up at the beast that had grabbed him from the air, Kayn couldn't help feel even more exhausted and annoyed.

A massive grey gorilla that was several times larger than even a few stories tall building was looking down at him with his wings in between its fingers of one hand and the other hand flat on the ground within the crater it had just made.

As if to rub salt in his wounds, the gorilla then threw the wings into its mouth before crunching on them and swallowing.

"Oi, that hurt you bastard. Also, fuck you guys for always eating my body parts. Do you know how much of a pain in the ass it is to regenerate things? Fuck!"

The gorilla in front of him was definitely an A-class rune beast, though he didn't know what it was called it clearly had an earth affinity aside from being the largest beast he had ever seen. He couldn't help but think of a certain massive gorilla that often appeared in movies and other stories back on Earth.

The momentary pause came to an end as the gorilla charged faster than Kayn expected it to with such a massive body. Kayn dodged the fist that came flying at him and started throwing all and any kind of spell he could think of at the gorilla.

The results?

Fire and lightning barely singed its fur.

Water was useless as even if he encapsulated its head in a bubble, the gorilla could just clap its hands together to create an air shockwave that would disperse it.

Earth and wind were equally as useless as the rest as the gorilla's body seemed to be made of stone.

Kayn still hadn't figured out how to weaponize the light element on anything but undead beings, but fortunately he had some success with the darkness element.

The problem was that it was just too slow. His spells weren't strong enough to corrode the gorilla's body quickly and he would definitely lose this war of attrition.

His mana was only at a tenth of his maximum capacity, so he wouldn't last long with the amount of mana he was expending just trying to injure the gorilla, not to mention the energy required to dodge its strikes.

His back was in excruciating pain after having his wings ripped off and honestly, he hurt all over from being slammed into the ground. Even though he was already covered in mostly dried blood and bits, he could feel his own blood running down his forehead. One of his eyes was barely open as the blood dripped down because the blood vessels inside had burst after he was slammed into the ground.

"Fine, you asked for it!" Kayn yelled even though he knew he wasn't going to get an answer.

It was finally time for him to utilize the last trump card he had only recently discovered how to use. The downside to it was the massive amount of mana that he had to consume as Kayn still hadn't fully understood how to control it well.

Black flames started to congregate into a ball above his hand as he continued dodging the massive ape's hands before he tossed it at the body of the gorilla. The beasts' instincts kicked in when it saw this small ball of black flame, but the ball was too small for it to worry.

The gorilla decided to ignore its instinct and continued to charge forward and chase the insect that continued dodging its strikes. It swung its arm to bat away the ball of black flame, but immediately realized it made a mistake.

Its flesh wasn't burning, but was directly vanishing, like it didn't exist in the first place. The gorilla panicked and tried activating its earth attribute even more, but as time went by the fire only continued to set ablaze on its flesh even more.

The fire had engulfed and erased most of its arm by this point and rather than letting the fire spread more, it decisively hardened its own nails on its good hand and sliced the remainder of the arm off at the shoulder.

Kayn was able to get a bit of a breather during this time, but as the gorilla looked up from its arm and the flame that had just vanished from existence in front of its eyes, it beat its chest and roared.

The sound was so loud that it was like a thunder blast went off in Kayn's ears as his eardrums directly burst, blood began to flow out of them as well.

"Fuck me." Kayn could only feel disheartened at the now extremely pissed off giant gorilla running after him.

Kayn quickly calculated in his head and determined that he could cast at maximum three more fireballs of Extinction Flames if he wanted to also maintain enough mana to dodge effectively.

As he continued dodging, he would randomly throw out the blasts of Extinction fire, trying to ignite the gorilla once again in the inextinguishable flames. However, his first two shots missed their mark as the gorilla was now aware of the danger that the black flames possessed.

Curses started flying out of Kayn's mouth as this wasn't what he expected at all when he thought about fighting an A-class beast, or this tide in general. For one, he wasn't expecting to be so exhausted or have to fight so many beasts.

But second, he wasn't expecting that his regular spells would do diddly squat to an A-class rune beast. Not even the Mana Threads worked as they would just snap after he wound them around the gorilla. Knowing what the Tethers were capable of, Kayn couldn't help but feel sad that his mana output wasn't strong enough to utilize them properly.

Kayn only had one chance left or he would probably die as he didn't believe for one second that he could escape this gorilla in his current state, especially without being able to fly.

Deciding to risk it all, he turned on his heels and ignited his muscles with lightning fusion, bolting straight at the gorilla. The gorilla was caught off guard by this sudden change in movement, and couldn't react in time as Kayn dashed under its legs while tossing his last blast of Extinction Flames up at the gorilla's chest.

The gorilla saw that black flame ball flying at it from point blank and tried to jump and escape the flame with terrifying abilities, but Kayn's luck won out as it hit the gorilla's abdomen.

Kayn was exhausted and his movements were slowing down as his mana was running on fumes and the small amount that he could breathe in. He glanced back to see if his spell was effective, only to notice that the gorilla had stopped in place.

However, to his dismay the gorilla turned around and started to chase him once again even as its mid-section was vanishing by the moment. Just as it was about to reach Kayn and turn him into meat paste as its last act, the nerves controlling its legs were extinguished.

The massive gorilla's head slid to a stop less than a meter from Kayn, and in a last desperate move it swung its one remaining arm down for one last attempt to catch the insect. Kayn was able to barely dodge the hand as it swung down with the last little bits of his remaining energy.

Letting out a sigh of relief, he plopped down onto the ground just out of reach of the gorilla's arm and hand. It tried to start dragging itself closer to him, but the longer the flames burned, the more of the gorilla's body they engulfed.

After a few minutes the last bit of the gorilla remaining were the tips of its fingers that were quickly disintegrating, leaving nothing behind.

Kayn's entire body was on fire, especially his legs after that last desperate move of his, the pain that was radiating everywhere was intense. He dragged his drained body to a nearby tree and leaned up against it, but he didn't relax this time.

Kayn had to make it back to the village before Est and Horace got too worried and went looking for him. Even if that meant he couldn't properly clean himself off and find new clothes, he figured he would at least be able to sneak back in to the village. The only major problem was how to get there quickly now that his wings were gone.