A Perfect Attack
Crack!
With that sound, the monster's "mouth" then began to enlarge greatly, revealing a row of sharp and broken teeth, completely eliminating what little semblance its face had to that of a human.
Faced with this, Noah only continued to search more desperately in the backpack, his body moving towards the monster's mouth thanks to the arm that held him.
Little by little, the young man moved closer and closer to the monster's mouth, and although he had now begun to move, due to the firm grip his captor had, he couldn't break free, until finally....
Chak!
"ARGH!"
One his legs then made contact with the monster's teeth, even though said contact was barely a graze, this was enough to open his flesh.
Now having tasted the human's blood, the monster discarded its original idea of devouring him whole and instead decided to do it in parts.
Immediately, its jaw snapped shut.
Bam!
However, when it did so, at the same time as it felt an object being shoved into its mouth, it encountered considerable resistance that prevented it from closing its jaw.
Not to misunderstand, the monster was strong, so much so that given enough time, it could quietly demolish an entire house using only its teeth, legs and arms.
But even with that, it still had limits, with metal being something it couldn't break so easily.
In its mouth, preventing it from closing completely, acting as a sort of beam, was nothing but one of Noah's metal weights.
Tap
The next moment, the monster right eye's vision was obstructed by Noah's foot, who now needed a foothold for what he was about to do.
Noah now had one foot and one hand inside the monster's mouth, with the other foot stepping on the monster's face for better support, and he no longer had the backpack in his hands.
Raised high above him could now be seen a square-headed hammer which was held by an arm whose veins looked like they were about to burst thanks to the force it was using.
BAM!
"KREE!!!"
A mixture of pain along with flesh being struck rang out, marking the beginning of the first moment in the night that Noah, the human, had attacked the monster.
BAM!
"DIE!!!"
Screaming with anger and hatred in his voice, Noah began to hit the monster's head as hard and fast as his tired and injured body would allow him to.
Each blow was accompanied by the sensation of touching something hard that was getting softer and softer, further fueling Noah's fervor as he attacked.
"KREE!!!"
The monster, not expecting this kind of attack from Noah, had the first reaction of opening its mouth again and peeling its teeth away from the metal weight, which was the human's main fulcrum.
As for the hand holding Noah, it had released him at the moment of the first blow.
Chak!
"YOU'RE NOT GOING ANYWHERE, YOU LITTLE SHIT!"
However, as soon as he felt the monster was opening its mouth and that he was losing its foothold, the human also took action.
His hand immediately released the metal weight and instead grabbed the flabby skin from the monster's face at the same time as his other leg moved to stand on one of the monster's shoulders.
Bam!
"GAH!"
Suddenly, one of Noah's sides was struck by the monster's right arm, knocking him out of breath for a moment and making him see stars.
Bam!
Following the first, the monster's multiple arms began to assault Noah's body, each one causing so much pain as to force him to pass out.
"HAAAA!!!"
But immediately afterwards, in the midst of all the flurry of blows, as if all the punishment he received had done nothing but motivate him, Noah's hammer moved again.
This time, there was something different, and that was that in this last attack, the young man improved enormously.
Whether it was his rhythm, the way he did it, the amount of force or the speed, all had reached a degree that could not be described in any other way than impressive.
It was a perfect attack.
CRACK!
With a strength that wouldn't be wrong to categorize as superhuman, Noah, in his last desperate attack, had dented the monster's skull, and with it, everything inside.
Tup!
With a heavy sound, midst a few slight spasms, the monster's body lost strength and fell to the ground.
---
After the sound of the monster's body falling to the floor, there were only two corpses in the kitchen.
One of them being nothing more than the deformed monster itself, with its skull crushed, its contents spilling into the surroundings.
As for the other, this one didn't really have blood on it anymore, just being a dried up body in a process of decomposition, if that was even possible in this mirror world.
"...Urgh..."
Finally, in the middle of these two, Noah was sitting on the floor, leaning his injured and tired body against a kitchen cabinet.
His breathing was heavy, a product not only of exhaustion, but of the damage his body had received, even reaching one of his eyes, which he now kept closed.
However, despite this, his mood was good, since everything he had done had not been in vain, but actually worked, something the system confirmed.
__________________________
[Notice: The [Putrid Infection] has been successfully eradicated].
__________________________
Unfortunately, he couldn't even feel relieved for long, as he now felt a huge need to sleep, the previous expenditure of energy and the damage received being so much that it had left his body completely worn out.
But even if the desire to sleep was enormous, he knew he could not simply let his guard down and rest, mainly for two reasons.
First there was the fact that right now he wasn't safe.
Even though the kitchen had mostly intact windows, he had already seen that this really didn't offer much protection and that really anything that wanted to get into the house could do so.
And secondly, but being the strongest feeling at the moment, was how hungry he was.
"..."
Without saying anything, the young man's gaze focused on the cabinets around him.
At this point, putting aside even standing up, he couldn't even think straight, only moving because he knew he had to.
Then, standing up on shaky legs, all the kitchen cabinets came into Noah's field of vision.
Stretching out one of his blood-covered hands, his goal was to open one of the upper cabinets, hoping there was something of use inside.
Bam!
"Ack!"
However, just as he was about to touch said cabinet, his body gave way, causing him to fall and crash directly into said cabinet, further injuring his body.
Now kneeling on the floor, Noah, ignoring the pain of the fall, grabbed his face, touching it and making sure it was there.
As to why he did this, it was because now the tiredness he felt in his body was such that it felt as if his body did not belong to him, needing something to reassure him that this was not the case.
Even so, it was now clear that the more time he spent like this, sooner or later he would succumb to fatigue.
And from there, it would depend entirely on luck whether he would wake up or whether, while he slept, something else would find him.
With heavy steps and a staggering body, Noah made his way toward the stairs. Every movement was a struggle not to lose his balance, but somehow, the young man made it quietly to the stairs.
Placing one hand on the wall, he proceeded to climb to the second floor, his head falling forward every so often.
Finally, after a few intense seconds in which he almost lost his balance, Noah made it to the second floor, now walking directly into the first room he saw, his mother's room.
Although it would be ideal to go to his own, at this moment he wanted nothing more than to sleep.
After entering the room, Noah closed the door and threw a chair in front of it, hoping that it would at least manage to slow down whatever came in a bit, or at least make some noise.
Plop!
Then, with nothing else to do, the young man fell onto the bed, and as soon as he did, his consciousness faded away.
Thus, for the second time, Noah had fallen asleep in the mirror world.
----------
A few minutes passed, and now Noah's sleep was so deep that not even a monster would be able to wake him. His body was still lying on top of the bed, with the only movement it made being his breathing.
Tsss!
However, while the only movement of his was that of his body breathing, that did not mean that nothing else was going on.
Simultaneously, while the young man was asleep, there was a certain change in his body, specifically, on his hands.
Hands which before had been almost completely covered with blood up to the elbows, now more than half of said blood was gone.
At first glance, one would not be able to find the reason for this, but fortunately, the system had been giving a report every so often of what was happening to the young man's body.
Written in black ink above Noah's arm, the following could be read.
__________________________
[Warning: The forceful refinement of the [Host: Mortal Heart] is 46% complete].
__________________________
Unbeknownst to Noah, his body was undergoing a refining process, caused by an unknown factor inside his body.
Slowly, what this refining process was doing were several things, among which were cleansing Noah's body, consuming every bit of dried blood, either his or the monsters'.
Then, using the blood as a kind of fuel, the damage inside Noah began to be repaired, all while black veins seemed to appear on his body.
This, of course, was not normal behavior for a human body, but the person in question, Noah, was not awake to question this.
Therefore, under constant system reports, the process went on without any interruption,
---
The hours passed, and now Noah's body no longer had a single blood stain on his body, being almost completely clean, with the exception being his clothes.
Just as his level of cleanliness had increased, his complexion had become much better, returning almost completely to his appearance before he was injured by the deformed monster.
"...Ungh."
Letting out a grunt, Noah presented the first signs of waking up, his eyelids beginning to flutter open.
The first thing to enter his field of vision was the ceiling, which was the same as it was in his own room. Sitting up in bed with the typical tiredness and confusion that came after a particularly long nap, Noah was staring at a wall.
At that moment, however, an unpleasant sensation coming from his throat assaulted him.
He was thirsty.
Then, rising from his bed, Noah left the room and headed for the bathroom, turning on the faucet spout without a second thought.
PLASH!
With a wet, heavy sound, what came out of the spout was not water, but a mass of wet hair combined with other unknown materials.
"..."
Staring at this, for a while, Noah stood in silence, his newly awakened brain trying to comprehend what had just happened.
Taking his gaze to the surroundings, the absence of colors other than gray did not fail to catch his attention, along with the ever present thin layer of dust on the surface of everything.
With all this, after a few seconds, a realization popped into his mind.
'I'M STILL IN THE MIRROR WORLD!'
With that, Noah woke up fully, realizing the truth.
Several questions then formulated within him, with the most recurring one being why he was still in the mirror world.
After all, according to the last time, what had apparently brought him back had indeed been the act of falling asleep.
That he was still here meant that he had been mistaken and sleeping did not take him back to his own world.
With this, one of his assumptions had been shattered, proving again that because he didn't know how this world worked, various things had to be tested by himself to find out if they were true or not.
"...Shit."
With that word, Noah expressed his bitterness, but before he could think about it any further, the thirst in his body came back strongly.
Deciding that he would figure this out later, the young man made it his current goal to get water, now heading towards the stairs.
Although one of his assumptions had been proven false, that didn't mean that everything he thought was false, or at least that was what he hoped.
Among these ideas of his was one that was easy to check but had not been done before due to the constant threat of the monster in the house.
But now that said threat was no more, Noah had a free hand to move.
Descending the stairs, the sight of the two monstrous bodies on the floor and table respectively appeared before the young man, hitting him with an unpleasant and nauseating odor.