Battle Finale

Yeon continued to dart between trees while occasionally moving to dodge the incoming angry flails of the Kanju.

The surrounding area was filled with newly summoned protrusions of rock that the Kanju had attacked Yeon with, as well as huge pits of dug up soil where it had struck with its hands.

The juggernaut had completely demolished the land around this area and almost all the less resilient and sturdy trees had been knocked down and smashed. It looked like a hurricane had passed through the area leaving only the everlasting stony birch trees behind.

But even some of the birch trees had been destroyed despite their structural strength in this mad chase.

It looked as if he were running for his life, but he was perfectly calm and the entire situation was under control.

The longer this dragged out, the more advantageous it would be for the 'fleeing' human rather than the 'chasing' magical beast.

He had already consumed a common grade healing pill that Mia and Emily had spared him before this battle, and its medicinal effects had already closed up his previously bleeding shoulder injury.

His muscles in that area were still damaged and it would take another week or two of natural rest for it to be fully healed despite his increased vitality as a cultivator. He could decrease this time by taking another healing pill or buying and consuming one of higher quality, but he didn't for now.

It was enough that the bleeding had stopped. If he ate another healing pill and consumed his stamina in that way, then in this battle of constant movement and incredible concentration, even he wasn't confident of winning.

He ran between the trees since it greatly limited the potential attacks of the beast and his movements would be even more predictable. But he never ran too far away from the lumbering beast's body.

He was always just out of reach and sometimes he would even slow down purposefully. He would expose his comparatively fragile body in such a way that would entice the beast to launch an attack which would then be easily read and dodged by Yeon.

Not only did this rapidly consume the remaining stamina of the beast, but its increased heart rate and constant exercise would make the beast bleed out at an even faster rate.

He would jump out from the trees and pretend to stumble on the right side of the beast, taunting it in its rage to use its damaged right shoulder to swing its arm. Adil's old practice sword was still lodged deeply inside that mass of boulder-like muscle.

The way the beast used its arms to support its body while it ran meant that its damaged shoulder was consistently being used despite the pain.

Moreover, in order to keep up with Yeon's nimble changes in direction and to sidestep and avoid all the everlasting stony birch trees that were acting like obstacles, it had no choice but to pivot its body around its stabilizing front arms.

This was incredibly taxing on the beast as well painful.

That was why Yeon would slow down every now and again to bait the Kanju into continuing its futile chase and launch attacks that seemed like they would finally hit its slippery target only to narrowly miss as the human somehow span or redirected its arm with his stump sword.

Yeon crouched while he ran to pick up a sizeable piece of rock with his left arm. His right arm was still functional enough to hold the sword while he performed this action since it was his shoulder, not the arm itself, that was injured.

But he never attacked or redirected with his right arm, using only his left to perform his swordsmanship. He didn't want to accidentally open up the wound and inflict himself with unnecessary pain.

He then turned his upper body slightly to see the Kanju just as its large frame stepped aside from the tree that Yeon had just run behind.

He threw the stone as hard as he could at the right eye of the beast, the stone whistling through the air as it left Yeon's arm to make its way to its target with pinpoint accuracy.

The Kanju raised its left arm to block the rock with ease, but Yeon knew that this stone wouldn't do any damage. He was aiming for an entirely different outcome with this action.

The Kanju had raised its left arm meaning that its body could only rely on its right arm to support itself. Blood spurted out of its shoulder where the remnants of Adil's sword lay as it struggled to hold up the immense weight of its upper body that now included its raised left arm as well.

Yeon could see the beast wince. It had protected its eye but its stocky neck wasn't flexible nor agile enough to dodge the oncoming rock so it had been forced to further damage its shoulder instead, sacrificing a bit of its mobility and blood to retain its vision.

'That was much more effective than I thought it would be…'

The body of the Kanju was huge and heavy. But its flaw would be that its physiology had a huge dependence on its massive lanky arms to move and attack.

Even though the beast had to stop using its shoulder to stop any damage from further accumulating, it had no choice but to continue. Otherwise, it would either fall over as its top-heavy body loses balance or it would have to give up on chasing Yeon.

'But this is taking too much time…'

If Yeon continued this cat-and-mouse battle of taunting and retreating, eventually the fatigued magical beast would be too slow to stop Yeon's attacks. However, he had already wasted enough time that it was beginning to give diminishing returns.

'I wonder if they're ok…'

He thought of the two girls who were facing off the level 0 Sub-Kanjus.

He didn't have enough time to think about it now, but he was going to act on the premise that they were acting according to plan: They had remained near the camp and they were fighting to kill, and if that wasn't possible, to drag out the battle until Yeon returned.

They should have returned to help him by now if they had stayed to fight.

This either meant that they didn't have the capabilities to defeat the magical beasts while outnumbered or they had lost and were being eaten or defiled by the magical beasts…

If they had run away, the Sub-Kanjus would have returned to help the Kanju kill Yeon so he crossed that off his potential scenarios.

There was always the possibility that both parties had killed each other during the fight or that whichever team had won was too tired or wounded to return to Yeon's battlefield to help out their respective parties.

There were many possible scenarios that he could think of, but most of them were bad considering the current situation.

He put those dark thoughts to the back of his mind and concentrated on his current role which was to kill the Kanju as fast as possible to return and help them.

He turned to face the drained Kanju, its eyes were softer than they had been before, going in and out of focus from the loss of blood and fatigue.

But there was still a residual flame of animosity and intense hatred that could be seen in those weary eyes as it finally caught up to the stationary Yeon.

Weirdly, now that the human wasn't running away, the beast didn't attack either.

Yeon didn't want to attack first since he was still technically slightly slower than the beast despite its fatigue.

The mammoth frame of the bulging beast contrasted to the smaller compact frame of Yeon.

Its originally impressive thick coat of dark brown fur was now drenched in its own blood and sweat giving off a foul odour reminiscent of that of a dying animal.

"What's wrong friend?" Yeon called out to the exhausted magical beast.

"…"

"Taking a breather are you?"

"…"

"…"

The two mortal enemies continued to stare into each other's eyes. It was an odd picture as they stood in a devastated background that had been completely ravaged by their fight.

The upturned soil and broken trees told of their dynamic struggle, but now the main perpetrators were standing completely still as if the scenery that told of their legendary fight was just a lie.

'Has it caught on that the attacker has the disadvantage?'

He stared into the mismatched eyes of the Kanju that was simmering in hostility. They were the eyes of a beast but they told of its intelligence.

'So you've finally stopped to think…'

"But it's too late, and we've wasted too much time."

His left arm gripped tightly around the broken sword that was now like a stocky dagger and slowly walked towards the beast.

He walked slowly since inevitably the Kanju would be forced to react unless it planned on letting Yeon simply walk up and stab it. Yeon planned to counterattack after this moment rather than launching his attack first.

It was a game of chicken where they risked their lives.

"Let's end this…"

5 meters

4 meters

3 meters

Yeon was now just in range of the Kanju.

Neither side blinked as they maintained their eye contact, that single millisecond where they lost visuals could prove fatal.

Both Yeon and the Kanju raised their left arms slowly.

Despite their movements slowing to a snail's crawl, Yeon and the beast were much more tense.

Yeon pointed the stump sword at the beast and he felt the heaven and earth energy around the raised fist of the beast changing. They were bearing their weapons but neither side attacked.

"Tsk, fine. You're cowardly for your size monkey," Yeon mocked, his tone cold and arrogant.

Seeing that there was no reaction except an increasing amount of qi being directed to its hands, Yeon decided to attack first.

Yeon seemed to vanish from the air only to suddenly appear in front of the Kanju.

He swung his hand down towards its shoulder where his broken sword lay, trying to use the butt of the sword to smash down on the protruding metal.

The Kanju reacted by swiping its left hand towards Yeon's advancing body. A sharp stone rod was rapidly growing from its opened palm and it was dangerously approaching Yeon's left temple.

But he had been waiting for this exact moment, his attack on its shoulder only having been a feint.

If the Kanju were more mature and used to manipulating its qi to hide his attacks from Yeon, then it would have been nigh impossible for Yeon to dodge in this precarious situation.

'If you had aimed for my body then I was prepared to sacrifice a bit, but-'

Yeon lurched his head backwards to avoid the stone lance and quickly ducked to dodge the oncoming palm of the Kanju that followed behind the lance.

'You were too greedy, going straight for the kill.'

Yeon jumped sideways from his crouched position to a tree nearby.

He jumped to the Kanju's left, entering its blind spot that was there due to its damaged eye.

*BOOM*

He then propelled himself off the tree just like he had done when he was facing the Mountain Hog and appeared before the Kanju's head.

The moment's delay caused by Yeon moving into its blind spot proved ruinous for the Kanju as Yeon's stumpy sword was forcefully inserted into its skull despite the tough resistance its level 1 bone gave.

Yeon revelled in that cracking sensation he felt as he broke through the protective bone before he quickly got a hold of himself.

"Pyscho bitch. You're making me weird…." Yeon muttered.

He stabbed the head of the beast again to completely stop its movements as it spasmed on the floor.

He then quickly put the beast into his ring before running in the direction of the camp, his thoughts full of the two girls he had become close to this past month.