81. Drained

Noah retreated hastily sending Assea in front of him to block the beasts' assault.

By then, he was used to fighting while withstanding the pain that Assea suffered.

His blood companion's body was shredded but recomposed instantly and locked one of the enemies in a fierce fight.

Noah could defeat a peak rank 3 beast alone so he just chose to divide the attention of the two Rabid moles between him and Assea.

Assea's body continued to be injured and broken, there was no way to compare its strength to that of the beast.

However, one of the strong points of the companion was its recovery.

Assea continued to lose every clash with the mole but it never let its opponent attack Noah.

On the other side, Noah was releasing torrents of wind blades on his enemy.

The pain he felt due to his companion was nothing he couldn't endure.

The battle protracted for more than twenty minutes.

Even though Noah had the advantage the whole time, his opponent was still a king among rank 3 beasts.

Its resilience was immense and endured wound after wound that he managed to inflict.

Noah didn't let it rest for even an instant as he continued to strike trying to deliver a fatal blow.

Inevitably, that moment arrived.

The mole was covered with tens of cuts, no blood came out of its wounds but the effects of the injuries were still shown on it.

Its paws were one second too late and Noah's blade passed through its defenses.

FFFFFFF

The soft sound of its body turning into smoke reached Noah's ears and he didn't hesitate to turn himself and charge toward the remaining beast.

Assea was just acting as a punching dummy while it kept on charging selflessly at the mole.

When Noah gave the command, it coiled around the beast uncaring of its body being broken continuously.

Noah took advantage of the restrained beast and severed its body in half with a double strike from his sabers.

The round was over and Noah sat on the ground to meditate.

Even if he managed to be uninjured, a large quantity of his "Breath" had been depleted.

During the previous battle, he had to fuel Assea's body with liquid "Breath" because the gaseous one in his body could not keep up with the intensity of its fight.

'For how long will this keep going? I'm quite sure that even Lena could have won the last round only thanks to her potions.'

The standards of this trial had to be set considering the ages of the candidates.

Noah knew that his biggest advantage in the test was that he could divert some enemies' attention to his blood companion, the numerical difficulty of the trial was halved for him.

Had it not been for Assea's presence, the previous battle would have most likely been his last.

'I can't continue for much longer, what kind of requirements did this cultivator have when he set up the dimension?'

When the ten minutes were over, he had less than one hundred and fifty attacks available.

He felt something charging at him and he opened his eyes while jumping in retreat.

'This will be my last round.'

He could not help to think of that seeing four peak rank 3 Rabid moles.

Noah took a deep breath, his figure in the sea of consciousness held the rune tightly, ready to break it at any moment.

The magical beasts advanced at high speed and as soon as they reached him, they stretched their nails to deliver a powerful strike.

Thirty-two gray blades pierced the air toward his position, one for every finger of the beasts.

Noah waited until the tips of the claws were a few centimeters from his head to call Assea.

Then, the huge body of a snake appeared in his position.

Its body was pierced and cut in many points by the attacks until it could not support itself anymore and shattered, yet there was no one in the now empty area where Assea previously was.

He instead appeared below one of the moles, ready to swing his weapons.

The beasts reacted and tilted their claws to reduce the human below them into pieces.

Deep marks were left on the floor as the moles didn't have time to retract their nails but before they could hit the young man, the body of the snake reappeared slowing the blows.

Assea's body shattered again but from its disappearing figure, two shadows flew out.

One of them was Noah that was retreating with a light wound on his back.

The other one was a wind slash that hit one of the moles' fingers and directly severed it!

'Thirty-one to go.'

Mole-types beasts were generally weaker than snake-types ones, their bodies were not as strong and their only method of attack was through their extendable claws.

Noah could not win in a frontal battle so he decided to destroy their weapons in order to decrease their dangerousness.

However, to achieve that feat he had to continuously sacrifice Assea's body fueled with liquid "Breath" and he still could not avoid getting stricken from time to time.

Noah smiled unconsciously, a cold aura radiated from him as his concentration reached its peak.

'One mistake and I lose. If I run out of "Breath" I lose. This is how a real battle should be!'

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.

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Almost an hour passed.

In the underground room, one young man and four moles were staring at each other.

The four moles had all their fingers chopped off from their paws and they assumed a four-legged stance to charge at the human in front of them.

On the other side, Noah was breathing heavily, his complexion was paler than it had ever been and countless wounds on his body were dripping blood on the ground.

Inside his sea of consciousness, Assea's figure was cracked and in need of recovery, that day its body has been destroyed so many times that the damages had extended to Noah's mental sphere.

The beasts didn't have their claws anymore so they chose to assault him with their bare bodies.

Their charge began and they opened their mouths ready to bite the small human.

Noah was still smiling and looked at the incoming beasts with a calm gaze.

As the moles jumped on him, his sabers moved and released the last eight attacks that his dantian was capable of providing.

The four were hit by two strikes each while still mid-air and their bodies were cut from head to toe by Noah's final blows.

What hit Noah was just the smoke of the dissolving beasts.

He fell on his knees completely drained of every bit of energy, he didn't see that the halo generated by the runes was becoming more intense.