Chapter 95

Ash was again reminded of the time he had a giant snake on his tail. This time it was a giant rhino with a big horn which had already poked him once, the horn was even bigger now.

Once Ash was a certain distance away from Rebecca and the creature he stopped using mana as a shield, and could now focus on fighting the rhino. The doubt again came into his head, how do you kill something which is already dead. The answer or an idea rather came to his head. What if he chopped off his head, what could a body without a head do even if it was still moving, especially since it's major weapon was on its head, it was not a bad idea. But the problem was that its neck was now as thick as a tree trunk, his whole sword would have to pass clean through to cut it off and that would require tremendous strength. Ash prepared a lightning bolt in his hand, it had started taking a shape from his training lately, it looked like a small dagger made out of bright blue lightning. He stopped turned and threw it straight at the rhino's head, it didn't had much damage on the rhino but the lightning spread through its body and paralyzed its muscle for some moments, it couldn't stop its momentum and slammed into a bunch of trees past Ash. But since it was dead and could probably not feel pain or jave emotions like fear, it stoodback up quickly turning around. The rhino was completely black now, it's eyes yellow. It wasn't as dark as the other creature and didn't have the same rotten feeling around it like the other creature.

But now Ash had a plan, he will paralyze the rhino, maybe a bit longer this time and use that moment to try to cut its head. He needed to be quick, because he had no idea what Rebecca was going through, whether she was winning or loosing. The rhino charged at him again, Ash readied another bolt, this one a bit longer and threw it at the head, it struck and rhe rhinos legs again stopped moving. The rhino smashed into the ground and skidded forward just before Ash. Ash took position on its side and raised his sword, with great effort he let a lot of mana in the sword at once, the sword vibrated with energy, and he brought it down with great speed and force, he felt the sword sink into the flesh and then hit the ground causing a small blast and Ash jumped away at once.

When the smoke cleared the rhino's head was lying feets away bloody and burnt. There was still some red blood left in the rhino. Ash waited to see if it would stand again but it didn't. The black blood remained the same but the rhino started turning back to its smaller form. The black skin didn't turn to its original color but now the corpse looked as if it had been decaying for weeks, every inch of blood and life sucked out of if.

The black mana had been feeding on the rhino, he was sure even if he hadn't cut his head off, it would have stopped moving soon once it had run of out fuel to consume.

Ash didn't stand around for long and ran back towards Rebecca. When he reached the clearing he was surprised to see how much it had changed, the ground had turned upside down, there were stone spikes coming out from here and there, some of them had black blood on them. Then there was the huge rock which had been thrown by someone and was noe lying in the corner. Rebecca and the creature were fighting in the middle of a web of the earth pillars that Rebecca had used before. Rebecca looked tired and had bled more, the creature too looked like it had been through hell, it's skin heavily scarred and bloodied but there was not a hint of it in it's movements. Rebecca jumped back and a hundred pillars emerged around the creature at once making a prison around him. She needed a break to catch her breath, Ash ran over to her.

"What happened?"

"Nothing, I keep killing it, it just keeps coming back, " she said.

"Did you try to cut it's head off, it worked for me, " said Ash.

"I smashed it's head to a pulp, but it healed itself, it's regeneration power is insane, " said Rebecca.

"No try to take it's head off it's body, " said Ash.

"It won't work, my sword isn't sharp enough, it's skin turns weirdly stretchy around it's neck, " she said.

"Let me try what I did with the mud-rhino, " said Ash.

He again made a lightning bolt in his hand, he was running out of mana now, if this didn't work, he wouldn't be able to do anything else.

The creatue was still busy cutting down the stone pillars Rebecca had formed. When he was just about to cut the last on to get out, Ash threw the bolt, it flrew threw the air at great speed and hit the creature in its chest. The creature didn't went down but stood still its body shaking with the lightning. Ash didn't have time to try again, he had to take the risk. So spending the last of his mana, he pushed off from his position with great speed and swinging his sword already, it landed on it neck in time and the lightning had done its work and made its skin more brittle, the sword sank in and moved. But the creature feeling the pain, kicked Ash in the chest and he was thrown back with great force. His hands couldn't hold on to the sword as he flew and hit the ground. He coughed clutching his chest, he was sure more of his ribs were broken now, in just a few minutes he had taken a lot of damage and spend too much mana, his body was now showing him it's price at once. He had learnt attacks and forms that were too advanced for him, his body was still behind his magical development.

Rebecca stood over him protecting him from the creature who had turned it's eyes on hik pissed. Ash listened to the fight again with his eyes closed trying to push down the pain. He was sure Rebecca wouldn't last too long now, with the creatue's kick he could feel it's strength now, no matter how strong Rebecca might be, no one can take that powerful blows for too long.

He cursed and tried to stand up, his whole body was shaking as he looked at the scene. Rebecca was on the back foot, her eyes we're uncertain through not afraid. Ash knew the moment was near when she will not be able to dodge the next attack.

But before that could happen something flew in very fast from some where behind them and hit the creature and it was thrown away. Both things landed on the ground with loud thuds, there was the creature on the ground with its chest caved in with the force of the thing that had hit it, and over a few feets away, sank in the ground, standing straight, Ash didn't know how, was a Gada, the weapon only the Amazons used.

Ash turned and saw Yuri step out of the trees followed by Sasha and Yuva and her group.

Yuri jumped and landed near her Gada and looked at the black creature, the creature jerked and sprang at her in an instant, but Yuri had enough time to pick up the heavy Gada it seemed to be radiating with some sort of energy and Yuri hit the creature straight in its skull, the head exploded clean off its body in a way Ash could never have imagined a weapon like that could have done. It was really a mixture of a spear and hammer, he had seen it used like both, but now it looked like if used with enough speed and force it could tear offlimbs like a sword too.

The creature's body lay still on the ground not moving and slowly the same thing happened to it as the rhino, only this time it turned into bones and then dust completely.