11 - BATTLE TO DEATH

The snake’s crystal was huge.

“It’s big as a lamb. Am I supposed to carry that big thing? Forget about convenience, fighting while carrying that will sure-fire get me killed. Wait, how am I supposed to eat that? Bit by bit?” He looked at the bird, whose crystal was smaller. “I should take that one.”

As he was about to act, both crystalline horns leaked out vapors, and they shattered into pieces. “What?” Edgar’s jaw slackened. “The cores…” For a moment, he thought that the cores were gone; however, two round-shaped glowing stones shot slightly high in the air above the beasts’ heads, tiny bits of fire and electric surges still connecting it to the respective beasts. “That’s…” Edgar’s eyes lit up. “Are they the beast cores?” He had only heard about these things, but he never saw one before, so he didn’t know. Since both cores flew in different directions, he knew he could only get one before it fell on the ground.

And he had to hurry. Before he came to a decision, his body automatically moved on its own.

“Red Rush!” In a flash, he hopped and stomped over many worms and landed on the snake’s head and jumped high into the air and snatched a beast core before it fell to the ground. The core was like a small marble, extremely hard yet super light, and it was easy to carry in hand. It had many colors like a rainbow. A core of the legendary thunderbird. Though he had his eyes on the snake’s core, his body somehow made him jump for this core. He dropped it in his underwear.

Without a second wait, he ran ahead, for he had no time to pick up the other. He lost the dozens of worms that were after him by simply jumping high into one of the bigger tunnels. Now he only had to deal with the worms of that particular tunnel, or so he thought.

To his shock, the first worm he came across was a worm that had a brownish glow on its skin and spat stones at him, forcing him to draw his weapon. This worm was small in size compared to others, but it was springing and bouncing about in the tunnel, and its skin was much thicker than those of other worms, so much so that his wooden sword broke on the first strike. He tried to run away, but the worm easily caught up with him and blocked his path.

Though Edgar was a bit worried, he wasn’t afraid. He faced it without fear. The stones that the worm spat were strong enough to hurt him despite him being protected by his Drive. Its teeth proved to be even more troublesome. Then again, Edgar’s fingers were powerful enough to dig through its skin. However, because most of its skin was studded with pearls, diamonds, metal, and different crystals, it wasn’t easy for him to find the soft spots. When he hit it on the metal or the crystals, only his hand got hurt, and his bones felt sour. Still, the pain wasn’t anything new to him. He didn’t give up and kept going at it. Both kept shedding each other’s blood as they went about seeking dominance.

It was as though a fearless lion was fighting a prideful crocodile.

Wherever the worm landed in that tunnel and sprang away, spikes of different shapes and sizes rose out of that spot and aimed to dig through the human’s body. He had to either dodge or break his way through them. In a matter of seconds, the entire tunnel was spattered with broken spikes, and the shape of the very tunnel had changed greatly.

Edgar's lungs were burning. He was already deprived of vital air. He was forced to use all of his energy and what lay beyond, and he managed to wound and make the worm bleed as well with his punches and kicks. In return, his body got pierced by stone, metal, and crystal shards spat by the worm. Still, he didn’t suffer any injury to his head, as he was extra careful to not get wounded above the neck because his master had told him that wounds to the head could make even experienced warriors lose concentration and thus the fight. Blows to the torso and blows to the head were not the same, as it was extremely harder to bear the latter and keep fighting. This was drilled into Edgar’s mind thanks to the countless sharp attacks he had received from the hairies.

As the fight went on, both Edgar and the worm slowed down, probably because of the lack of vital air. As if they could read each other’s minds, both poured their last bits of energy into one final exchange. They were at their full speed and strength as they unleashed all their intent.

It was just blurs moving about in that dark tunnel, going deeper and deeper with every second.

Though it seemed like their laste exchange contained about a few dozen attacks, it all took place in less than a minute, and in the last of it, all the drive on Edgar’s body concentrated at his fist as he punched through the incoming stones and the mouth of the worm and blasted its way out, blowing the worm to bits and pieces. A brownish stone ricocheted off the walls and ended up at his feet.

Panting heavily, he looked down at the brown core, but he didn’t smile. He was barely holding off his pain, after all. His legs, arms, shoulders and back were covered in cuts and bruises. It was hurting everywhere.

Though the worm didn’t look anywhere near as intimidating as the vipers or the pythons, this was surprisingly the toughest monster he faced, not because of its raw strength, but because of its ability to pressure him to keep fighting it without even giving him the time to escape. If it was any more experienced, then maybe it would’ve been him that would have suffered the defeat.

However, he still couldn’t understand what made the worm come after him. And why didn’t it show any signs of leaving even when things didn’t go its way? Was it the desire to eat the human? Or was it something else? He didn’t know. But what he could tell was that this worm sort of knew whenever he tried to run away and blocked him, as if it could read his emotions. He knew that dogs and cats and many animals in general could sense other beings’ emotions, but this was his first time experiencing it in such a subtle manner, scary even. Now that he thought back about it, when he came across a big viper that swallowed a python in the rift not long ago, that viper probably also sensed how his attack didn’t have real intent behind it. Maybe that not-so threatening attack made the snake believe that the human was just faking it. At this point, Edgar squeezed his lips.

“This seems a bit too unbelievable. Maybe I’m just reading things too much…”

After taking some deep breaths, he thought back on how he couldn’t brick the lightning out of his body this time during this fight for some reason, but he wasn’t bothered all that much, as he knew practice and patience were the key. He picked up the core and made haste in getting away from that place as fast as possible, hopefully to a safer one. Though his body urged for rest, he was experienced enough as a slave to know that once he were to sit down in such a wounded condition, he might not be able to move for a while. So he first wanted to choose a safer spot.