Chapter 872 Chapter 871: Terracotta Grottos (25)
The deer monster laid limply a few feet to my left, its body mangled and twisted from the impact of being thrown at me, and I couldn't help but stare at it as it tried to lift its head and bleat at me, its eyes drowning in hot agony as it felt the life drain from its body, its blood pooling around its mangled and broken body.
Its ribs and other bones were splintered and poking through its skin, one of its antlers had snapped clean off and was impaled in the ground a few feet away, its brown fur was matted red in more than a dozen places, its flesh laying on the grass beside it.
If I had been the one to cause that damage, to torture the monster like that, perhaps I would have felt more than a fleeting satisfaction as it bleated once more, only for its heavy head to slam against the ground with a dull thud as the life faded from its eyes.
Sadly, I wasn't the one to have killed this magnificent monster, and as I scrambled to my feet and began to run further to my right - towards Jahi and the others - the one responsible snorted and grabbed another passing monster, this time lifting the all too familiar bovine above its head and roaring as it hurled it forwards as well, throwing it ahead of me.
Skidding to a halt, I leapt back and watched as the leafy bovine crashed into the earth in front of me, its heavy body leaving behind a divot in the ground as well, though this one was deeper than the one the deer left behind.
The ear splitting roar of that Minotaur filled the grotto once more as it started to charge forwards, ignoring the spells that arced down towards it and instead relying on its incredible, mind boggling speed to rush towards me, each time it took a bounding step forwards using those giant fists and heavy hooves sending tremors through the earth, cracking the ground with each step it traveled.
Heavily resistant to slash, I frowned and grit my teeth as I layered Mana Cloaks on my body and darted to the side, hoping that its speed was one directional and unable to be change; a hope that would go unrealized as the Minotaur dug its fists into the earth and changed its momentum as it pivoted to face me again, snorting in delightful malice as it resumed its titanic strides to reach me, all while I tried to think up some strategy to counter it.
If it was resistant to cutting edges, than logically its emerald fur should be neutral or weak to piercing or blunt damage, right?
if that was the case, then I needed to stab it or club it to deal some actual damage, but getting close to it to fight was idiotic; I was fast, but one mistake and I would be turned to a meat paste on the ground, and while I trusted my speed, well...
Considering the Minotaur was almost at my same speed, that made me doubly as certain that I couldn't just employ hit and run tactics, so what the hell could I do?
Leading it towards Jahi was also not a great idea either, so I switched my pathing and rushed instead back into the horde, listening to the stomps and feeling the tremors traveling up through the soles of my boots as I ran as fast as I possibly could manage, taking the Minotaur away from the others for now.
The Minotaur snorted and barreled after me, likely deeming me as the most dangerous now that I had attacked it twice compared to Jahi's defensive measures, prioritizing the attacker in hopes of being able to whittle down the defense of the Demoness at its leisure, which made me grit my teeth as I was forced to reevaluate its acumen as well.
Each step it took shook the earth, and it just grunted whenever a spell slammed into its muscular hide, the flames and rocks doing little besides spurring it on as it remained fixated on me, ignoring the others and instead allowing the monsters that were charging at them to steal away their attention instead.
With my left hand still free, I began to trace out runes even at the cost of some speed, trusting the distance between us to remain far enough that I could get this spell out before it could close that gap, even if my heart was pounding inside my chest far harder than Anput could hammer at an anvil.
The green runes glimmered in the air around me as I rushed forwards at high speeds, and as soon as I completed the simple Ritual Circle, the winds aided me further and gave me a boost as I started to run swiftly through the herds, stopping and shifting momentum on a dime and using the monsters to my advantage.
My pursuer simply barreled through them without a care, using its giant fists to smash the monsters into a paste or flip them into the air, clearing a path straight towards me and cutting the distance that way, though whenever a lightning bolt or fireball slammed into its head and arms, the Minotaur slowed for a brief heartbeat, giving me time to widen that gap again.
We were playing a numbers game at this point, and I understood that I needed to either deal with this monster on my own or wait for those numbers to dwindle down so that I could get aid from the Demons, and both had merits and detriments to them.
I didn't have time to study those upsides and downsides like I loved to do, so I instead went with my gut and acted on instincts, keeping my left hand raised and harnessing some of the mana inside my Core, specifically the pinkish cyan mana that I had been harvesting and storing away as soon as I discovered I could gather it.
With a resistance to slash known, and a relatively high defense known as well, I needed to do something complex in order to break through that emerald fur and get to the flesh beneath; if something was able to be cut, logically it could be punctured, and if it couldn't be cut OR punctured, then the last remaining weakness was blunt force trauma.
It being resistant to both cuts AND punctures was unlikely, and there was another variable to consider that I hadn't tested yet, but something that I knew to be true; if a projectile had enough speed, it would almost be able to pierce almost anything.
Something that had been ingrained into my mind through study and prior applications was brought back to the surface in my time of need, and I traced out the runes for a simple arrow spell before supplementing some of the other runes for speed and velocity runes, overloading it with any type of speed I could in place of power.
My finger danced in the air as I traced out my spell, and as I heard the roar of the Minotaur grow closer, I grit my teeth and looked back after securing a stretch of grass in front of me, pointing the spell back at the monster and 'pulling the trigger'.
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