Zach, Nora, and Alzara helped each other up out of the sandy pit they made when they crashed after the Child sent them flying. They looked at the Child clenching and unclenching the fist he used to punch the three.
"This is why I don’t like summoners," he said with a sigh. "Nasty little tricks that make killing them such a bother," he complained.
By the sounds of it, he had killed more than one or two summoners in his time. However, Zach’s expression couldn’t get any darker, so it didn’t matter what the Child said. Continue your adventure at freewebnovel
Zach swallowed whatever saliva he had in his dry mouth. He forced the world essence energy in his core to start moving. This wasn’t a situation where it could be lazy or pretend to be considerate. It was going to listen to him, and it was going to obey him.
It did just that. In a gentle stream, the world essence energy returned to the body it had ravaged all those months ago. It was like pouring lemon juice on a wound. It stung. It wasn’t good.
But it gave Zach the strength he needed to face the Child.
If there was one thing he could tell other than the fact that the Child was strong, it was that he wasn’t the strongest person he had fought. Ugor had been stronger. Ugor had fallen to him. The Child would too.
Zach had been stronger back then, too, but that was irrelevant.
Nora and Alzara felt the change in Zach’s presence. They knew he was pushing himself too far again. They couldn’t say anything. It was because they were too weak. However, they could not do anything about it right now. They could only accept the situation and live to become stronger another day.
That meant letting Zach fight, even if they didn’t want to. He was the only one of them who could take the Child’s hits without losing immediately. Their fists clenched hard enough to make their knuckles pale.
But they took deep breaths and relaxed their grips. They needed to fight better than ever before. Otherwise, Zach’s sacrifice would not be worth it.
Zach started walking toward the Child, a barrier wrapped around his body like another layer of skin. It was the sturdies barrier he could make. He raised his fists.
The Child’s eyebrows rose as if impressed that Zach was not only still able to walk but also doing so toward him.
The Child exhaled through his nose as he shook his head while looking down.
This was why he couldn’t stop enjoying hunting summoners. More than most humans and other insects, they didn’t give up. The ones who were on good enough terms with the principal to scowl when he was mentioned were especially entertaining.
It was like they didn’t know the meaning of impossible.
That made it all the more fun to beat it into them.
Rather than just making a weakling feel despair, the Child found it much more enjoyable to teach some the meaning of despair and then make them feel it.
His face still angled at the ground, the Child broke into a wide grin as he tightened his hand into a fist. It was like he could already feel the satisfaction of breaking through those barriers and breaking a few of the summoners’ fragile bones.
That’s exactly what the Child did.
He didn’t entertain Zach’s walk.
The Child dashed over and rammed his fist down onto Zach’s shoulder, pushing the latter’s feet into the ground. It would be boring if he just went flying again without the barrier breaking.
The Child needed him to stay put.
Zach tried to return the favor and punch the Child in the gut. With his fist full of world essence energy and ready to blast it into the Child, Zach was confident he could deal some damage to the bastard.
But the Child wasn’t masochistic enough to like being hit if he could avoid it, which he could. He shifted lightly to the side.
Before Zach could try and get out of the sand, the Child’s fist whipped him in the face. With his feet held by the sand like a vice, his body snapped at the knees and toppled into the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand.
As the Child expected, Zach got up before the dust settled. He protected his face with his hands. His arms and elbows covered his chest.
But Zach wasn’t some freak with arms long enough to shield his entire body.
The Child tapped Zach’s abdomen with his toes. What looked like a tap was a kick powerful enough to crack the barrier and have Zach keel over forward this time, exposing the back of his head to another cannonball-like fist.
It sent Zach’s face straight into the ground. His posture was a mess with his ass sticking up and him bent at the waist since his knees only worked in one direction.
Zach was starting to feel overwhelmed. Unless he managed to overload his body with the fully activated world essence energy as he did against Ugor, this fight was lost.
This 𝓬ontent is taken from fгeewebnovёl.co𝙢.
The problem was that neither he nor his world essence energy wanted that, not really. It was the only solution, but Zach wasn’t sure if his body could handle it yet. It would leave him in a state of almost complete desolation.
How would he continue in the Labyrinth after that?
But he wasn’t in a position to think about what comes next. He had to focus everything he had on the Child and distract him so that Alzara and Nora could land their attacks.
That was why when he managed to raise his head again. He looked straight into the Child’s eyes and said,
"Wow, you’re so strong. I’m so scared," in a deadpan voice without so much as a hint of fear.
He was mocking the Child.
Considering how the Child had tried to dominate Zach with his punches and strikes, Zach figured this was the best way to provoke him.
As expected, the Child took offense. His grin deepened, but anger surged in his eyes.
He raised his fist. Zach braced himself. Alzara saw an opportunity. She took it.