Chapter 57: Winter Saurian
The monster’s enormous claws struck steel once, then twice, each blow so mighty it made Eli’s skin crawl. It was as if the monster had brought the sky down with it.
However, Juli had begun to acclimate to these harsh conditions.
The claws came down where Juli’s shoulder had been. She slid under the strike, golden aura flaring along the line of her blade, and dragged the edge across the thing’s foreleg as she passed.
Purple blood spewed from the gash and hissed as it hit the stone.
’Acid blood?’
"Juli! Be careful!"
His warning didn’t reach her, but with Juli’s battle IQ, she should be able to come up with another plan to avoid getting hit by the blood.
It was tricky. Between the monster’s bulk and its swift movements, she already had enough on her plate, but now she had to avoid the wounds she created, which was very suboptimal.
The best way to handle something that big was to strike its wounds again and again, especially at the legs, until it toppled. But the acid blood made it almost impossible unless Juli decided to take great risk.
Eli watched her reorient.
Juli’s stance widened, and the gold of her aura pulled in tight against her skin to stop itself from trailing excess energy behind her like a banner.
The monster seemed to smirk, utterly unconcerned by the shift in her aura. It charged at full speed, runes glowing berserk as its claws tore into the stone like mud.
Juli moved.
She did not go at its wounded foreleg again. She feinted with her impeccable footwork to pull the monster’s weight onto its bad leg, and when the thing committed, she was already gone.
Eli couldn’t find her again, but when he blinked, the blade appeared, sliding along its flank toward the seam above its shoulder.
The monster screamed.
It was a noise so primordial that even its mother wouldn’t love it. Purple blood poured down like a waterfall, and none of it touched Juli.
’Goodness...’
Her aura control was smooth as butter. The more she concentrated it around her body and sword, the more damage she could deal.
Eli watched as Juli landed. Her golden aura clung close, not trailing off at all. It showed years of training, and the genius of Julianna Owens.
He almost cheered, but then he saw the impossible — the wound was closing.
The cut didn’t close fully or quickly, but the fact that the monster could regenerate its wounds was insane. Only B-Rank monsters could do something like that.
Eli watched the lips of it crawl back toward each other slowly, while the runes pulsed bright, a sign of warning about what was to come.
Juli saw it too. Her face hardened.
The monster could regenerate, but Juli could not. In a battle of attrition, that would put her at a disadvantage. Worse, there was Colton still waiting outside this labyrinth. If Juli used up all of her aura, then they were as good as dead.
"Juli, why don’t we just run?" Eli shouted.
Juli waved it off.
"It’s way too fast. It’ll catch up to you."
The monster did not give them time to discuss. It launched off its hind legs, its head dropping as the runes flared from start to end. What came out of those runes was no longer light.
It was dark mana.
"Shit."
It was time for the second stage.
Thick black mist boiled off the runes in coiling ropes, invading the room. It rolled across the floor first, hugging the stone like spilled oil, then climbed up the walls. It was the same exact energy that slowed both Juli and Eli down.
Eli’s breath fogged white. The air felt much colder, like deep winter.
’Fuck, I know this monster now.’
It was a B-Rank monster, not a C-Rank, which made it an unfair match for Juli.
Eli couldn’t identify the monster because it never appeared in the story, only as a boss. The game graphics looked different from the story, and there were many huge, furry entities. But he knew its properties because he had fought them many times.
Winter Saurian.
It was a mid-game boss that gave players a lot of trouble because of its cold nature. At that point in the game, there weren’t many heroines with a fire attribute to counter it, so most players brute-forced it with damage instead, sacrificing some heroines in order to move to the next stage.
Once this monster showed its acid blood, slow regeneration, and the cold aura that drained stamina, Eli knew immediately it was a Winter Saurian.
But the one he remembered had been a plain mob. This one in front of him had runes carved into its spine and black mist pouring out of them.
It was a mix of cold mist and dark aura that might have been deadly for others.
But not Julianna.
Her aura was starlight, and dark mana could not withstand it. It was a shame, because if it had been only cold, the monster would have given her a much harder time.
Eli’s eyes snapped back to her.
"The mist, Juli! Burn it!"
Juli did not need to be told twice. Her concentrated golden aura burst in waves, clearing the mist in seconds.
The Saurian saw the mist withering away as if it were nothing and went berserk.
It came at her. Even with the mist gone, the Saurian was still a formidable hunter. Its swiftness remained, and its wounds had almost completely closed.
On the other side, Juli had to let it come. She had to, because she needed to conserve her energy after that stint.
The golden aura around her dimmed ever so slightly.
The Saurian closed the gap in a single stride and brought both forelimbs down at once.
Juli met the strike on the crossguard and shoved it aside in one motion, but the claws kept coming. Again and again they raked at her, and each time she deflected them without fail.
But she could not hold her ground. Each strike drove her back a step, too fast for her to slip to either side.
Juli changed her strategy.
As it struck again, she blocked and held the claws in place rather than deflecting. The Saurian leaned its full weight onto her blade.
Juli’s arms locked. Her aura surged, but the gold thinned at the point of contact, starlight fighting for its place against the dark mana.
She then broke the bind by stepping into it — the same move that she had taught him when he fought the charging boars.
Juli drove forward, slipped sideways under the right claw, and ripped the blade up along the inside of the beast’s wrist.
Acid blood opened in a thin line and flew toward her face, but her aura caught it and burned it out of the air before it could touch her skin.
The Saurian roared and yanked its claw back. Juli used the opening to find a new angle, slipping away before it could pin her against the wall.
The wound she had just opened was already pulling shut by the time she completed a quarter circle.
’Damn it...’
Eli felt useless, unable to help her at all. He knew stepping in would make him a liability to protect rather than an advantage, but his body still shook at the thought of leaving Juli out there alone.
He pressed the diary harder against his chest and started running through every option he could think of, and that was when he heard it.
Far down the corridor they had come through, footsteps began to pour in. One at first, then two, then uncountable, rushing toward them.
Eli’s stomach dropped.
"FUCK!"
The Moons were coming.
Of course they were coming. The magnitude of the battle had probably rung through the whole cave like a struck bell. Anyone within earshot would have known exactly which direction to come from.
"Juli! The Moons! They’re coming!"
Juli did not look. She caught the next claw, rolled it off, and shouted back.
"How many!?"
"A-A lot! Five or six at least!"
"Fuck!"
She slashed at its foreleg, opening another thin cut in the Saurian.
"Run past me when I block!"
Eli’s heart hammered.
"What if—"
"No ifs! Just trust me!"
Eli instantly put the diary back into the coat pocket and readied himself.
The Saurian charged again. Juli stepped into it and absorbed the brunt of the impact. Her aura surged to a frightening degree, holding the claws in place.
"Now!"
Eli moved.
He sprinted with his life on the line, past Juli, past the locked claws and the cold air coming off the runes, and past the smell of acid and burned stone.
The Saurian’s eyes tracked him for a moment, but Juli leaned harder into the bind and twisted the claws to keep its weight pinned where it was.
Eli kept running and running.
"Hah. Hah."
He crossed the room in a straight line. The far wall came up fast. He hit it with one hand to brake and spun around with his back against the stone.
He made it.
