Chapter 47: Fading Life Force
’Fuck... I don’t have enough time to process what just happened. Now, there’s another threat.’
Shaking his head, Terrence fixed his hair as he gathered his two beasts back to his side.
Winter could only stare at him, pondering deeply about how much raw prowess he actually possessed.
Silent, she thought to herself, ’Just how is he able to contract two powerful beasts? They don’t appear normal at all. Probably A-Rank or... even higher.’
Although there was suspicion brewing in her mind, Winter didn’t bother entertaining it, considering how surprisingly reliable Terrence had proven to be. She gazed down at her own beast, who rested beside her, slowly transforming back into the normal appearance of a deer.
She let out a soft sigh.
’You worked way too hard.’ She crouched down while the looming threat approached closer with each second that passed.
Terrence darted his eyes in the direction where the heavy, approaching pressure was coming from. He inhaled deeply, putting his full trust in his beasts.
"You two..." He looked over at the red vampire, shaking his head while his eyes held deep, conflicted thoughts. ’If only I didn’t have to sell you. But I can’t test what the consequences could be.’
Terrence then gazed down at Winter, whose beast was slowly losing its fading life force.
He bit his lower lip hard as a weird, uncomfortable bubble formed inside his chest. His throat became dry instantly while his eyelids felt heavy.
’That is not a good sign.’
Winter remained still in her beast’s embrace, desperately giving warmth to the fading life force of her companion. While she didn’t show any particular emotion on her cold face, the beast could feel everything she truly wanted to express within that final hug.
Terrence looked back toward the dungeon boss, taking in its full, massive frame.
It was a huge ancient tree with its thick, twisted roots acting as its legs. The ancient trunk was just the same as the surrounding environment, but it had a slightly shorter frame—about the size of a whole house, perhaps. It had sprawling branches with withering leaves, far too uncountable to tally from Terrence’s position.
While it appeared to pose far less of a threat than Gilbert had, Terrence still refused to deal with it casually.
He tapped into his mental connection with the Vampire Butler. Then, he ordered in a firm tone, "Hinder its movement with your red threads, then do whatever you can to inflict maximum damage."
He still didn’t fully know what the Vampire’s specific Skills were, but that didn’t matter right now. It was an S-Rank beast—two of them, in fact—against a single A-Rank dungeon boss.
Then, he looked over at the Shadow Hound, which seemed to have even more energy than before. It carried a proud, fierce look in its glowing eyes.
Terrence smirked slightly.
"You have grown. Your movements are much sharper and more calculated now," he mused aloud. "While there were still some flaws, just like earlier when I got hit multiple times, we can work on fixing those together."
The hound gave a firm nod. The very next second, the Vampire Butler disappeared in a blurry streak. Its cold, dark eyes fell onto the ancient moving tree with hidden, lethal killing intent.
A thick red thread materialized from its palm, sticking firmly to a branch several paces away from the dungeon boss. The vampire swung smoothly, going around the tree trunk, then swung again to lock onto another tree, appearing directly behind the dungeon boss mid-air.
He clasped his hands together tightly. Multiple crimson threads burst forth, sticking firmly into the backside of the massive dungeon boss.
Meanwhile, the dungeon boss couldn’t catch the Vampire Butler’s hyper-fast movements at all. Its wood-carved eyes moved frantically in different directions while another lethal presence rushed straight toward it.
The Shadow Hound, leaving dark clouds of dust in its trail, leaped from one branch to another. With the dark dust accumulating behind its trail, the air grew darker and darker.
The dungeon boss let out a deep roar, a harsh screech of cutting wood vibrating violently from its carved wooden lips. Then, it suddenly noticed its movements becoming drastically slower.
With a look of sheer confusion on its carved face, it tried to inspect what was happening to its body. One of its wooden eyes separated from its fixed socket, traveling down its trunk frame. It slid to its back, allowing it to see through the other half of its vision—sticky red threads had multiplied and combined, forming a giant, restrictive net.
Panic and confusion surged as the dungeon boss tried desperately to shake off the sticky threads. But with each passing second, its movement became slower and slower until it was completely immobilized.
Its carved lips opened into a wide circle as the other half of its vision noticed that the Shadow Hound now had massive arcs of obsidian particles hovering behind it.
It turned out that the dust trailing behind the hound was simply a delayed attack. The particles slowly condensed into giant obsidian arcs, forming a terrifying slash.
Matching the actual size of the ancient tree, a barrage of giant Triple Slashes flew through the air. The pitch-black arcs collided violently with the dungeon boss. With every second that passed, it screeched louder and louder, utterly unable to fight back or defend itself.
Explosive bursts of mana erupted as each obsidian slash smashed into the dungeon boss, creating thick clouds of dust at every single impact.
Then, slowly, the screeching stopped, and the dungeon boss ceased moving altogether.
"So that’s the difference between S-Rank and A-Rank beasts, huh. Or maybe they just played around too much? I swear they could have ended it in a single instant," Terrence mused under his breath, his eyes falling down to where the deer beast rested.
He let out a long sigh as the beast’s life force completely vanished, officially dead on the grass. The only thing Terrence could see now were the unreleased emotions bottled up inside Winter—it looked as if she desperately wanted to cry, but had strictly programmed herself not to show a single tear.