Chapter 195 - 194: Battle Royale
Meanwhile, Gray had also charged in from the side of the battlefield.
To an unarmed human, the Sharp-Toothed Fish were terrifying Demons.
But for well-prepared Adventurers, their threat was greatly diminished.
Especially now, on dry land. Without the shelter of the water, the Sharp-Toothed Fish, which used their fleshy fin-wings as forelimbs, were incredibly clumsy!
Gray swept his Longsword horizontally. The sharp blade cleaved through one of the Sharp-Toothed Fish’s heads as if it were tofu.
Then, with a quick shuffle of his feet, he retreated with great agility, thrusting his Longsword out as he pulled away.
He dodged one Sharp-Toothed Fish’s bite while simultaneously piercing another that had tried to ambush him.
His every move revealed that Gray had improved significantly.
"Let’s finish it in one go!" Marcus roared.
The Blood-Handed Demon Fish launched a counterattack. All of its tentacles, except for those supporting its body, lashed out.
The assault looked terrifying, but the chaotic, disorganized attack had little effect.
Marcus easily blocked such purely physical attacks; the Blood-Handed Demon Fish was completely unable to break his line.
His Fighting Qi-infused Composite Shield was like a fortress wall, blocking every strike, and his Battle Saber followed up with a vicious chop!
A striking tentacle was severed, falling to the ground and twitching like an earthworm.
Maki’s fighting style was even more ferocious. He raised his Heavy Sword high and brought it down with immense force, meeting the sky-blotting flurry of tentacles!
SLASH! SLASH! SLASH!
At least three thick tentacles were severed at once, the wounds spewing copious amounts of foul-smelling blood.
The Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s offensive momentum was brought to a halt, immediately followed by a magical bombardment from Zelir, interspersed with Valles’s Thunder Arrows.
It was a one-sided barrage.
The Aurora Energy Beams blasted new gashes into the Blood-Handed Demon Fish, while the Thunder Arrows precisely burrowed into these wounds, triggering internal explosions and dealing secondary damage.
Coupled with Maki’s occasional Heavy Sword slashes, the Blood-Handed Demon Fish was covered in wounds in just a few short minutes.
In the water, it could have used its incredible speed to effortlessly maneuver around its enemies, waiting for the perfect moment to strike.
But on land, it was like a tiger with its fangs pulled out.
The Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s greatest home-field advantage had vanished. Its attacks couldn’t effectively harm these human Adventurers, yet they could wound it again and again.
As its strength waned, the Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s exhaustion became obvious.
Another Aurora Energy Beam!
This time, because the Demon’s movements had slowed, Zelir hit it right in the eye.
SQUELCH!
The immense Magic Power instantly destroyed its eyeball, its remaining force penetrating the socket and boring deep into its skull.
It nearly destroyed the Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s brain outright.
"SKREEE!!!"
The Blood-Handed Demon Fish let out a shriek of utter agony.
The muscles of its enormous body suddenly contracted, and all its remaining intact tentacles curled up violently, shrinking its entire body into a massive, gray-black ball of flesh.
This was clearly the prelude to it gathering power.
"Hey... does it have some kind of ultimate attack? It’s not going to try and take me down with it, is it?"
As a precaution, Maki took two steps back, holding his Heavy Sword horizontally in front of him.
He didn’t want to be caught off guard by a sudden attack.
Marcus also raised his Shield, his vigilance growing.
"No..."
Zelir suddenly realized. "It’s trying to escape!"
The words had barely left his mouth when the coiled tentacles shot out!
Like springs, the tentacles unleashed a powerful thrust, propelling the Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s body as it slid rapidly toward Mirror Lake!
It knew it was no match for these humans.
The only thing it could do now was run!
The battle was only a dozen meters or so from the water’s edge. ’Just get back to the water... just get back to the water...’
’Just get back to that darkness that belongs to me...’
’Then I’ll be safe!’
In truth, the Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s reasoning was sound.
Once it reached the water, even as grievously wounded as it was, Zelir and the others would never dare to pursue it.
To give chase would be suicide.
"Stop it!" Zelir yelled.
The team rushed toward the Blood-Handed Demon Fish, preparing to cut it off and kill it.
Zelir was the first to act. A beam of Aurora Energy shot from the tip of his Night Peace Staff, heading straight for the Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s back.
However, the Blood-Handed Demon Fish simply used two of its tentacles to defend itself.
The beam hit and exploded, blasting the two tentacles to smithereens, but they had successfully blocked the attack for its main body.
’I have dozens of tentacles. What’s losing two to save my life at a critical moment?’
’As long as I get back to the water, this kind of injury will heal sooner or later!’
The Thunder Arrow fired by Valles was blocked in the same way, exploding into a bloody mist.
The Blood-Handed Demon Fish only needed five or six tentacles to keep moving. The rest could all be used as shields!
As if sensing the Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s terror, the swarm of bloodthirsty Sharp-Toothed Fish abandoned their attack on Gray and also began fleeing toward the lake.
’If we don’t run now, we’ll be next after those terrifying humans finish off the Blood-Handed Demon Fish!’
Maki chased after it, dragging his Heavy Sword and panting for breath.
"Damn it...!"
’How is this thing so fast at escaping?’
Just as he was about to catch up, the Blood-Handed Demon Fish would whip a tentacle at him. In the brief moment it took Maki to slash it apart, the Demon would once again pull away!
’Soon... soon I’ll be back in the water!’
The Blood-Handed Demon Fish shrieked with glee in its mind.
’Next time, I will never underestimate these damn humans again!’
’You won’t trick me again!’
A wellspring of power began to surge as Zelir charged his energy!
Zelir channeled all the Magic Power in his body, pushing the intensity of this spell as high as he possibly could.
The Blood-Handed Demon Fish had already dragged itself to the edge of the shallows.
It used every ounce of its strength and leaped forward—just as it had when it lunged from the water to devour the sheep’s corpse—ready to fall back into the lake and return to its home.
"Damn it...!"
Marcus watched the massive black shadow arc through the air and cursed inwardly.
’After all this work, is it really going to get away?’
A ball of pure blue light bloomed, shooting past the demon and plunging into the water ahead of it.
It was Zelir’s Magic!
Fueled by the massive amount of Magic Power that Zelir was pouring in regardless of the cost, the water in the shallows began to change rapidly.
Frost Technique!
An intense chill radiated wildly outward from the spot where the light had landed!
The lake water began to solidify at an incredible speed, freezing and spreading outward with a series of sharp cracking sounds! CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The layer of ice rapidly thickened.
Instead of landing in the water as it had hoped, the Blood-Handed Demon Fish slammed onto the surface of the ice!
CRASH!!!
Its massive body smashed through the ice.
The sharp edges of the broken ice dug into the Blood-Handed Demon Fish’s wounded body, dyeing the frozen shards crimson and restricting its movements.
Freezing so much lake water in such a short amount of time was no easy feat for Zelir.