บท 33: Fighting with ones life hanging by a thread

Artemis was filled with adrenaline and couldn't feel the pain at the moment but that would change as soon as their fight would come to an end.

They had to defeat the vulture as soon as possible so that Jason could treat Artemis' injury.

Because of its inability to fly, the vulture´s actions were rather passive than aggressive which surprised Jason a little bit, forcing him to make the first move.

Running away wouldn't be feasible because the vulture was probably still faster than Jason and even wanting to try it would be suicidal.

The vulture was around 10 meters away from him and Jason slowly inched closer to it until he reached the distance of four meters.

Abandoning his slow pace, he changed his stance, only to make a big stride forward, with his body leaning forward.

After making a single stride, Jason sidestepped to avoid the incoming swing of the vulture's uninjured wing while Artemis shrieked from above.

She dived down and caused a ruckus, her loud shriek distracting the vulture, as it turned its head upwards to welcome the diving beast.

The vulture readied itself for her but surprisingly the attack didn't come from above but from the front.

Jason delivered a quick but impactful punch onto the vulture's head.

While he punched the vulture with one mana enveloped fist, he tried to yank the Jade iron dagger out of its wing with his other hand. He would need his trusted dagger in order to finish off the beast.

Unfortunately, the dagger didn't completely loosen up, despite Jason using all his strength.

Shaking its head, the vulture that was now injured could only see a blurry image of a youth standing in front of him.

Due to the injury, the vulture was enraged, and seeing the blurry youth only a step away from it, the vulture tried to attack him with its claws.

Jason rolled away, but he wasn't completely uninjured as his back was grazed by the razor-sharp claws.

Ignoring the pain, Jason saw that the dagger began to loosen due to the vulture´s sudden movement, and additionally, gravity did its job, causing the dagger to fall out of the vulture's wing.

Seeing that, Jason first evaded the vulture's beak and lunged towards the dagger in a suicidal jump straight in front of the vulture.

The vulture hadn't expected that and turned around but it was distracted due to Artemis' second dive, straight at its back.

Her mana-infused talons weren't even able to pierce through the vulture's plumage.

The vulture was beyond enraged but it decided to treat Artemis as an annoying flea that was not worth its attention.

Focusing solely on Jason, however, was probably the vulture's biggest mistake.

While Jason reached for his dagger, with the vulture waiting to pounce on him, Artemis used her wings to reach the vulture's head that wasn't covered by plumage.

She directed her whole reserve of mana on her claws and dug them as deep as she could in the beast's head.

It wasn't enough to heavily injure the vulture or even kill it but it cried out in pain, trembling in agony, which gave Jason enough time to pick up his dagger and stab it.

Piercing into the vulture's body, the plumage hindered the attack slightly but the dagger still penetrated its defense and met fresh meat.

The vulture let out an ear-splitting scream that resounded throughout the area, ricocheting off trees and boulders.

Jason's ears ached and he was tempted to cover them with his hands.

As he twisted the dagger, the painful shriek climbed another octave until it disappeared after a few moments.

Sensing the life force within the vulture disappearing and the subsequent result, i.e, its death, Jason fell on his butt. He was way too exhausted to even stand firmly on the ground.

The whole battle didn't take a long time, and lasted at most for 2 minutes, starting from the vulture's surprise attack. But his mind had calculated hundreds of possibilities adding to the tension. Adding Artemis' injury and him being unarmed, had led him to push himself to his extreme.

His body was still doing fine except for the small injury on his back and blood was still trickling out of it.

Getting up, Jason stored the vultures' corpse away when Artemis glided towards him with some difficulties.

After the battle came to an end, Artemis almost immediately felt the injury on her back, hindering her flying ability slightly.

She somehow managed to perch herself on Jason's shoulder and both left the wild zone as fast as possible to avoid fighting anyone. They were both utterly exhausted and had had enough for the day.

30 minutes later they entered the dome once again.

The sun was going down while a little bit of sunlight combined with the light from the mansion-sized tents brightened the surroundings.

Many youths were sitting around a campfire talking to each other as Jason passed them without greeting anyone or even paying attention to them.

Unbeknownst to him, Jason was the person the youths had been talking about after seeing him entering the dome.

His face looked beautiful, almost feminine if not for his detailed facial features that said otherwise. His big golden eyes were illuminated by the surrounding lights, highlighting Jason´s return.

Jason's black hair was disheveled and his clothes were tattered and dirty, giving him the appearance of a wild and unkempt boy.

Sensing his and Artemis mana, they found out that he was extremely weak compared to them, with Jason radiating the mana of a 5th Novice rank and Artemis was obviously a two-star wild beast.

The youths wondered if the golden-eyed boy looked like this because of a battle against a three-star wild beast and started laughing at him.

How could they know that a quasi 5th Novice rank mana fluctuations were in reality, a 3rd Novice rank who had fought a suicidal battle against 3 five-star wild beasts? He had killed them even if the whole fighting process had been riddled with tricks and hidden assassinations.

These youths would only dare to do something like that when they reached the 8th or 9th Novice rank and even then only with superior weapons and armors to protect themselves.

Most of them would still be accompanied by a guard or some other teammates to help them if they were to end up in a disadvantageous position.

Entering his tent, Jason put some medicine on Artemis and his wound. He then bandaged his own wound and left Artemis' wound uncovered.

He wasn't exactly sure how deep her wound was but the area of her injury was at a bad spot.

As such, he decided to give Artemis all the two-star cores he had accumulated, in addition to the three five-star wild beast cores he had left, in order to accelerate the healing process of Artemis with the huge amount of mana she could digest.

She would probably sleep for a few days but it was still fine.

Unfortunately, he had to kill another two five-star wild beasts until the day after tomorrow but he wouldn't force an injured Artemis into a fight, as it could end up in a devastating situation.

Artemis gulped down the cores before she went into the soul world to digest the overwhelming mana.

Meanwhile, Jason ate some meat, and afterward, he also went into the soul world to practice the Heaven's Hell technique before he washed up and slept.