Chương 166: Fruit?

The behemoth beast was the size of a mammoth, perhaps even greater. Its monstrous trunk hung from its face, adorned with a steel-like mace at its end.

It had a similarly large jaw to the raptors hidden beneath its trunk and instead of one, two solid horns protruded from the skull of the beast.

The two horns curved up, differentiating themselves from the horns protruding from the raptors. In addition to the horns, the beast's black scales were slightly transparent.

From behind its shoulders to its hind legs, the beast's ribs were visible. They hugged the body of the beast, wrapping around its chest like fingers cradling something precious.

Within its ribs, upon a closer look, Emile was sure he saw the monsters beating heart. It was glowing orange, much like their eyes.

Willow acted first, she slammed the ball of her foot into the stone and launched herself at the beast.

With her hammer behind her, she utilized her velocity and swung down at the beast. It mirrored her attack, it's trunk colliding with her hammer which sent a shockwave throughout the hall.

The shockwave slammed into Willow, pushing her back and sending her flying across the room. But before the behemoth could follow up, a blood red fist the size of its trunk came crashing down.

Blood soared through the air, launched by Spright and his charm. While afloat, he pulled blood from the hall's floors and constructed himself another arm.

By the time he was plummeting down onto the beast, his arm was twice the size of himself. He made some final adjustments, adding spikes to the top of his knuckles, before ramming his fist into the monster's skull.

Immediately on impact his knuckle's spikes shattered. His clenched fist first cracked, but ultimately exploded in a storm of glass shards.

Before he could escape, the beast's trunk whipped around and collided with Blood's chest. His ribs caved in, his diaphragm fully closed and one of his lungs collapsed.

And that was before he rocketed across the room and slammed into the ground, skipping across the solid stone floor like a pebble on a lake.

Following up Blood's attack, however, was Emile. While Willow and Blood distracted the creature, Emile put all of his effort into climbing up the levels of Underneath.

Even though the bridges had collapsed, the second floor balcony was close enough for him to jump and reach, along with the third and fourth and so on.

He arrived at the top floor just as Blood was swatted away like a fly. He took a few steps back in preparation, then sprinted forward and leaped off the final floor's balcony.

Emile plummeted down, he activated his charm alongside his fall to reinforce his descent even further. Like a flash of lighting, Emile struck the beasts back.

His sword slammed into the beast, barely piercing its see through scales and sinking only half way into its body. Emile's arms rattled, for a moment he thought his sword bent and snapped.

Not only were the beast's scales impossibly sturdy, even its insides were thick and viscous, catching Emile's sword and preventing it from sinking further.

Emile gripped his sword's hilt with both hands and firmly planted his feet on the beast's back. He pulled with all his might, his muscles bulged and squirmed in uncomfortable ways as he tore ligaments and cartilage to release his sword from the beast's body.

But before he could pull it out, he felt a gush of wind dance across his neck and a severe impending sense of doom. Before his body reacted, Emile haphazardly stuffed essence into his charm in an attempt to escape.

Meanwhile, the creature's trunk swung around its head and was barreling towards Emile's back. With an inch to spare, Emile's figure was suddenly drowned in white light as he vanished from atop the beast.

Its trunk, however, continued with the same ferocity and crashed into Emile's scimitar which was still rooted in the beast's back. His sword immediately snapped, severing in the center while its handle was flung across the room like a cheap toy.

The moment it snapped, Emile felt an odd pain sting the center of his chest, like an incredibly powerful sense of longing overtook him.

His sword burst into fragments of essence before dissolving entirely, joining the mounds of dust and stone that littered the hall around them.

Emile appeared next to Blood, who was curled up against the wall, his skull cracked open and his sole good arm twisted backwards, snapped cleanly on the joint.

Emile delicately placed his palm on his back. He heard Willow grunting behind him, fighting the beast for a second time so he felt comfortable closing his eyes as he concentrated on the flow of essence throughout Blood's body.

His spleen ruptured, he had multiple broken ribs, one of which lodged itself in his lung, collapsing it entirely. And worst of all, his liver ruptured, severed in the center releasing all of its contents into Blood's body.

Emile activated his Gift and watched as Blood's body unfurled. His snapped arm contorted around, pushing his body off the ground and fusing itself back into place.

His ribs fell in line, the broken ones pushed around and held firm by free essence Emile willed into Blood himself. Even the rib lodged in his lung was pulled out cleanly, preventing any more tearing or possible damage.

Emile was confident he could heal Blood's wounds, even the ruptured organs and broken skull, but he was unsure about his liver's contents.

Surely it was dangerous to have all that freely float around his innards, but Emile didn't know what to do with it. His Gift would close the wound without sparing even a glance at the released contents.

In a race against the clock, Emile slid some of his essence into Blood's body and manipulated it around his internal organs. He constructed small waves of essence that softly pushed the liver's contents back into itself before his Gift sealed the organ completely.

Just as Blood was coming back to himself, a door beside them burst open and slammed into the wall. Roy ran out, an armful of muddied roots and pods covering his person.

He looked around, panic strewn across his face, before he caught Spright and Blood just to his right. He stumbled over, almost tripping on one of the vines from a pod encased in his arms.

"Here!" Roy yelled, emotion fueling his voice for the first time, "You can use these, right?!"

Emile saw the panic in the boy's eyes, but hidden behind the curtains, displaced to the side of some foreign place, emerged a hint of hope. Hope he found in the idea of Spright's Gift that had always been limited due to the apocalyptic nature of the world they live in.

Emile checked Blood's condition first, consciousness was still slowly manifesting, but at least he wasn't dying anymore.

Emile stood up and looked at the random assortment of plants Roy was carrying, only one thought occupying his mind:

'What the f*** am I gonna do with a bunch of fruit?!'

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