The Rules of Blood-Volume Two ; Chapter 68 (284) - Dark Maw
“Iskahulului Amar,” Tahreni yelled, summoning her Bagh Nakh.
The iron fists appeared out of the marble, and in a second, they were on her hands. Spiked fists at the ready. Velakia dashed to the side of the mole, all the while pulling out her daggers. Blanc hit the ground with his sword half-drawn, yanking it clear.
There was no time for the bow.
By the time they brandished their weapons, the mole emerged. A beast eight feet tall and twenty feet long. And somehow even uglier up close. But what made Blanc’s stomach turn on its side was what the mole had in between one of its limbs.
A large boulder was closely held between one of its clawed limbs.
The mole smelled the air, then shrieked.
Lendros moved a step back, polearm at the ready, steel pointed towards flesh. But that was his mistake.
When his foot touched the ground, the mole shattered the boulder in its hand, sending shards flying towards his direction. Then dashed towards Lendros’s location.
Lendros dashed, repositioning himself, barely dodging the rock shards and the rushing mole as it raced by.
Tahreni rushed inward on the mole’s left side, closing her fist and pushing the spikes forward before stabbing the beast’s ribs with a punch.
The giant mole reacted to the pain, since with a sharp movement to the side, it pulled Tahreni upward into the sky with its nose.
Lendros, seeing that, dashed towards the airborne Tahreni, placed the wooden part of the polearm between two rocks, and launched himself into the sky, catching her midfall.
Blanc reacted to the opening Tahreni created. He dashed forward. Velakia joined his side.
“I will go for one of its legs,” he yelled.
Velakia nodded.
Blanc positioned his sword, preparing for the swing as he ran.
Velakia rushed from Blanc’s left to his right, heading towards the beast’s back side. She threw a dagger in the air, catching it in reverse grip as she rushed past Blanc.
Just in time for Blanc’s swing to make contact.
Its hind limbs were somewhat flat, its claws able to dig, crush, and give the beast its great speed.
They had to go.
With the strongest swing he could muster, Blanc struck at its exposed, sickly, pale limb. The sword cut through skin, flesh, but it stopped at the first contact with the bone.
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As the mole began screeching in pain, Blanc dashed backward, pulling his sword before the beast reacted.
He needed at least another cut like that to properly cut its foot off. But the mole turned towards him as he touched the ground. He dashed to the side.
The giant mole was still stuck on Blanc’s previous location, dashing towards an empty field.
Then realization hit him. It couldn’t hear his light steps.
With a quick thanks to all the owls inside his soul, he ran towards Velakia.
“The mole can’t hear my footsteps. That’s how we put it down.”
“What do you mean?” Velakia asked the next moment.
“Keep him distracted,” Blanc replied, before taking off again.
Velakia complained something under her breath. But turned towards Tahreni and Lendros, who regained a stable footing.
“Tierga pim de,” she yelled to the two, rushing towards the mole.
The mole heard her approach, turning while swinging its claw, half-buried in the rocks, sending tens of stones all around the approaching Velakia.
She ducked, letting the closest to her pass overhead before continuing her dash towards it.
She turned to the left. The mole followed.
A faint, as she turned to the right, the next moment.
The mole expected that, matching her, mouth agape, aimed straight for her last location.
It snapped its mouth shut. Nothing.
A dagger cut the left part of its face, as Velakia, with a second faint, ran past it, repositioning herself.
It didn’t get to go after Velakia as Tahreni and Lendros were already nearby.
Lendros dragged the wooden part of the polearm across the rocks, drawing the beast’s attention towards him.
It took off in his direction, the giant mole enraged.
He stopped, placing the tip of the polearm deep into the rocks below, placing his feet as steady as he could on the ground, embracing himself for impact.
The mole impaled itself, the polearm passing through its shoulder, and sending Lendros flying to the ground.
The beast took a step back, the pain making it screech, sending its body from side to side, trying to remove the polearm from its own body.
But it didn’t manage, as a fist sent its head to the side, Tahreni’s spike-filled punch catching its nose with her fist, stunning it for a second. Just enough for Blanc, with a second swing, at the same wound he gave the giant mole earlier, cut off one of its hind limbs.
The sharp pain sent the beast into a frenzy, making them all take a step back.
The beast was wounded. And its life was close to an end.
Perhaps sensing it lost, with the remaining strength it had, in its frenzy, polearm stuck in its shoulder, it began digging, trying to retreat underground.
Blanc sheathed his sword, drawing his bow as quickly as he could, and Velakia took this time to run towards Lendros to help him get on his feet.
“No!” Blanc yelled towards her, his hand already inside his quiver.
But it was too late.
As Velakia grabbed Lendros’s shoulder, behind her, as if jumping out of the water, the giant mole emerged, its dark maw wide open, ready to rip out the lives of the two.
Time slowed for all of them.
Velakia and Lendros raised their eyes, all of a different color, only to see Blanc aiming an arrow at them. And their hearts stopped when his hand let go of the arrow.
The moment their eyes followed the arrow approaching felt like hours in their mind, yet they couldn’t dodge.
But as if time was picking up speed again, the arrow passed between inches of both their faces, planting itself deep into the giant mole’s mouth, the tip stopping straight into the middle of its brain.
As a deep rumble left the mole’s mouth, as its eyes went into the back of its head, and as Velakia and Lendros turned to see the giant beast half a foot away from them, with a loud thud, it fell dead before even touching the ground.
Volume Two ; Chapter 68 (284) - Dark Maw
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