Precise Strike

Maya looked like she had seen some things; her eyes were filled with hatred towards the man who captured her.

She was a bit battered and bruised which led me to assume that the baron had been interrogating her before I had arrived.

But with her life still intact, it had been long since the torture had begun.

"Well, I only need one of the rats alive," said the baron as a third tentacle separate from the two holding her up changed shape.

It kept its tentacle look but it shrunk, or rather, it condensed into a thinner but sharper form where the tip looked like a needle.

Before the tentacle was able to stab into Maya's body, I threw a throwing knife that I picked up from one of the goons I had defeated on the top floor.

The baron looked at me with eyes of disappointment as if he was scolding me for making a foolish decision; it's the same sort of eyes a daycare teacher would give a child for not sharing their toy.

"Don't make this harder than it has to be masked man," said the baron as all six free tentacles turned into sharp weapons and attempted to stab Maya.

I threw four more throwing knives to deflect the closest ones and the last two, after quickly dashing forward, I used the katana in my hand to parry them.

The two tentacles wrapped around Maya's arms began to tighten up as if they were attempting to crush her limbs into mush but I could see her resisting the pressure as her arms were covered in a thin layer of mana that kept repairing itself as it was being damaged.

"Gerald Giggador," I called him by his real name.

"How... how do you know that name?" he asked as he began attacking me with his tentacles. He wasn't outraged by the fact that I knew his secret identity and if he was, he was doing a great job hiding it.

"Let the girl go and I'll tell you," I responded, flipping in the air to avoid the giant tentacle that was about to strike me in the head.

"Why would I do that when I can just ask you later when you're on the ground, bleeding out, begging me to give you a quick and painless ending?" he asked as two of his tentacles behind me curved back around.

I rolled backward and as I was getting up, one knee on the floor, I lifted my katana just in time to block the needle-tip that was about to stab me in my eye.

"Because Gerald, I think you're afraid of facing me without a hostage in your grasp," I taunted him.

The baron let out a little chuckle that didn't sound like a human's voice near the end.

"You're trying to trick and rile me up. It won't work but I'll play along with your games if you agree to take your mask off," he said as his tentacles came from both my left and my right.

I lowered my body just in time for the tentacles to crash into each other rather than me.

"Alright fine. On three. One... two... three!"

Neither of us did what we agreed to do.

"Look at you trying to trick me," I said as I picked up a throwing knife on the floor in the middle of dodging his attacks.

In the midst of our exchange, he was trying to attack Maya again and I used the knife to alter the trajectory once more.

"You also failed on your end of the agreement," he commented.

"True. Alright, for real this time. On three. One, two... three!"

I pretended to take off my mask and it was halfway off, revealing my mouth but seeing that the grip of his tentacles on Maya's arm didn't loosen up, I reversed the progress.

"Why'd you stop?" he asked.

"Because you're not letting her go," I said as I threw two more knives, one at the tentacle that was looping around towards Maya and another directly at the baron's face.

He casually moved his head to the side to dodge the knife as if it wasn't moving at an impressive speed and generating massive power in the air.

"If I let her go, will you actually tell me the truth about how you know the name as well as reveal your face?" he questioned as he pushed his body up into the air using his tentacles as a pogo stick of sorts.

Six giant tentacles were crashing from the ceiling with additional force from gravity.

Allowing instincts to completely take over my body, I dodged them by a margin of mere inches.

"I promise," I responded.

"Fool me and I promise that you'll be begging for death. I won't have any mercy for you or the girl you're trying so desperately to save," he stated. He was threatening me but his voice remained calm and casual as if he was having a regular situation at lunch with a friend.

He released Maya and immediately with her arms free and her legs planted back on the floor, she turned invisible and disappeared from the battlefield, reappearing behind me.

"Can you deal with the people who are about to crash open the basement door any moment now?" I asked.

"...Okay," she seemed a little hesitant to accept at first but realizing that my battle with Gerald was what was keeping her alive and that there was only one exit out of the basement anyway, she had no choice but to deal with the goons whether or not she wanted to do it.

She turned invisible once more and I could no longer sense where she was in the basement. I could only assume she was preparing to ambush those who were about to enter the fray.

"My masked friend, will you tell me now?" asked the baron as he picked up the throwing knives I sent at him with his tentacles and threw them at me.

"Ting!"

"Ting!"

"Ting!"

In one swift motion, I intercepted all of the knives that were trying to stab at the delicate parts of my body.

"Could you remind me because I think I forgot," I said.

"Remind you what?" he asked.

"Remind me when I made an oath. Get tricked bitch."

"Hahaha," he laughed, his head even looking up at the ceiling as he wiped his laughter tears with his index finger. "I already had a feeling you were going to do this. As expected of humans. They never learn."

"If you knew then why'd you still do it?" I asked as I dashed forward, rolling, dodging, and occasionally leaving small cuts on the surface of the tentacles.

"Because torture tastes better when it's personal between me and my victims," he answered as his eight tentacles wrapped around each other and began spinning like a massive drill.

'What the fuck is this?' I asked, seeing a move that wasn't mentioned in the novel.

The main character must've killed the baron too quickly that he didn't get the chance to show off his unique moveset and abilities.

Quickly, I assessed the speed, angle, and trajectory that his tentacle drill was approaching me at.

I had the choice to evade or to face it directly.

Evading it seemed like the obvious choice so that was what I went with.

But as I avoided it, like a homing missile, the drill continued stretching, spinning, and following me around.

'I need to counterattack,' I thought to myself as I leaped and landed on the top of the spinning drill.

If I couldn't dodge the drill no matter where I ran then staying where the drill couldn't reach me was the better decision.

It'll also serve a second purpose as I could use the tentacles as a direct pathing to the baron's actual body.

I lost my footing and nearly fell to the ground but I began moving in the opposite direction the drill was spinning in and slowly began making my way up.

"Stupid choice," said the baron as the drill lifted up into the air as well as myself.

It unraveled itself like a rose blooming and I began plummeting towards the ground. Eight loose tentacles surrounded me and closed in, attempting to crush my body into a compact cave.

I didn't expect this from the baron because Diamesca followed through with his pattern regardless of how big of a hole it dug him.

'Does this rule not apply to Gerald because he was killed before he had the opportunity to show off his moves and fighting pattern in the original novel?'

Swinging my body, I spun it mid-air like a top and kept my katana close to my body, deflecting the collapsing tentacles as I made my way back down to the ground.

After I landed, I lowered the katana almost all the way down to the floor, and with a swipe upward, I left a giant wound on the tentacle above me.

I noticed it was using mana to heal the wound.

'Hmm...'

I was confident in my stamina and how large my mana reserve was.

I began to contemplate the chances of me winning a battle of who would run out of mana first which was essentially game over for either of us.

'I like my chances.'

As the baron pulled his tentacles back towards him, I went in the opposite direction to get myself more space. Again, he wrapped his tentacles together into this large drill that began coming towards me.

As his drill approached, my option to evade was inefficient so I needed to go with the other, facing it directly.

The sharp tip of the drill looked like it was singular but at the end of the day, it was eight just tightly wrapped together.

There has to be a vulnerable point that I could attack to not only split the drill apart but also cause a temporary pocket for an effective counterattack.

Getting into a lower but more stable base, I cocked the katana back as if I was going to shoot it out of a bow.

I focused my vision, only looking at the tip where everything connected together. None of the rest of the drill mattered.

It was approaching closer and closer, gaining speed with every moment, and in less than three seconds, it was going to put a giant hole in my chest.

Exhaling, I stabbed the katana forward, striking that small point where everything touched.

Unlike a flower blooming, this time the drill unraveled in a manner that resembled the spins of a tornado.

The tentacles near the floor crashed into it while the ones away from the floor were pushed all the way to the ceiling.

I could see Gerald who was staring directly at me, his right eyebrow a little raised.

I lowered my stance even further, angling my body as if I were going to strike the floor, my katana dropped to my side as if it was sheathed.

As the tentacles on the ceiling began plummeting back down, I swung my katana upwards with enough force to lift my body off the ground even though I hadn't jumped.

In one powerful stroke, I had sliced off a huge chunk of three of the tentacles.

They began regenerating immediately but I could sense by the twitching eyelids on the baron's face that the price he was paying wasn't cheap.

"Is that all you got?" I asked, chuckling.

Weaving his other tentacles which were moving more aggressively than before, I heard a sound from behind that pulled my attention away from the baron who was clearly trying to hide his anger.