Life and Death

The Corrupted moved toward Achilles at an incredible speed, aiming to decapitate the latter's tiny head. This action made Achilles jump back and ran away, he was not stupid to face the abomination directly.

'Need to bait this thing.' A plan started to formulate inside his mind, but for it to work, he needed the Wendigo to drop down its guard.

The beast didn't let him run off too far as it immediately used its superior stamina and speed to catch up with him. It slashed down at him with its claws while letting out a roar. The creature missed its target and smashed the ground, creating a small crater that made Achilles fly away a distance.

[Argh!] Achilles felt another one of his ribs crack as he collided with the ground. He stood up with a tired expression painted on his bloody face and dashed away again, just in time before the Corrupted arrived at his former position.

The Wendigo growled angrily at the slippery prey, it was not happy that Achilles kept running away like that.

The cat and mouse game went on for a while with Achilles dancing on the abyss of life and death constantly, dodging the monster's fierce attacks by a close margin while his stamina steadily drained away.

'Shit! I can't find this thing's weakspot!'

With each muscle he moved, Achilles got more and more exhausted and weak. His eyelids were getting heavier as he slowly succumbed to the sleepiness inside his brain, making his movements duller and more rigid.

...Eventually, his luck ran out and before the Wendigo drops down its guard, it had gotten to him first.

Achilles slipped his leg slightly while desperately trying to run away from the Corrupted.

...It was just a split second of mishap, but that was all it took.

At that very moment, all he saw was a fist heading toward his vision, before he was sent flying away to a nearby tree like a rag doll. He crashed into multiple trees and only stopped after ten whole seconds.

Blood spewed out like fountain from every part of his body, his bones were closed to be blown into smithereens and his organs were nearly pulverized by the ferocious strike from the Wendigo.

His eyesight was blurry and all he could see was a terrifying silhouette heading to where he was laying down. Achilles' mind was groggy as despair crawled its way into his broken heart:

'Can't believe I'll die like this...At least let's bring this damn thing to hell as well.'

He summoned a grenade in his right hand and waited until the Wendigo was close enough. It was the last "Venom Grenade" he had in store after using the other one on the bunch of Wendigos earlier.

Once the abomination was near his position and about to end his life entirely, Achilles muttered with a shaking voice that was filled with weakness, but his red eyes were still glowing with unwavering tenacity:

[...C...catch!]

Boom!

"Gargh!"

The grenade created a cloud of green smoke that made the Wendigo stagger back slightly. A few moments later, the smoke cleared up as the Wendigo looked around confusedly, all of its four senses had been sealed off completely, rendering it incapacitated for the time being.

Achilles forced his body to stand up even if it meant killing himself, he gripped the axe tightly and advanced towards the beast with wobbling footsteps while his body slowly crumbling down. He used all of his remaining strength to slash the Corrupted's neck.

...But unfortunately for him, miracle did not happen.

The axe only made a light cut on the neck as some black blood leaked out. Unfortunately, at the same time, the venom stopped working and the creature's senses returned.

[...Fuck.]

It glared at Achilles with rage and slashed its claws at him. He felt his entire life flash in front of his eyes like a video as a wave of regret washed over him.

It was during that split second before death, a sound of lightning screamed in his ears along with sparks of bluish-white light appeared in the middle of the Wendigo's body. The abomination suddenly froze where it was and it let out a small grunt before something unexpected happened.

A clean red line showed up in the middle of the Wendigo, splitting it into two perfect halves. The two halves fell onto the ground with a loud thud and then gradually disintegrated into flying dust.

Achilles felt so relieved by what had transpired that he immediately succumbed to the exhaustion piled up inside. He fell onto something soft and comfortable before losing consciousness.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"You really risked yourself there, Mark." A silvery-white hair beauty spoke with a tint of worry in her melodious and cold voice.

She was obviously Anastasia Evernight, the heiress of the Evernight family.

She glanced at the place where the Corrupted was before it turned into dust and thought about what had happened in the last two months.

After successfully advanced to become a Higher Surpassed, she began going out to hunt monsters to quickly strengthen herself and reach the next threshold of power.

A month of doing so later, Sia eventually came across a trace of another Divine nearby. Being a curious cat that she was, she tried to locate the unknown Divine's position.

Surprisingly, it was Mark, the man who had caught her interest for a while now. She knew that he had gone out to hunt and somewhat hoped to meet him but was surprised to actually encounter him.

Asides from him however, she had also noticed the existence of a group of Wendigos targeting Mark. She originally wanted to get rid of them but later decided that she shouldn't reveal herself to him.

After a month of stalking Mark, the Wendigos had decided to make their moves on him. Sia thought that he wouldn't be able to fight against so many enemies considering how he had struggled over the past month.

But she was once again impressed by his tenacity and battle skill, he had fought unyieldingly throughout the gruesome battle and even though his death was set in stone if she hadn't intervened during the last second, he still did not give up.

The interest inside Sia's heart for this man who was unconscious in her embrace had risen exponentially with what had occurred.

'Why does he feel so familiar?' She wondered to herself as something clicked inside her subconscious.

"...I can deal with that later. Let's get you heal up first." She spoke with a sweet voice before pulling out a pill inside her pockets, then put the pill inside her mouth and drank a mouthful of water.

After that, she did the most brazen thing she had ever done in her life.

Sia pried open Achilles' mouth...then sealed his lips with the most passionate kiss ever.