Chapter 38 – Final Battle

I suffered a shallow gash to my right shoulder in one of my dodges. It was not serious, but reminded me of the impending danger that I was in. My agility and sprinting skills continued to rise but my strikes never managed to impact with the lizardman. Rather than trying to directly interfere with him, Bliss used her vines to trip and misdirect our opponent. This seemed effective enough to give me time to escape. Slowly but surely, Monte was still working away at my mana capacity. The barriers I occasionally needed, and my bursts of speed continued to drain mana. It had been about 15 minutes since I separated from my friends. I launched a large boulder towards the shadow thief. Instead of dodging like he normally did, a burst of shadows jutted out from his body and the rock burst into smaller pieces. The boulder was intended to slow my opponent down and it seemed that Monte was aware of that fact. He was in front of me within a second, swinging both daggers in different arcs. His right dagger was aimed at my left shoulder moving towards my waist. His other dagger was being carried upward from my stomach area with the use of heavy shadows. No matter which direction I moved, one of these daggers would impact me. As much as I wanted to wait for my colleagues' return, I needed to get serious in this battle. Right now, Monte was completely dominating me and the skills I had chosen to demonstrate so far. Nevertheless, he was still wary of me. I had already shown him my fire ball ability in our previous fight, and he was waiting to see it again. Fire balls were quite effective against shadows, so I was aware that I needed to use the skill against any kind of strong shadow moves.

When I had blocked another attack with a barrier, I observed Monte dropping into his shadow. This was not the first time he used this move on me. It seemed that the skill would automatically pull him into the shadow he was staring at. All I had to do was observe his line of vision. At the moment, he was staring right behind me. Clearly, he was attempting another assassin strike from behind. Rather than blocking, I decided that it was time to unveil some of my skills. I collected multiple fire balls and unleashed them towards my shadow behind me. A blazing lizardman rolled out of my shadow and screamed in outrage.

Gryaaa!

There was his first damage of the fight. Not nearly enough to finish him off but plenty to slow him down. I started throwing spear after spear at the lizardman without any hesitation. He blocked the two spears aimed at his torso, dodged the one near his head, but took a spear in his left leg. I grinned at having successfully landed a hit. I started using my Teleport Vision and would launch multiple fire balls from different locations towards Monte. Observing fire balls from different directions seemed to make him freeze up for a moment. He would be unable to use shadows to escape when surrounded by fire balls. The projectiles closed on him quickly. Rather than attempt a dodge, Monte swung out three daggers at a time. Only one was in his hand and two others were extended by shadows. He began to slice the fire balls in half as they approached him. He still seemed to get a few minor burns but otherwise came out of the onslaught unscathed. With the amount of mana expenditure that it took me, I was quite disappointed. I continued to dart around, varying my fire balls, projectiles, and other distractions. One of the boulders managed to strike Monte in the side of the head when Bliss had successfully tripped him into it with her vines. Following that impact, I managed to catch his injured left leg with a fire ball. Instead of falling over, he was using heavy shadows on his body to hold up his left side. Focusing my flame vision on a single point, I sent a blazing stream of fire into his fabricated leg. Surprisingly, this was not enough to bring down the lizardman. What took him by surprise, however, was the blade of wind that sliced through his right arm. There was a gash through his forearm that was deep enough to prevent him from holding his dagger on that side.

"I'm glad you're still holding up, Sir Hero."

"Airey is fine, thanks. Yeah, I've been keeping him busy. If I had enough mana, I'm sure I could have finished him on my own. He is very fast but doesn't have many new tricks. Once you understand his moves, he's quite predictable."

Reaching out towards the elf, I deposited four packages of explosives from the commercial and entertainment district.

"Sir Airey, I'm not sure I found all the possible explosives but I used Wind Movement to run through every street. If a fifth perpetrator managed to hide the explosives already, I would have a hard time finding them."

"Understood. That is really the most we can do in our circumstances. We will have to keep pursuing them once we've dealt with this villain."

Twiiii!

Bliss had been aggressively wrapping up Monte's body as soon as he was injured. Between my fire balls and Rhea's wind blades, the lizardman gave less of a struggle. Several times, he had broken free from the vine wrap, but it now appeared that he was subdued. Pulling out ropes and one of the mana cuffs from the dungeon, I took a moment to completely immobilize the lizardman. I dragged the tall lizardman towards the guards that had been approaching our location. I handed over the prisoner with instructions that they watch the man carefully.

**BOOOM!**

The ground shook and the buildings shook.

"That came from the industrial district!" I called out to Rhea, facing the direction of the blast.