Defiance of the Fall

He wanted to stay under the radar for a while longer . If the corpses were left alone hopefully the local wildlife would eat it . Then it would look like the beasts were killed in a fight with other beasts , rather from a few swings of an axe . His plans of slowly grinding levels and gaining battle experience would be over if this thing flew back and reported to its superiors .

There was only one solution , he had to kill it .

Luckily it did not look overly powerful with its small stature and scrawny arms . One good swing with the hatchet and it would be decapitated .

Zac did not want to take any chances however , and decided on a surprise attack . He slowly circled around and closed in on the imp from behind . He kept a careful watch for its reactions but it seemed absorbed in examining the corpse .

A snap was heard from beneath Zac’s foot when he was only 5 meters away from the imp . The failing light had caused him to not notice a fallen twig lying in his path . He froze for a millisecond but then immediately charged at the imp with all speed he could muster .

The imp’s preservation skills were impressive . As soon as it heard the sound behind it , it jumped over the carcass of the beast while letting out a high pitched screech . It managed to turn around midair with its wings and Zac saw its face . It had four pitch black eyes . One set was placed like a human’s , and the other set were placed slightly more apart up on its forehead . It had no nose except two holes , and its mouth was a small circle full of sharp teeth . From the few flaps of its wings it seemed like it was unable to fly , but able to elongate its jump considerably .

Zac desperately tried to catch up , afraid it would be able to get away . The imp did some obscure gestures with its hands while floating away , as Zac was closing in on it and the carcass of the beast . Suddenly a purplish-black flame erupted on the imp’s hand , and it somehow threw it straight towards Zac’s head .

Zac barely had time to position his head out of the way , but a part of the sinister flame managed to land on his shoulder . Any plan of killing the imp flew out of the window , as Zac’s mind turned white in a blinding explosion of pain . The black flame was far more dangerous than normal fire , and it seemed it that somehow managed to burn his soul . The pain on his singed flesh was nothing compared to that pain .

Zac was completely dazed by the pain and fell over the demonling carcass instead of jumping over it . The imp landed a few meters away , still screeching at him . After a few second of observation it once again started to summon a flame with its mysterious hand gestures .

With a shake of his head Zac managed to clear his sight . Unknowingly to him his eyes were completely red and tears were streaming down . As soon as he got back up on his feet he had to immediately jump out of the way from another of those black insidious flame balls . It missed him and fell upon the corpse of the demon instead . The fire caused the corpse to visibly shrink , as though all moisture was burned instead of the flesh .

He once again charged toward the imp but it simply kept jumping backwards . Its wings helped it gain momentum , and it was even slightly faster than Zac . It even had time to occasionally turn around to make sure it didn’t run into anything .

The imp was essentially kiting him , throwing out a fireball every few seconds . The closer Zac got to it the harder it was to dodge . After a minute he had been hit another 3 times by the when he got close . The first time it barely grazed his arm so it was not too bad . If you could call the pain of getting stabbed a hundred times not too bad . The second hit him in the gut , which almost made him double over and puke his guts out from the agony . The final one hit his leg .

That hit had made him unable to keep chasing the imp . He could barely put any weight on the leg , it felt like it had been paralyzed . The pain was so bad he almost swung his hatchet to chop it off . He knew that he would not be able to dodge anymore when it threw its next fireball .

In a last desperate attempt to survive , he hurled his hatchet with all strength he could muster straight at the chest of the flying demon .

Chapter 16 - Choices

Zac was on his knees , panting heavily . His clothes were a completely burned and bloodied mess . All around him were signs of the imp’s rampage , with pockets completely drained and devoid of life . Zac realized that the fire of the imp did not burn like a normal fire , rather it burned life-force or cosmic energy . His burns looked like all moisture had been drained from his skin and it now had a pallid grey color . It was like those parts of his body was like that of a desiccated corpse’s .

The corpse of the imp was lying against a tree roughly 10 meters away from him , the axe still firmly planted in its chest . The constitution of the monster was quite frail , and it had died immediately when the axe hit .