Defiance of the Fall

The demon kept stabbing down at Zac , trying to turn him into a sieve . The second stab hit straight into his arm making Zac scream out . He tried to push down the demon again and wrestle the knife out of his hands with his own free hand , but the demon’s strength was at least equal to his .

In a last desperate attempt , he could only pray his constitution wouldn’t fail him . He let go of the demon’s hand holding the dagger , and intercepted the hand that was holding back his axe .

The demon immediately plunged the dagger into his gut , once more unleashing the black lightning . The blazing pain once again erupted in Zac’s body , but by now he had somewhat acclimatized to the attack .

He ignored the spasms in his gut , and ripped away the demon’s hand and finally managed to swing his weapon down full force at the demon’s neck .

A loud bang was heard as the axe slammed into the ground , creating a large crack . A second , smaller impact was heard as the demon’s decapitated head fell down onto the ground a few meters away .

Another arrow whizzed down from a nearby tree toward his head . But Zac had expected this , and dodged the attack . The ranger had shot a steady stream of arrows at him during the melee , most at least grazing him . Luckily he had been in such close proximity to the demons during the fight that she had only dared aim at his extremities .

He finally saw where the arrows came from , and as all the other demons were dead he finally managed focus and locate the elusive ranger . He spotted here up in a tree not far away from the fights .

With a steely gaze that spoke of death he got on his feet and started running towards her .

Chapter 29 - Inscriptions

Zac was kneeling next to the body of the female ranger , panting with exhaustion .

The hunt luckily had ended quite quickly . She had immediately tried to run when Zac started approaching , jumping from one tree to another . Her speed up among the branches had actually been slightly higher compared to his own down on the ground .

She likely was a Dexterity based class . She even had the time to shoot a few arrows while fleeing . Zac was fully focused on keeping up , so could only manage to deflect the projectiles if they headed straight toward his head or chest . That was because he simply held his axe right in front of his throat , moving it slightly upwards or downwards to intercept the arrows .

Suddenly , as she had tried to jump to a branch on another tree , Zac had used a sneak attack with his last dagger . As she was mid-air he flung it with full force , punching a hole in her back .

She didn’t immediately die from the attack , but she did fall down from the tree tops . And before she managed to get back on her feet , Zac was upon her . He ended the fight with a swing without any words . He didn’t want another suicide bombing incident on his hands , after all .

It was lucky as well , because if that dagger didn’t hit , he’d likely have been forced to flee instead . He didn’t want to try throwing his axe , as it was his most important tool for survival on the island . Then the enemy would have a detailed description of him and his power .

He grabbed her bag and found some cloths he assumed were for bandages . After a quick sniff to make sure that it wasn’t actually doused in some chemical or the like he used it to bandage himself up . His whole body had holes punched in it , from everything between arrows and roots , and the bandage was only enough to treat the worst ones .

He was still bleeding , but it seemed that the wounds hadn’t hit any major arteries or organs . By now normal puncture wounds usually stopped bleeding by their own after a few hours . He could still tentatively put weight on the leg , but he wouldn’t run a marathon . His whole body felt like he had been used as a punching bag , mainly from the black lightning of the leader .

Unfortunately the ranger’s bow had snapped when she fell down from the tree , so he didn’t bother taking it with him as he planned to leave .

He did take the quiver and remaining arrows though , as they had survived the fall . He also skipped taking the armor , as his axe had destroyed the whole thing .

After dragging the body into some thick bushes , he turned back toward the location of the fight with the others . After slowly waking back for a bit he was there .

A barghest had found its way to the corpses from somewhere , but surprisingly it didn’t eat the corpses . Zac had seen those demons eat everything , including members of their own race before , so it was interested that this barghest only dared to sniff and growl anxiously at the corpses .

It reinforced Zac’s suspicion that these demons were not wild animals , rather beasts reared by the humanoids . They were a good tool to use as a meat shield to weaken and tire the enemy . Of course , they didn’t seem to work too well in the complicated terrain of the island . Zac edged to the beast and killed it with one strike as it was distracted by the bodies .