The Ruined Death Knight

"Kiaagh!"

"Dammit! what was Merrick thinking by jumping up ahead right into the mouth of that thing! Serah, calm down! You two! We got to get away while it´s still blinded! If we run away now we will still have the chance of surviving!" Serran said as he struggled to stand straight up even with his staff supporting him.

"What!? Do you actually want to run away after seeing what this thing had done to Merrick and Nolan! Are you telling me to run Serran!?" Hannes yelled, showing his firmly his disagreement.

"Idiot! That´s because we are running away in the first place. If we are killed, the death of those two would even be for nothing! It´s better to report this quest as a failure and run off with our lives while we still can!" Serran scolded Hannes before turning his head to Danzel.

"Hey, Danzel! We are getting out of here! With this thing blinded we ca-"

"It´s not..." Danzel quickly stopped him from speaking any further.

"Huh?"

"Look" Pointing his finger at the earth lizard, more specifically his eye with an arrow in it was staring in their direction.

Realizing what Danzel meant, Serrans's face turned pale.

"I-Impossible, it can still see us!? With that arrow!?" Serran said with a hint of fear in his voice.

"If I had to guess, it can only see us barely, the important part is that it can vaguely guess our position...´

Hearing that Serran became much calmer than before, but the frown on his face remained.

"Then...."

Without letting him finish, Danzel quickly stopped him.

"You tw-No, you three go and run away from his place. I will stay and..." Pointing his sword at the screaming earth lizard, he said with a tone cold.

"...And kill that lizard."

"What!? You crazy!? You want to fight this thing too!? Didn´t you see what happend to Merrick just now!?"

"..."

Seeing Danzel not responding, Serran was surprised that he was serious.

`Does he actually want to buy us time to let us leave while he stays and sacrifices himself?´ Serran doubted but based on their situation he couldn´t interpret what Danzel said other than buying them time for them to escape.

`Is it because he is confident to take on that earth lizard or because he wants to play the bait...´ Looking at Danzel that wasn´t showing any chance, he beat his lips before saying with a grave tone.

"If that´s the case we will help you, since we all accepted the job, we-"

"You can´t, or rather you guys will just get in my way..." Danzel said ice-cold to his face.

Serran wanted to object, but his word wouldn´t get out of his throat after seeing the earth lizard and the tall Danzel looking down on him.

"I didn´t think you were such kind of guy..." Serran mumbled to himself as he turned around while hitting Hannes with his staff lightly.

"You dork! We getting out of here!"

"But-"

"Now!"

Running with Serah and Hannes towards the patch they came from, Serran took a last glanced at Danzel while glancing at his staff tightly.

`Sorry...´

Danzel who looked back at the leaving group nodded to himself.

`Yeah, get out of here! With you guys here I can´t even use my other spells on that thing!´ 

Just by staring at the earth lizard, he felt disgusted by his regeneration.

Not only did the holes of the spikes already heal together with all other smaller wounds that they made in the start, but this thing also didn´t even look tired at all!

Compared to the alpha wolf that he had fought, this guy's regeneration was disgustingly good.

Confirming that that guy had already left him alone, his grin grew much bigger.

"Finally some time alone...."

"Gwaaagh!" Screeching with blood spilling out of his mouth, the earth lizard made his charge at Danzel.

"Sadly, you met a bad match you big lizard..." Releasing his dead mana out of his body, his sword got engulfed with the dead mana while dark green mana was rushing to his hand.

"Feel the decay-" Casting his spell, a dark green mist flew in haste towards the earth lizard and entered his body.

Ignoring the weird mist together with the weird feeling that he was getting from his body, it raised his leg and smashed it down to Danzel, aiming to smash him into bits.

"Hmm, I expected a bigger reaction..." Mumbling to himself, the mana in his body made him lighter and faster than ever before.

*Baahm!

With the leg falling down and creating a small crater, so did two of his toes fell to the ground, separated from his leg.

"Gwaaaagh!" Screaming from pain it turned his body and swiped all around him as he lost sight of Danzel.

Throwing his sword and pulling Veren out, he channeled his mana and cut through the air, releasing a sharp green wind towards the tail.

With the impact of the wind cutting some of the tail and pushing it back, instead of running away from the tail's radius, Danzel dashed directly at where his [Gale Mana Blade] hit.

Swinging his cold sword towards the already injured tail with both hands, he separated the tail by itself with the dead mana flowing through his blade accelerating the decay of the wound.

"Ugh~the headache..." Grabbing his head again he created some distance while deactivating his [Cursed Blade] and [Swift Movements].

With him receiving the backlash of upgrading his [Mana Arms] to level 9 and using so many spells and abilities at such a short amount of time, even though he had enough mana left, those things demanded quite a lot of his mental prowess.

"Gaaawgh!"

"This thing sure can´t be any louder huh?" Danzel looked at the earth lizard in annoyance.

Observing the wound of his toes and tail, Danzel felt satisfied upon seeing no hints of regeneration.

"Hmmm, usually ts should start turning his flesh into a necrotic, but..." Noticing that the wounds he did not show the expected effect of the [Cursed Blade], he sighed internally.

`As the [Cursed Blade] disables his regeneration, the regeneration disables the damaging properties of the effect of the skill...´

"It´s good enough for a level 1 skill..." With the crimson light of the Veren runes devouring the remaining blood on his blade, he started guiding his mana into his body once again.

"I guess it´s time to finish this farce..."

Making up his mind, Danzel started to walk slowly towards the earth lizard.

That´s right, although he was much superior based on his agility stats and [Swift Movements], that thing's strength was nothing to joke about.

Although he could probably survive one attack, he doubted if he could survive a second one.

This is why he chose to walk instead of rushing in just now.

With it having a lost trace of him and probably being blinded by the pain, he decided to use [Silent Steps] to get closer.

For him, he found working smarter to be better than working harder.

Reaching 5 meters away from the earth lizard, Danzel looked around while thinking of how to kill such a huge thing.

`With how fat this guy, killing it by destroying his heart doesn´t seem doable, if anything I got to aim somewhere around his head.´

Gazing at the earth lizard head in wonder, his sight fell upon the earth lizard's neck.

`There...´

Finding his target, he dashed and leaped to the air with the help of the [Leap] skill while gathering his dark green mana around Veren.

"Gwooogh?" As the earth lizard bloodied sight noticed a green light behind him, it was too late.

*Fsheeeeen!

With the air blade cutting through the wind, it cut a big part of the earth lizard neck, which made it raise its head up high from the sudden pain.

"Gwaaaaaaagh!"

Landing at the earth lizard's back, Danzel held himself on the open wound while raising Veren with the other sword.

Swinging Veren with all his strength, he cut through the flesh and the spinal cord, inflicting extreme pain on the earth lizard.

"GWAAAAGHHH!" 

A shriek echoing through the whole forest came from the earth lizard.

And like a puppet who had all his strings cut off, the earth lizard fell to the ground completely paralyzed, only capable to move his face a bit.

After the smoke cleared in the air, Danzel stared at the lizard in surprise.

"That thing is still alive?"

After saying that, a huge amount of life force flowed through the lizard's neck wound, slowly pushing the spine back together and the flesh itself closing.

Danzel who was staring at that without hesitation pierced Veren at the spine with his dead mana burning the life force.

"Gwaaagh-!"

"Be quiet already, you aren´t getting out of his alive..." Piercing Veren deeper through the wound, he kept open the with his remaining arm that was already draining the life force with a dark green light.

"Let´s see how tenacious you really are." Saying that with a deep tone.

Veren´s runes lighten up in crimson light, closely followed by the cries of the earth lizard.

"Gaaaawgh!"