System Breaker: Surviving Apocalypse with Nine-Tailed Kitsune-Chapter 13: Dangerous

Damon rolled just in time to evade the monster’s initial charge, its claws swinging where he stood just a moment ago.

It moved quite fast for its size, but not faster than Damon, who was significantly smaller than it was.

The blade of his tachi whistled through the air before leaving a deep cut across the monster’s lower limb.

To Damon’s surprise, there was no blood escaping the large gash.

’It’s made of ice?’ Damon frowned slightly as he sidestepped the monster’s retaliation. Inside the wound, he noticed glistening shards of ice, as if the creature was made of nothing else but frozen water.

Damon’s tachi whistled again and again. Each time, connecting with the monster’s enormous body, each time leaving a deep cut on its limbs or torso.

If his blade was any shorter, his strikes would not reach, if his strength was any lower, if his stats were more balanced as he wanted them to be just earlier, he would not be strong enough to cut through.

He smiled again, it was almost as if he was met with a perfect match up, just strong enough to see the path for victory, at least that’s what he thought at first.

The monster suddenly stopped countering. Then, after another of its deafening roars, it slammed its clawed arm into the ground, and a moment later, a massive shard of pale blue ice erupted from the ground.

Its sharp edge scratched across Damon’s leg as he barely managed to avoid it. But his second step wasn’t much easier, as another shard exploded from the ground, then another. The battlefield turned into a minefield of erupting ice shards, each step was like a deadly trap.

"Ughh, you will owe me for this!" Kitsune’s voice purred with slight annoyance. "When I give you a signal, strike"

Damon frowned with confusion but didn’t question it.

Then, just as he avoided another few ice shards exploding from the ground, the signal came.

"Now!"

He wasn’t sure what she did, but the monster froze in place.

Damon didn’t waste another second as he dashed forward with his tachi raised high. His blade cut through the monster’s torso with a vertical strike, before following with a horizontal one.

The moment the monster’s senses returned, its body swayed.

Damon didn’t waste time and followed with a final, third cut.

[You have slain a Level 26 Ice Terror.]

[New Monster Index bonus: +4 Stamina, +4 Vitality, +5 Mana]

[You have reached Level 13. You have received 1 Stat Point.]

[You have reached Level 14. You have received 1 Stat Point.] 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

The Ice Terror’s body slumped to the ground with a heavy thud. But Damon didn’t watch it fall as he suddenly felt his connection with Kitsune weaken. Noticing her small fox dropped to the ground, he moved toward her.

’She’s asleep?’ He frowned as he lifted her off the ground. She was breathing, though her presence seemed weaker than it was.

Only after confirming she was alive, he turned toward the slain monster.

’What was that? Some type of mind control?’ he wondered, as he recalled how the monster froze in place, as if unable to move. He lingered on that thought for a while, until his face shifted toward the Rift Core.

’Let’s get out of here.’

The air grew thicker as he approached the shard of darkness. He watched it for a moment, mesmerised by how impossibly dark it was, as if the space he was looking at simply didn’t exist.

’Spark of mana...’ he remembered Kitsune’s words about how to destroy it.

He stretched his arm outward before sending mana toward his palm.

In an instant, the black jagged lines which were scattered across the sky split, enveloping the whole sky in darkness. A moment later, the world collapsed, and Damon’s vision turned dark for a moment before his senses slammed back into him as fast as they disappeared.

The temperature was the first thing he noted as the biting cold was now gone, replaced by warmth that made him let out a comforting exhale. Then, the shapes around him began to make sense.

He was in the same place he had entered the Rift, though with one quite significant difference. The alleyway was gone. The brick walls that stretched all around him were now nothing more than a large pile of rubble and debris.

Damon’s eyes widened as the entire neighbourhood around him was leveled, no building remained standing as if tornado had run through it.

Suddenly, he heard a low groan of something moving beside him. He turned to see a lone undead human limping toward him.

He looked at the weak monster with a perplexed expression before sending it hurtling through the air with a simple slap of his backfist.

[You have slain a Level 2 Undead Human.]

It was like squashing a fly. Damon didn’t even turn to see where the monster landed as his attention turned toward Kitsune, who was still deep asleep.

’Whatever ability she had used must’ve taken a big toll...’

After finding a quiet space to sit down, Damon remembered her explanation of mana stat, how she wanted him to raise it to 20.

He had already received 5 from the Ice Terror, which meant he was at 19 points.

With his two level-ups after killing the monster, he had two stat points left. Without wasting much time, he summoned his status screen and put one point into dexterity before putting the second point into mana, raising it to 20.

This time, the change was sudden.

He felt a sharp burst of warm bloom in his abdomen, more specifically, where his core was. It felt violent at times, and calming at others, he felt it surge and weave until the feeling subsided and he felt a strange difference in his mana, one that he couldn’t quite explain.

But then again, he didn’t have long to dwell on it as a pair of slender arms suddenly wrapped around his neck from behind.

"Thank you," Kitsune’s voice purred in his right ear. Her body pressed against his back for a heartbeat before he felt the mana in his body shift.

It took only a moment for Damon to realise that his mana was leaving his core and going straight toward her. It was only once half of his mana was gone that she released her tight grip on him, and he finally managed to turn toward her.

Her lips curved into a dangerous smile, while her feline eyes stared at him with a piercing gaze.

’She’s dangerous...’ Damon realised.

He’s gotten used to her being his ally, but the truth was, she was far more powerful than she lets on. But it wasn’t just her strength alone that was dangerous, even her looks...

Damon studied her for a moment, his heart hammering against his ribs.

’Very dangerous.’