Luna let out a dry chuckle in her wounded state as she continued to slowly heal herself. "To think the last nasty face I see before my death would be yours." She said to Lucian, who was by her side, his eyes fixed on the beast. Luna felt exhausted, and she was running out of mana; her magic was weak, and she had used a lot of mana when the beast had poisoned the air earlier before. Thᴇ link to the origɪn of this information rᴇsts ɪn 𝓷𝓸𝓿𝓮𝓵✦𝕗𝕚𝕣𝕖✦𝙣𝙚𝙩
"Stop using magic." Lucian whispers and gathers Luna's weak form in his arm, moving slowly while keeping his eyes on the beast in order to check if the new found theory he had discovered from watching the beast fight earlier was true.
Luna stopped her magic and wanted to complain about the discomfort she felt from Lucian's hold but stopped when she noticed that the beast's growling had suddenly reduced and its fast-paced movement towards them had slowed down. Her breath seized as Lucian got closer to the beast, keeping his back against the wall as he moved towards the exit behind the beast.
The beast stopped its movement and sniffed the air, turning towards them once again, and it growled loudly in rage.
Lucian cursed under his breath, "This would have worked if you weren't covered in blood."
Luna glared at Lucian, ready to defend herself and say that her injury isn't her fault. "Blood." She said out in realization, "The beast is able to track us by human blood."
"Not just by blood alone." Lucian added. "By magic as well." He placed Luna on the ground close to the last escape route they could use against the beast.
Lucian had already thought of the possibility of running away like the others, but it was a waste of time for him; although the monster was huge, it was fast, and running away when they had no ability to fight like Nova, Thorin, and the others was a death trap, and to make their situation worse, Lucian and Luna didn't have any firepower magic abilities that could break down any part of the dungeon to block off their escape route and stop the beast from pursuing them.
It was dangerous, but Lucian had a plan.
"Why aren't we running?" Luna asked in a panicked tone.
"Don't use your magic; it can pinpoint your exact location faster if you use your magic. Stay here quietly and be bait." Lucian's eyes follow Luna's blood that has been trailing their movement. His eyes were cold and calculative. "Hopefully your blood will be able to distract the beast for a while and buy me enough time to find its weak spot."
"And if you can't?" Luna's voice trembled in fear, dreading what failure meant for the both of them.
"Then…" Lucian dashed towards the sword that had been left behind by the monster's first victim; he admired the sharpness of the blade that was nothing like the rusted sword he had been carrying around. There was magic infused in the blade; Lucian could feel it, but he didn't know what sort of magic it was, and knowing wouldn't help because he couldn't use it. "... I will die along with you, and the last nasty face I would see will be the beast's and yours that's barely visible."
Luna smiled. "Not the right time to make a joke."
"I'm not joking." Lucian replied back in a serious tone.
Luna frowned and narrowed her covered eyes at him. 'Play dead,' she thought as the monster scratched its claws on the ground, thinking that she was there, but only the stain of her blood was on the ground.
'If I die and end up eaten by this creature, I will force my ghost to show up and kill Lucian. Before the beast finishes him, I must have my revenge.'
Lucian lunges forward, holding the sword tightly in both hands as he quickly approaches the blind beast with quick, careful steps, risking his life to get underneath the blind beast. From watching the beast fight with others, he was aware of the hard skin it had on its back; it was so strong that weapons couldn't penetrate it. Lucian's sword shook unsteadily in his hand and vibrated through his body as he tried cutting the beast across the chest to its belly; although the skin there looked soft, it was as hard as its back.
Alerted by Lucian's attempt, the beast's long tail rampaged, moving blindly in different motions to attack Lucian.
Lucian clenched his jaw, knowing that he has no time left after his first failed attempt. The beast's hard scales rearrange on its body as an attempt at self-defense, with a sharp gaze. Lucian watched the scale heading towards its neck and realized that the beast was trying to protect its weak spot. Quickly, he spun around as he jumped, making use of the martial art training he learned for self-defense as an heir to his father's empire. His sword sliced through the tender part of the beast's neck. As Lucian's feet hit the ground, he attacked the beast again at the same spot, with all his strength, and pursued the beast in its sloppy movements to run away.
"I always thought the only reason you weren't bullied in school was because you were a rich kid." Luna heals her wounds in awe of Lucian's ability to fight.
Lucian rolls his eyes and shakes his head at her. His breaths were heavy, and his tired bones collapsed on top of the beast's dead body. Lucian steadied his breath as he absorbed the beast's magic, stealing it, making it his own. The magic felt incredible, different from the other beast ability he unconsciously stole.
Luna took the knife Lucian used to kill the beast to call off its snake-like tongue.
[Mission Complete] Her system voice rang out in her head, a screen appeared in front of her, and the tongue in her hand suddenly disappeared.
[The beast Achiloq is dead.]
Luna took note of the increase in EXP and other parts of her system status that barely moved when she did little tasks.
[Reward: Hidden skills, Death assassin; unlock]
'Woah,' Luna thought. Through her new skill she finally had a combat ability. She could put a lethal poison on any weapon she wanted to fight with. But her new skills came with conditions that made Luna frown and groan in dismay as she read the writing on her system.
In order for Luna to improve on her skills, she also needed to increase her physical strength, and her lean, short structure wasn't encouraging.
"This system is useless." Luna muttered to herself and turned to face Lucian. "It's just the two of us, so what next?" She asked.
"I think I know who the villain is." Lucian had his suspicion of Nova for a while ever since he could read her thoughts, and with the way she betrayed them, he was sure of the identity she wanted to hide.
Lucian sat upright on the dead beast, resting his arms on his thigh. He stared at Luna's bangs, failing to capture her eyes. "I don't know about you, but I'm the vengeful type; there are certain humans I'm interested in killing. They are no different from the damn beast that tried to kill us."