"My mentor, I know you too well." Belte tossed aside the hand cannon that had run out of bullets, a look of satisfaction spread across his face, covered with tumors and lumps: "Whenever you trade wounds, you always instinctively roll backward, and since I struck your right leg, you will definitely retreat instinctively to the back right."
"Ugh~" Jacob gently pressed his abdomen, blood seeping through the seams of his gloves. The tall stature of the Demon Hunting Master trembled slightly under the reflection of the flames: "Tell me, Belte, why did you choose this path?"
"..." Listening to his mentor's words, looking at the blazing warehouse, there was finally some change in Belte's eyes, a complex emotion filled the face of the Fallen Hunter: "Order has taken too much from me."
"I served humanity my whole life, spent decades as a Demon Hunter, dedicated my life to those nobles, but when my wife's life was on the line, they refused to help me."
"The plague first took my wife, and then it took my daughter. I watched my daughter become weaker each day, with sores spreading on her body, and I was powerless. I even knelt before the Bishop of the Merciful Goddess Church, begging him to save my daughter. And what did the gluttonous bishop do? He merely cast a trivial divine art and left."
"Left with no choice, I tried everything, prayed to all the deities, and finally, from the void, a deity responded to me, one kind like a father. In my despair, I was overjoyed. He promised that as long as I devoted myself to him, my daughter would not die, hahahahahahahahaha! He really did it; my daughter did not die!" Belte laughed maniacally, pulling a roughly 300-milliliter glass bottle from his pocket: "Look, my daughter did not die!"
In the glass bottle, a piece of flesh floated in a murky liquid, with an eye growing on it.
Jacob knew, this was Belte's daughter; she was still alive, but only just alive.
The fire had spread to where the two were standing. If not for the Dwarves' ingenious underground tunnel construction techniques making ventilation less difficult, both of them would have risked oxygen depletion.
"...You should have known long ago, an Evil God will grant your wish, but it won't be as you envisioned." Jacob's mind was a whirl of emotions, sadness, helplessness, anger: "So you turned to worship the Blood God Khorne."
"That was... bang!" Belte was only halfway through talking when the Fallen Hunter suddenly raised the war axe, blocking an incoming mercury bullet with the axe blade. The acid in the mercury bullet splashed on Belte's axe blade with a crisp sound.
"I know you well, my mentor. You like to launch surprise attacks when least expected." Belte lowered the axe blade.
"Then how about this move!" Jacob was waiting for just this moment.
When Belte raised the axe blade, his vision was obscured by the war axe, giving Jacob enough time to unleash his strongest combat skill.
"Blood... Hurricane!" Jacob wielded a sword in one hand and an axe in the other, executing a perfect frenzy combo between sword and axe, each strike exchanging a wound for a wound.
"Come on! Mentor Jacob!" Belte also drew his sword and axe, and the former disciple launched his strongest combat skill as well: "Dance of Death!"
The blades swung, the axe edges clashed. The warehouse collapsed in flames; the falling roof and beams did not impact the duel between the mentor and student in the slightest. Any debris nearby was caught up in the battle of the two Legendary Tier powerhouses and shattered into pieces.
"Bang bang bang bang bang bang~!" The clash of combat skills left neither able to gain the upper hand, and by the time the set of combat skills ended, the place where they stood was reduced to complete ruins.
Above the ruins, the battle raged on. By the light of the burning ruins and embers, neither had any intention of stopping. After a series of overwhelming attacks, Jacob finally gained the upper hand.
The Demon Hunting Master slashed left and right with the war axe, leaving two scars on Belte's chest. Belte's longsword pierced Jacob's right shoulder, and every move they made was aimed at each other's vital points.
Jacob's longsword barely grazed Belte's neck, and in the next second, his large axe swung down directly toward the Fallen Hunter's crown. Belte howled endlessly, spinning his body to unleash a series of three sword strikes at Jacob.
At the crucial moment, Jacob stopped his movements. In a flash of decision, he realized that continuing would lead to his death before Belte's, so the Demon Hunting Master quickly retreated, drawing a fire cannon from his chest and firing several shots.
Belte dodged them all. The Fallen Hunter, covered in numerous wounds, hung his left arm limply against his chest, with a gash on his face, but he was laughing, and the more he laughed, the happier he seemed: "Jacob, how much more blood can you shed?"
Jacob's face was as grim as the ice of the Winter Festival.
Because he already felt weak.
A weakness brought on by excessive blood loss.
The Demon Hunting Master knew that even if Belte fell and advanced, his combat power would at best reach a Legendary Middle-tier Fallen Hunter, and his strength still surpassed that of his former disciple. Furthermore, Belte, having fallen only recently, had not yet mastered that filthy strength from the Blood God. Tʜe source of this ᴄontent ɪs novèlfire.net
But, Jacob faced a deadly problem.