Shadow Slave

Less than a minute later, a vast swath of the frozen swamp had turned into a ravaged scene of devastation. The pure white snow was washed away, the ice was broken and shattered, its shards floating in the black water like dirty glass. The water itself was restless, boiling and rippling from the furious movements of the Huntsman and the escaping gas.

The swamp was trying to swallow the frenzied abomination, but was getting battered by him instead. The demon would sink deeper from time to time, but then tear himself from the insidious embrace of the marsh... even though that struggle allowed Rain to survive so far, it was not enough to grant her victory.

She was breathing laboriously.

Rain had continued to retreat deeper into the swamp, and the demon continued to pursue her like a demented executioner. She had delivered more than a dozen strikes to him, but none dealt any serious damage - even when her javelin pierced the cracks of the Huntsman's armor, it felt as if she was trying to cut wet fur. Rain did do some damage to the hidden flesh of the demon, but not nearly enough to matter.

At the same time, her own body was not faring well, She had not been cut by the dreadful battleaxe again, so there was little blood... relatively speaking... however, there were bruises. In fact, after being tossed around by the furlous power of the demon's blows, Rain felt like her entire body was one glant bruise, by now.

And that was even considering that she fought as cautiously and cowardly as she could.

The Huntsman had much longer limbs, and his battleaxe had much more reach than the black sword her teacher had given her. So, even if Rain was willing to risk clashing with the abomination face-to-face despite being slower and weaker than him, he would have held a great advantage.

Stories like to speak about exalted skill and unbreakable resolve, but in a real fight, the outcome was often decided by the most mundane of things. Reach trumped skill, and weight definitely trumped will.

Well, perhaps it was different for the Awakened, whose power refused to obey common sense. But for someone like Rain, having a longer weapon meant emerging victorious more often than not.

Which was why she did not draw her sword yet, relying instead on the heavy javelin.

'It's alright...'

Her javelin was crafted from the same material as her arrows, and it was not as if a mundane human could not leave a scratch on the body of an Awakened abomination - in fact, it was entirely possible to slay one, just a bit hard.

end up in such a situation. Her teacher tasked her with slaying an Awakened Demon precisely because it

It was just that...

Huntsman had proven to be much tougher than she had anticipated. Rain had expected to be powerless against his armor, but even when she managed to

Something had to change.

Not only did she have to attack and dodge the terrible

staying

not only because she was pushing her resilient body too far

to

a change was coming

of offense and retreat, was a twisted tree. The tree itself did not mean anything, but the fact that it stood in the middle of a swamp meant

a tiny Island underneath the tree, which could save Rain, or

‘To hell with it'

From her feet to her thighs, through her core

let go of

under the Huntsman's axe, and

was dire enough to give the demon a momentary

but it was slowed down by the swamp, sinking deeper the deeper they ventured into it. By

tiny island, pursued by the sound of breaking

was just barely

all but useless now. Instead, she grabbed something else... a bottle of hard liquor her teacher had procured somewhere the day she turned twenty. Currently, there was

resounded

ungrateful brat? That's my most expensive bottle,

startled voice and produced a brass lighter. She wasn't fond of drinking, anyway... no, really, what had he been thinking, gifting a young girl alcohol? What kind of attitude