_Chapter Begins_
William dove to the left as the massive arm of the wooden beast came by — only missing him by a few centimeters.
"It's so damn fast!"
Before he could even regain his balance, the wooden abomination was already lunging its disgusting maw towards him.
The jaws of the wooden horror bit nothing but the hard surface of the giant crystal.
Using his reflection travel, William moved away from the spot where the wooden abomination had gotten its teeth stuck and moved behind the ugly beast.
Reappearing from the reflective surface of the crystal, William launched himself onto the creature's back.
As the monster squirmed and twisted its massive body, William used the jagged parts of its wooden carapace to hold on.
The fiend was currently trying to break its jaws free from the mystical amethyst that made up the towering crystal.
This gave William a massive chance to land the first strike of the fight.
He used one of his hands to hold on to the wooden carapace of the wooden fiend, meanwhile his other hand shifted upward — a ghostly dagger being firmly in his grasp.
But just as he was about to plunge the soul-destroying weapon into the monster's back... he suddenly hesitated.
But it wasn't a hesitation of sympathy — instead it was more calculated than anything.
William appeared to be thinking about… something.
As the wooden abomination finally broke its jaws free from the rough surface of the crystal floor, William quickly jumped off its back — a low growl escaping his lips as he did.
"Dammit. I can't do it now, I have to wait."
He couldn't use the soul-destroying weapon… at least not now. He needed to wait.
William had pretty easily found a solution to the flawed plan that Elsa had given him, but that solution would be very hard to achieve.
He needed to attack the creature to force it to use its adapting ability and drain all its soul energy. The problem with that plan was the fact that if he used his entire arsenal of attacks on the monster, then by the time its soul energy was drained, he would simply have no attack left to finish the thing off, as it would have adapted to every single strike he could throw at it.
So what solution did William come up with to fix this flawed plan?
Well, it was actually quite simple. He would just have to keep his most powerful attack at bay until it was time to finish the monster off. The wooden abomination could only adapt to attacks that hit it. So all William had to do was keep one of his attacks in reserve.
So the reason why William didn't stab the wooden abomination with the dagger was because… the damned dagger was what he was going to use as his finishing blow.
So throughout this fight, William's plan was pretty simple.
Drain the soul energy of the monster with basic attacks like punches and kicks while also mixing in other attacks he could create by using his "copy ability." When the wooden abomination finally ran out of soul energy — then and only then could William use his… his sister's dagger to finish off the monster once and for all.
The stage was all set. Now all he needed to do was perform.
William once more used his reflection travel to disappear and then reappear behind the creature's back.
However, it seemed that the wooden abomination wasn't as dumb as he had thought.
Before he could even react — a giant wooden claw crashed into his body, sending him flying through the dark sky.
In fact, there were two of him flying through the sky…
There was his upper body and then there was his lower body… both were disconnected from each other.
Fortunately for William — in Hell physical damage simply did not matter.
Hell's system immediately got to work stitching William's lower body and upper torso back together.
As he regained his consciousness, William could only think of one singular thing.
"Thirteen… that makes it thirteen now."
He had suffered through twelve deaths to the wooden abomination, which was the reason why he had challenged it for a rematch.
Now his number of deaths to the wooden abomination had just increased by one more.
His rage towards the monster had already been beyond reason and logic… but now — after this death — it was no longer a question.
He would either kill the wooden abomination or endlessly die trying to do so.
That monster had to die… it had to.
As he fell through the sky, William couldn't help but grin — his pupils shaking like those of a mentally ill person.
If Hell's fetish was making people go insane, then it was doing a spectacular job.
_Chapter Ends_