_Chapter Begins_
A deafening thunderclap rolled through the area as William made contact with the crystals below.
His crash was so violent that the crystal he landed on split in half like a tree branch.
Groaning in pain, William couldn't help but grip his forehead for some type of comfort. He stumbled through the broken pieces of crystal that lay on the ground.
For a moment, there was a weird stretch of silence.
But of course it didn't last for as much time as he had hoped.
"...Not even a minute to cool down?"
A second thunderclap rolled through the world, this one being about ten times more violent than the one produced by William's landing.
Countless shards of crystal were sent flying through the air, each one having the speed of a bullet.
William tried his best to move around and dodge the flying debris, but it was of no use.
He was fast enough to dodge the crystals, but due to the sheer volume of debris that was sent flying toward him—it was simply impossible not to get hit.
The pointy edges of the crystals cut through his skin like butter—leaving deep cuts on his flesh that oozed out spurts of blood.
The blunt sides of the crystals were no less painful, each one leaving a black spot on his skin.
After a few seconds of pure torture, the assault of debris had finally ended.
William staggered, his feet barely holding him up. With his vision blurry—he looked down to see the extent of the damage he had taken.
Taking in the view of his body—a pained groan escaped his lips, and the light in his eyes slightly dimmed, as if his soul had been hurt just by looking at himself.
From head to toe he was covered in his own blood. On the few areas of his body where there was no blood, William could get a view of his skin…
Black… the skin that lay beneath the blood was purely black. His whole body had been turned into one giant bruise.
His black robe had been turned to swiss cheese.It was safe to say that he was pretty much naked now.
A pool of blood quickly formed beneath his feet, acting as a bad omen.
"It's alright… there is no need to panic. I'll just be brought back anyway."
William had to remind himself that the damage done to his body did not matter in this place.
He had thought that this single rule had already engraved itself onto his brain, but apparently it hadn't.
As the dust created by the second landing cleared, William—even despite his blurry vision—could still make out two purple dots that were slowly moving toward him.
He looked to his side, where his sister's ghostly dagger had made its landing as well.
Gripping the dagger's hilt, William held the mystical weapon in his left hand—pointing its edge toward the two bright purple lights that were approaching him.
Strangely enough, the two dots of purple seemed to slow their advance as soon as he pointed the dagger toward their position.
Despite the fact that his body was in pure agony, William still couldn't help but smile at the creature's hesitance to rush him.
He had gotten his soul cut and violated by this dagger just like the monster had, so he very much understood why the beast was hesitant in its approach.
But of course, hesitation did not mean backing down.
The wooden abomination sent its whole body crashing toward him, leaving him very little space to work with. The abnormally long arm of the vile thing slammed down on his position…
And just like always, he had long disappeared into the reflections of the crystals.
The wooden abomination turned its body around with as much speed as it could muster.
It had long learned that William's favorite strikes were the ones landed from behind. That was a pretty smart observation that the wooden abomination had made.
But despite the creature's abnormal intelligence, it still couldn't hope to compete with the human mind.
The purple lights inside the monster's skull dimmed slightly as it saw that nothing was behind its back.
Before it could make any other move—William decided to make his.
Jumping out from the reflective surface of the crystals below, William landed on the chest of the wooden abomination—and without any hesitation stabbed a piece of broken crystal into its wooden carapace.
The demonic beast let out a roar so loud that it made his eardrums pop like balloons.
Now with blurry vision and busted eardrums, William was fighting on pure instinct.
Well, that was sort of a lie, since he had just used his intelligence to land the strike that he just landed.
William knew that the abomination was smart, but more importantly, he knew that its main theme was the power to "adapt", so with this knowledge he decided that he would try to turn the creature's adaptive thinking against itself.
He always attacked the monster from the back, which of course the abomination picked up on… which was what he wanted.
With his attacks being very predictable, the wooden beast would try and "adapt" to these attacks and thus make itself also very predictable.
So once William disappeared into the reflections, he knew for a fact that the wooden abomination would try and catch him while he tried another assault from the back—because that was simply how its mind worked.
The "adaptive" ability that the monster had was very powerful, but it was also very limited. It could only adapt to what it saw, so if you showed the creature only one type of attack, then it would only adapt to that one singular attack.
This flaw left plenty of room for counters, which was what William had done.
But despite this minor victory, the problem still remained the same.
Over time, William would be forced to show more and more of his move set to land strikes, and that meant that the wooden abomination would eventually adapt to everything he had.
Thankfully, he had still not used the dagger on the monster, so it was still his trump card once the thing adapted to everything else he had.
All he needed to do was survive, which would be easy considering the fact that so far the wooden abomination had not shown any ability to damage the soul.
If it was only physical damage that the vile thing could deal… then William's victory was set, as that type of damage could not kill him here.
At this moment he could almost smell his victory.
_Chapter Ends_