Chapter 130: Standoff

Would I die if the venom spreading through my body paralysed me completely before Pest finished his spell? I needed to breathe to live. Would I be able to when just having lungs was an effort? The answer was, no. But I would be in much bigger trouble if the mantichora tore me apart with its claws.

"What sort of monster are you, I wonder…" I murmured, starting into its too human eyes. It stared back at me, seemingly not too eager to rush in again.

For an animal who used venom as their main hunting tool, a tactic of poisoning their prey and then simply stalking it until it died wasn't unusual. Especially with how wounded the mantichora was. What it didn't know was that I wasn't entirely without poison resistance… So I didn't move either, but kept my hand raised to send more wind blades if the mantichora as much as twitched towards me.

'How it goes, Pest?' I asked inwardly. 'Don't reply if this is going to interrupt your concentration.'

'I will need a couple more minutes.'

Well, that was fine. Worse comes to worst, I can hold my breath until then. And surely the mantichora won't consider a puddle of slime to be an eligible meal. My hopes rose a little.

'But I won't be able to completely remove the venom, only suppress it, Master. It's not easy, after all…' Now I wasn't mistaken. Pest was definitely gloating.

'Oh yeah?' I grit my teeth. 'I wonder what would happen if I die from the venom after I kill the mantichora. Keep the venom suppressed for as long as you can, Pest.'

'Yes, Master.' Now Pest's voice was full of his usual stifled anger again and everything was as it should be.

Icy wind howled over mountain peaks and threw snow dust into my face. The weakness that found a place in my limbs grew stronger. It became harder and harder with each passing second to keep myself upright and not fall to my knees. I counted seconds in my head. Couple minutes, and I was only on the second number twenty.

The mantichora shifted to the side, carefully holding its mangled, broken wings. I kept following her with my eyes and my hand. It was studying me and I was studying it. Would the bleeding from the wings alone weaken or even kill it soon enough that it would matter to me? I knew it would be dead eventually, no matter the end of our confrontation. It would either starve or be killed by other, still flying, predators.

At the second number forty-three, the mantichora made a sudden lunge at me, only to shift aside mid-movement when I dropped a volley of wind blades at the place where it just was. The lunge was a feint, and I now needed to wait a second to regrow the claws on that arm.

The mantichora used this opportunity to rush at me again with a roar. Only five meters divided us, just a couple of pounces for the beast like that. But I wasn't helpless yet. Despite all its smarts, it forgot that I had more than one arm! Even more than two.

It took a lot of effort, and too much time, but I flung a volley of blades at the monster from another hand. And with how close the mantichora came to me, it couldn't dodge fully—but neither did it try. Instead, it only lowered its head, protecting it with its paws.

From the angle I was at, I could see that these were very wide and furry paws, perfectly adapted for walking over snow without sinking. My wind blades tore into them, slicing them to the bone.

Then I was slammed into said snow by a small mountain worth of muscle. A move that would've instantly killed anyone else by breaking their neck was much less harmful to me. But still harmful.

I didn't have power in me to hold myself together under all that force and mass, so the mantichora's onslaught almost splashed my body over the ground. Well, that was as good a moment as any to pretend to be a puddle. I still had seventy-two seconds to wait out.

The mantichora obviously didn't expect that under its mighty paws, its prey would just turn into slime. It jerked away with its creepy features crumpling in confusion and ended up sitting on its butt and raising its wounded paws up in an almost pitiful gesture.

Such a helpless creature it was now. I could've finished it off easily, if I could force myself to get up, but at the moment I had difficulties with that. The touch of cold snow reinvigorated me a little, but it wasn't enough to prop myself up. The best I managed was to keep my blind sense on. Sixty seconds left…

The mantichora stopped pitying its paws and slowly hobbled towards me. It sniffed at the puddle I was with its too human nose and gave me another suspicious look. I thought it was considering whether or not it should eat me anyway, and if the monster's protruding ribs told me anything, is that it was desperate enough to try.

No, no, no. I was Devourer, not anyone else! I had enough of one Yvenna.

With the resolve to not give in surging in me, I formed a wrist and on it, claws. The appearance of them scared the mantichora away, and it rose its scorpion tail in defence, showing that it had a new spike on it, fully grown.

The mantichora growled low in its throat, but didn't move. Neither did I. Once again, we came to a standstill—a puddle of slime with a single clawing wrist coming out of it, and a mantichora that could barely hold its weight on two out of four of its legs.

But the seconds were ticking. Ticking… And ticking… And with each of them, the numbness in me became stronger, and my fingers shook more and more with the effort of keeping solid.