Chapter 9 The First Trial Of Death (6)

Faced with a desperate Raith, Thard-Harl began to reveal the true level of his strength. Burying explosive strikes into Raith's belly before he could even see it coming.

Strikes that broke his bones and ruptured his organs from within. Raith's death drastically increased.

Forget about withstanding one strike, at this point he couldn't keep up with his movement again. But every time, Raith put his hope in recreating that one moment.

That time when he perceived the opponent's attack so clearly that it looked like it happened to him and acted out of pure reflex. Raith knew and could feel that: the tide of this battle would change the moment he can recreate and master that feel.

"Your persistence is foolish. I am blessed with immense stamina, I can never get tired, you will wear yourself out until your brain can't take it anymore. You keep dying and waking up, you think it is a phenomenon your measly brain can adapt to. But step by step you are crippling your brain, traumatizing that little ball of thoughts. In due time, all that will be left of you is a vessel with no will."

His words carried weight and stabbed truth into Raith's heart. He has always been a very cautious person and has been thinking of the flaw of this ability should it really be that this is not a dream and he can resurrect.

Well, that was before he began to enjoy the fight. At least by now, he was well sure that this is as real as the world of Therut. Which is why Thard-Harl's words got to him even more.

'Will I really become brain-dead?'

As of now, Raith was not experiencing any side-effect and he also had to take account of the fact that the asura might be trying to play a game of mind with him –he is after all a creature that is capable of reading the human mind.

'Reading human mind...'

Raith suddenly froze.

'He can read my mind! Doesn't that mean all my attacks are useless? This means from the beginning even the times that I landed a hit on him, he could have dodged if he wanted. Since he can read my mind and knows where my attack is coming from.'

Raith unexpectedly put a piece of the puzzle together but that was not just it. Asura Thard-Harl was a mind-reading asura. All asuras are relative in terms of their unique abilities and always have one of them.

But because they are creatures with access to superior knowledge and a body that can amass an enormous amount of physical capabilities, they train themselves surrounding that one unique ability they possess.

For Thard-Harl, it was mind-reading. No one could lie to his face because of all the truth, he hears. That is his jurisdiction as a messenger. However, just like everyone else, he trained his body in a martial art that allows him to be able to react super fast to a creature's movement.

And so far so good, he hadn't been using that skill. When he dropped the claws was truly when he got serious. So, there was a chance that it wasn't that he allowed Raith's punches but he just wasn't reading Raith's mind at that time. And there's no denying that Raith in an instance surpassing his speed shocked him and pushed him to go faster than he had ever.

The thought of losing to a human terrified him and for the first time in number of years, he got serious about fighting a human. His emotions rose and twinkled with excitement each time Raith stood from his attacks.

"I will crush you till your bones turn to dust."

"You are a hard-core uh?"

Raith said, relaxing his tensed shoulders.

"Huh?"

His sudden change in demeanor caught Thard-Harl by surprise. —I mean, he was just about to get started for real and Rautb suddenly expressed an unreasonable relaxation.

'Is he mad in the head?'

Thard-Harl's brows twitched and his veins began to pulse in his neck. His upper head reddened as he kept his gaze on Raith –that laid-back attitude of his was pissing him off real bad.

"Are you mad?"

Raith's lips curved upwards.

"Mad? Well... if you consider how I am unreasonably exhilarated to realize that you are stronger than I envisioned, maybe I am mad after all."

"Exhilarated?"

He groaned with a vicious look on his face and gritted his teeth together.

'Exhilarated...? I am spending every second of my life desperately avoiding death and yet he calls that exhilarating?'

Thard-Harl who had already realized that Raith would keep dying and waking up as long as they were in this realm was getting frustrated. –His bluff to destroy Raith's mental fortitude was a failure.

And truth be told, he was the one that was at a disadvantage, although it was slow but Raith was clearly getting better not to say that every moment he died and resurrected, he resurrected with renewed stamina which meant his and Raith's stamina was probably on the same level.

Besides... he didn't have an infinite amount of stamina, he just had an immense amount of it, and using such eye-blinking speed with a constant mind-reading state was suckling the life out of him and draining his stamina at a faster rate.

And since he has been imprisoned in this supposed death realm, he couldn't use the power of his dust.

"I'll crush you!"

He growled at Raith who in response stuck his tongue out with a nasty grin.

"Try me, crimp... I can't wait to devour this version of you"