CHAPTER 539: POWER OF THE BLADE

Ray moved with incredible ferocity like a mad beast.

He darted past the wyvern’s swinging tail then rolled under its crushing claw, then sprang forward and sliced again. This time aiming for the same leg he had slashed before.

The edge of his blade screeched against its armored hide. Sparks flew but no blood coming out because he had not penetrated it.

The beast snarled and turned, its massive body coiling as it snapped at him with jaws wide open.

Ray threw himself sideways, barely avoiding the bite. But the wyvern followed him relentlessly.

It slammed its wing down. The blow caught Ray in the middle of his dodge and hurled him like a ragdoll across the rooftop.

He smashed into a cracked cement wall. Pain exploded through his chest. His blade clattered away and the world spun around him.

Ray groaned, blood bubbling in his throat as he forced himself onto one elbow. He looked up and saw the wyvern was already charging.

Its heavy steps made the rooftop tremble. It opened its mouth, ember-glow building in its throat, ready to roast him where he lay.

Ray moved his body and mind fast. He opened his status window with a thought.

[Stat Points: 18 Available]

He didn’t hesitate to spend that point right away.

[+12 Agility. +6 Strength.]

A burst of light flared across his body. His muscles tightened, his limbs burned with speed and his senses sharpened again. The rooftop slowed around him.

Time didn’t actually stop but he just got faster.

The wyvern’s fire burst from its maw.

BWOOOSSHHH!

Ray was already gone.

He dashed sideways and taking his blade with a smooth motion, then sprinted into a blur.

He ran under the wyvern’s belly and attack.

He sent one, two, three, six slashes in the blink of an eye. All in the same patch of red-black scales behind its foreleg.

The wyvern shrieked in surprise.

Ray vanished and reappeared behind its hind leg, slashing again in that same line.

The scales cracked. Blood spurted in a dark hiss.

He grinned wide and leapt onto its back. The beast roared, flailed, but Ray moved faster now than it could track.

He drove his blade down into a weak point between its shoulder blades.

"KHRRAAAAAAHHH!!!"

A scream tore from the wyvern as it thrashed.

Ray held on and gripping his blade in both hands, tearing down and slicing out as he leapt off the other side.

Then he was on the ground again, sprinting around the monster in tight arcs, dragging his blade along one exposed line of muscle again and again.

The wyvern collapsed to one knee.

Blood poured now from half a dozen wounds.

The monster turned slowly at him and Ray can hear its breathing heavy, wings twitching but unable to lift.

It was weakened from all those wounds.

Ray stood before it, chest heaving, body shaking with adrenaline but still smiling.

He rolled his shoulders. The blade hummed in sync with his heartbeat.

Then Ray heard it. A low and rumbling voice like coals shifting in a dying fire.

The blade whispered to him in his needs of power as if been waiting for this moment to arrive.

"Take it! Take my power, Ray!"

Ray didn’t hesitate when he heard that offer.

He turned his gaze to the weapon in his hand. The obsidian-black edge shimmered with veins of orange and red. The ember-like cracks running along its surface flared brighter.

He grinned wide like a madman. The grin itself looked almost feral.

Without waiting anymore he immediately focused on everything he had. His breath, his will, and his soul, he focuses those into the blade.

The connection ignited. Heat surged through his body, rushing from his hand to his chest, up his spine, and down his legs.

An aura of molten orange and deep crimson erupted around him. Flames licked off his arms. His eyes burned with an unnatural orange glow.

The air warped around him with heat pressure.

[You have absorbed the dormant power of Ashrend, the Flame-Touched Fang.]

[All Stats temporarily increased by +10 for 30 seconds.]

Ray’s heart thundered. Thirty seconds was more than enough for him with this kind of power against the wyvern.

The wyvern let out a strangled snarl and forced itself upright, fury lighting its wounded body. Blood poured from its sides but its eyes flared bright with hate.

It knew at that moment. The monster could feel the power radiating from Ray. But the monster didn’t run. It roared and lunged forward one last time with feral, desperate charge.

"HYAAAAAHHHH!!!"

Ray launched himself straight at it.

His body blurred with speed, each step leaving a scorch mark on the ground. His blade met the wyvern’s chest and carved across. Blood splattered in thick arcs.

He ducked beneath the retaliating claw and moved his body low. After that he slashing again at the same cracked leg.

The wyvern screamed. It snapped its jaws, but Ray was gone again. He was above it now and he was coming down like a meteor with his blade-first.

He struck the wound between its shoulder blades again.

CRACK!

The scales shattered.

Ray dropped, rolled, and slashed upward into the beast’s throat.

It staggered back. Its wings are trying to rise but failing.

He followed up with another blur of attacks. He sent fourteen strikes that all was focused on the same points he attacked before.

Each blow dug deeper.

Each swing was faster than the last.

"HAAAAAAAA!!!"

Then with a final roar, Ray surged in, leapt onto the wyvern’s back once more, and drove the Demonic blade Ashrend straight into its skull.

CRAAAATTT!

The monster convulsed. Then collapsed with twitching limbs but eventually, it fell still.

Silence blanketed the ground around the school building.

[You have killed: Wyvern - Rank B+]

[EXP Gained: +3720]

[Level Up: 15]

Ray stood atop the corpse, his body glowing in dying flames, eyes blazing with power, chest rising with each heavy breath.

He looked down at the world below and he smiled.

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