Chapter 37: A Thousand Cuts

Chapter 37: Chapter 37: A Thousand Cuts

The early morning sun cast long, needle-sharp shadows across the amber turf as Eric and Coal stepped through the shimmering dimensional vortex into the Tyra Grasslands.

This time, the atmosphere inside the rift felt completely transformed.

Low-tier Level 3 Riftspawns and wandering Fleshcrawlers scuttled away in blind terror the moment they caught a whiff of Coal’s suffocating Level 9 predator pressure. Demonic beasts bolted into subterranean burrows and jagged shale fissures before Eric even drew his blade from its scabbard.

Ignoring the low-level fodder entirely, the duo pushed straight past the outer plains, heading toward the rugged limestone canyons and dry riverbeds where the heavier quarry congregated.

Within twenty minutes of high-altitude aerial reconnaissance, Coal emitted a sharp, resonant whistle across the soul tether.

Down in a dry, boulder-strewn riverbed three hundred meters ahead, a massive, four-meter-tall behemoth was tearing up thick ironwood roots from the riverbank mud.

Eric dropped into a low crouch behind a limestone outcropping and focused on his talent.

*Appraisal.*

│ Race: Gorgefiend

│ Rank: E

│ Stage: Mortal

│ Level: 8

"A Level 8 Gorgefiend," Eric whispered across the mental link, a cold, focused smirk touching his lips. "Weaker than you in raw level, Coal, but don’t get reckless. That beast is still a walking siege engine of muscle and calcified bone."

*Caw!* Coal’s pitch-black eyes narrowed with lethal predatory focus.

*WHOOSH.*

Coal tucked his obsidian wings tight against his flanks and plummeted from the cloud cover like a dark comet.

Mid-descent, his body blurred as smoky Shadow elemental mana erupted outward from his plumage, splitting his silhouette into six identical shapes, the true Coal flanked by five pitch-black Shadow Clones.

*SKRRRRAAAK!*

The Gorgefiend snapped its horned head upward with a deafening, concussive roar, swatting wildly at the air with its massive, club-like forearms.

Coal’s Rank-D Flight made the clumsy swings look pathetic.

While the five shadow illusions swooped in erratic spirals, pecking at the beast’s ears and raking across its eyes to completely monopolize its sensory aggro, the true Coal dropped through its upper blind spot like a falling guillotine.

*Shadow Talons!*

Dense, pitch-black Shadow elemental mana coiled around Coal’s ivory claws, elongating them into razor-sharp phantom blades that hummed with a low metallic vibration.

*SHRED!*

Coal swept across the monster’s thick trapezoid shoulder muscles in a high-speed strafe.

Unlike their first encounter weeks ago, the reinforced Rank-D talons sheared through the titan’s calcified hide like soft leather, spraying dark crimson blood across the riverbed gravel. The titan roared in agony, whipping its massive left arm around in a blind frenzy, but Coal had already banked hard off a thermal updraft, soaring effortlessly beyond reach.

Down below, the titan’s overextended counter-swing threw its colossal frame off balance, exposing its lower spine and legs.

Eric moved.

*Shadow Steps*

Channeling refined mana down through the meridians in his calves, Eric’s boots seemed to merge with the dark contours of the limestone boulders. He blurred forward in a low, soundless glide, crossing a ten-meter expanse of jagged terrain in the fraction of a heartbeat.

*SHLICK!*

His iron shortsword bit deep into the back of the titan’s right knee joint, cleanly severing stabilizing tendons and forcing the four-meter brute to crash heavily onto one knee with an earth-shaking thud.

Before the monster’s muscular tail could whip around to crush his torso, Eric executed a secondary shadow burst, drifting seamlessly three paces backward into the protective shelter of a boulder.

Because of the Gorgefiend’s colossal vitality pool, dense skeletal density, and immense physical mass, landing a single, clean killing blow was nearly impossible for a Mortal-stage cultivator.

But Eric and Coal didn’t need a single strike.

Their strategy was death by a thousand cuts.

Coal dived repeatedly from the sky, carving deep crisscrossing gashes across the beast’s exposed neck, spinal column, and flanks, while his clones kept its bloodshot vision completely blinded by feathers and smoke.

On the ground, Eric darted in and out of the titan’s blind spots using *Shadow Steps*, exploiting every stagger to open deep, bleeding lacerations across its ankles, Achilles tendons, and wrists.

Every time the behemoth lashed out with its fists, it struck only empty air and dissipating wisps of shadow smoke.

Ten minutes of relentless, coordinated harassment bled the giant dry.

Staggering, trembling from acute blood loss, and thoroughly exhausted, the Level 8 titan let out a pathetic, wheezing groan as its remaining leg buckled.

*THUD!*

The four-meter colossus crashed face-first into the dried silt of the riverbed, kicking up a thick cloud of dust and falling completely motionless.

Coal folded his wings and descended from the sky, landing gracefully atop the fallen beast’s horned skull with a sharp, victorious *CAW*.

Eric walked forward, stepping over the trampled mud. He reversed his grip on the shortsword and drove the blade firmly into the creature’s upper chest cavity, prying loose a dense, walnut-sized *E-Rank High-Grade Mana Stone*.

"Phew..." Eric wiped a bead of sweat from his forehead with the back of his sleeve, holding the glowing crimson crystal up to the morning sunlight with a broad grin. "Clean tactical execution. Zero damage taken."

He looked up at Coal with fiery, unyielding ambition in his eyes.

"We’re just getting warmed up, Coal. Let’s hunt four or five more Gorgefiends before dusk. If we maintain this tempo for the next six or seven days, we’ll stockpile enough high-grade stones to fuel our closed-door cultivation for the entire upcoming month, and punch straight through into Soldier Rank."

*Caw!*

Coal trilled in fierce, echoing agreement, his obsidian plumage rustling as they turned their sights deeper into the canyon.