"God damnit!" I exclaim in panic as the giant armored absolute mountain of muscle ape comes thundering toward me at incredible speed; A moment later I am forced to use blink to get away from the hulking beast monster, else I will become meat paste as he lounges himself towards me with hands up and ready to grab me and squish me like a mosquito.
Blinking 20 meters behind him, I am forced to drop to my knee to steady myself from my disorientation and swimming vision.
'Damnit, I'm still almost wrung dry; It's only been 10 minutes at most, since the fight with the porcupine-cats…
I'm still too wrung out to be able to safely cast magic reliably.' I remind myself as I try to stop my vision from swimming and refocus on my enemy.
'I have to fight with my sword; It's the only option I have left.
...I really should have trained more with my sword, dammit.' I lament to myself.
"Note to self: Start practising more with your god damn sword, dumbass!" I mutter under my breath before I take my stance and prepare to do a sword draw.
As the 200 kg mountain of semi-ape semi-turtle monster reaches the 30 meters mark from me, I draw my katana and do a horizontal sweep, going from left to right.
Once I complete the swing, I hurriedly return the blade to my sheath to prepare for my next draw.
A split second later, an audible roar of air can be heard and an barely visible airblade materializes and promptly and quickly flies towards the huge muscular monster ape-turtle monster that is still rushing towards me in a mad dash.
Just as my katana once again rests in its sheath, the first airblade hits my foe head on; Unfortunately, there is barely any damage done to its hard exterior, except for a thin and long rift in its armor.
I once again draw the blade, much in the same arcing way as before and before I manage to return the blade to its sheath from my swing, the next airblade materializes and once again quickly flies towards my foe that is almost upon me now.
This airblade hits the ape-turtle at a diagonal; its right half of its chest and the left side of its head get hit and a thin rift in its armor can be seen.
A loud and angry roar immediately follows as the airblade hits my foe; Its left eye has been destroyed by the airblade, and blood and the remains of the eye is now leaking from its now partially empty eye-socket.
Its right eye however, is now bloodshot and that with the expression on its face, conveys that it is now absolutely and totally mad with rage and will do anything and everything to smash me to pulp and tear me apart; And it freakin' scares me.
"Shit. Shit!" I exclaim and draw my blade once again, trying to aim my slash so it hits its right eye, so I may blind it.
A slip second after my swing ends, the now familiar sound of rushing air can be heard once again, and a split second later another airblade is flying towards the now totally enraged ape-turtle monster that is now upon me.
As the last of my airblades hit the enraged monster; This time hitting its left shoulder, but going above its head as it tilted it in the last moment; I slash my katana horizontally from my right side where I ended my draw, to the left, in an attempted to take off one of the huge monstrosity's legs.
Unfortunately, the armor is too tough and my blade only sinks in part way into its thickly armored and tough wire-like leg muscles, but it is enough to slow the thing down and if I'm lucky, maybe the blood loss will play a part in me surviving this.
Leaving the sword stuck in the monster's leg, I abandon it in favor of not getting squished, as I throw myself to the side as best I can, to avoid the monster hitting me with its full weight and momentum.
Unfortunately, my effort only manages to spare me from being squished outright, as I am still sent flying backwards a good 10 meters before I hit the ground painfully and start to roll, also painfully as the various roots, bushes and fauna mercilessly whips my body as I tumble through the undergrowth.
Finally coming to a stop, I try to get up, but find that the pain is so overwhelming that I have to lay back down for a moment simply so as to not pass out from the pain.
A long moment passes as I lay there, wallowing in my pain before it finally let's up slowly.
Gathering Mana from the surroundings, I focus as best I can through the pain and will the magic to heal the worst of my bodily wounds; To my surprise, it works, although slowly.
A few moments pass before I can hear the angry stomping of my quickly approaching foe that is searching blindly for me.
Looking around my immediate area, I look for somewhere where I can hide; At least long enough so I may heal myself a little more.
I quickly realize that the best place I currently have available to me, is to hide behind the tree stem of the behemoth tree that is just a few meters behind me, and hope that the ape-turtle monster doesn't have a keen sense of smell.
With my decision made, I laboriously get up from my slumped position and grit my teeth through the pain and start limping my way towards my destination, trying my best not to leave any clues that I went this way.
Once on the other side, I slump down and listen to the sounds of the now ramaging ape-turtle monster that is now going livid on anything and everything within it's reach as it can't find me, it is instead venting it's anger on the environment on the other side of the tree stem I am now hiding behind.
Breathing in and out to try and calm my heart that is seemingly trying to beat itself free from the confines of my chest. After a few moments of breathing, my heart beat slows and I start focusing my mind on gathering Mana to use to heal my beat up body all the while I listen attentively to the rampaging a hulking ape-turtle monster on the other side of the tree stem.
After a few minutes of constant noise from the rampaging monster, the noises lessen and a few moments later they have stopped completely. I have been able to heal a decent amount of damage by now.
'I should be able to move relatively freely, and without too much pain. I think. … Maybe.' I muse to myself as I slowly get up and get ready to go see what the situation with the monster is.
After stretching out my body to check if there is any place or movement that is particularly painful, but I find that while there is quite a bit of soreness and aches, there is basically nowhere where the pain is significant enough to limit my movement in any significant way.
Armed with that knowledge, I recall my katana to me; A neat little feature I found out as I was training with Ter'vi the hermit. It's too bad I can only do it once every day, or I could've used the sword as a throwing weapon indefinitely.
'Some things just weren't meant to be…' I muse sadly to myself as I start sneaking around the tree stem of the gigantic tree.
Once I am on the other side, I take in the sight of the aftermath of the rampaging ape-turtle monster; All the bushes, vines, smaller trees and other fauna that isn't super sized have been badly mauled and strewn about messily.
'The thing really went to town and did a number on the fauna here' I muse as I sweep my gaze over the remains of the once majestic fauna as I search for my foe.
Before long, I find the trails of my foes blood; It is leading off towards a different direction than the one I was sent flying from.
…
"Do I follow it?
… Or just continue my trek?" I mutter thoughtfully to myself. "Even if I did persue the monster, it's not like I'd get anything from killing the thing…" I conclude and turn away from the blood tracks and instead start walking slowly towards the highest concentration of Mana which I can sense.
"I really need to work on my swordsmanship…" I mutter to myself as I once again set out towards the origin of the woodlands.
"Maybe I should use my sword first and foremost, and fall back on magic when I need to instead of going full on gung-ho with magic right from the start…
… … Yeah. I'm a dumbass." I conclude with a sigh as I continue my trek.
End of chapter 30