Chapter 31: Beast Slayer and Critical Strike
Germain quickly reached a clear conclusion.
The creature's fluffy black feathers acted as both armor and shield, which meant that the area hidden beneath them had to be its weak point.
The Lord of Crows concealed the eyeballs that extended from its head down to its abdomen. They were packed tightly together a tangled, mucus-like mass, like a tumor.
Now that he knew the weak spot, the question was how to attack it.
Another eyeball closed on the Lord of Crows' abdomen, and at the same time, one opened on Germain's left arm.
They formed a perfect pair, their cold gaze never leaving Germain's face.
"Pressure +5."
Germain didn't panic instead, he noticed something strange.
The seemingly inexplicable appearance of the eyeballs on his arm must have met some condition.
Otherwise, he'd already look like "Danzo without bandages."
So what was that condition?
He quickly connected the dots.
He had stared into the eyes of the Crow Lord for some time perhaps its curse spread through eye contact, like a disease.
But why his left arm, and not his right, or his chest, or his thigh?
The clue lay in the recent wound Hisoka had inflicted on Germain's left arm a few days ago.
Even with a physical condition stat of 20, the wound hadn't fully healed in just a few days.
Through eye contact, the Crow Lord's ocular curse had planted the "germs" of its disease into that wound, taking root in Germain's left arm.
Even if he didn't look into the eyes on the Crow Lord's torso, looking at the eyes that had sprouted on his own arm would trigger the same curse.
That was the truth.
Amid creaking and twisting sounds, Germain felt a third eyeball "bloom" on the same arm confirming his suspicion.
"Pressure +5."
Germain immediately shut his eyes, refusing to meet the Crow Lord's gaze.
He could have simply lowered his head, but he knew that in any emergency, humans instinctively relied on sight to assess danger.
Since he couldn't fully control that instinct, it was better to close his eyes entirely.
Of course, that didn't mean surrender.
In the dim world behind his eyelids, Germain's focus sharpened, his movements becoming more agile.
Using memory and hearing, he mentally gauged the distance between himself and the Lord of Crows. Then, he pulled a small orb hidden in his black hunter's robe and hurled it.
The orb landed at the Crow Lord's feet and suddenly released a spreading cloud of smoke.
This was a lesson Germain had learned from his previous battle in the Dry Valley.
Instead of using small explosives that only tore off pieces of a beast's torso, he'd decided: why not use poison?
He had spent a painful amount of money on that tiny gas bomb.
However, the Crow Lord's intelligence was clearly far superior to the beasts of Dry Valley.
Enveloped in poisonous mist, it paused briefly then spread its wings.
With a hiss and the scrape of claws, its majestic body soared upward.
Aware of the poisonous gas's danger, it dodged in time and counterattacked.
Like a battering ram, the Lord of Crows dived toward Germain, intending to slam into him.
But Germain didn't dodge he shifted at the last second.
As the Crow Lord passed by, the musket in Germain's left hand vanished, and his palm opened, seizing the creature's claw tightly.
The Lord of Crows lifted into the air again unexpectedly dragging Germain up with it.
It spun wildly in midair, trying to shake him off.
But Germain refused to let go.
When would the Crow Lord shed its heavy wings, exposing its vulnerable belly?
Of course when it took flight.
Not only did Germain endure the drag, he used the momentum to transform his cleaver with a click, thrusting the serrated blade forward into the eye-covered abdomen sizzling as it cut deep.
Blood or perhaps pus splattered everywhere.
"Critical hit! Pressure -10!"
The wound was larger and deeper than Germain expected, as if aided by divine intervention.
In that instant, Germain recalled one of his special skills: Beast Slayer.
The Lord of Crows counted as a "beast."
With Beast Slayer, Germain gained slight combat boosts and a chance to land a critical strike.
That previous slash had, by chance, been a critical hit and it even reduced his pressure by ten points.
The Crow Lord screeched sharply, its spear-like beak stabbing toward Germain's head.
If it connected, his skull would be pierced and his brain devoured.
He had no intention of allowing that.
Germain yanked the cleaver from the Crow Lord's abdomen, his left hand still gripping the creature's claw.
Momentum swung him through the air narrowly avoiding the beak's strike.
Then he switched the cleaver for his musket, aimed at the bleeding abdomen, and fired. Bang!
The close-range blast made his ears ring, and the Crow Lord's wound widened visibly.
Its shrieks and thrashing grew more violent.
Suddenly, it lifted the claw Germain was holding and hoisted him upward then folded its wings like massive hands, crushing him tightly.
Without even spreading its wings, the two of them plummeted toward the ground in a spiral.
Germain's entire torso was pressed against the creature's rotting abdomen.
Sticky fluid and rolling eyeballs flashed through his mind from the close contact.
At that moment, he opened his eyes just in time to see the beak diving again.
He tilted his head as far as he could, but the beak still pierced through his right shoulder with a sickening thud!
"Hssst!" Germain hissed, drenched in sweat from the pain.
The Crow Lord pulled back its beak for another strike, but realizing it was about to crash, it released its grip.
Germain would not waste the chance.
As they hurtled toward the ground, enduring searing pain in his right shoulder, dizzy from the spinning fall, he managed to grab hold of the Crow Lord's feathers with both hands.
He mustered all his remaining strength, clinging tightly to the beast.
The Crow Lord rose once more, realizing Germain was still there. But this time, it didn't try to shake him off. Instead, it let out an eerie cry summoning a swarm of multi-eyed crows.
They shrieked as they descended upon Germain's back, tearing flesh with their sharp beaks and claws, sucking his blood.
Germain's expression remained calm as if the pain on his back didn't exist.
His right hand still clutched the feathers, while his left suddenly plunged into the wound on the Lord of Crows' abdomen the same one ripped open by cleaver and musket and pushed deeper, deeper still!
(End of this chapter)