"Teleport?" Ryan laughed, turning his head. "So that's your plan?" He burst out laughing.
"Plan?" The giant said. "I wouldn't call it that much, if anything, I'd say it's an attention test. I only want what's best for you, after all." He grinned from ear to ear. "Every time you strike me, think twice, because at the end of the blade there might be the head of one of your little friends."
Ryan watched with a smile, but kept analyzing. 'He can switch classes at will, he has a hundred abilities, and as the cherry on top he can still teleport somehow.' Ryan soon noticed they had entered the Eden temple.
The combat setting had changed and he needed to adapt to the new terrain.
Thousands of statues surrounded them on all sides. His instincts were already screaming just beneath the surface, he knew those statues had something to do with the teleport. He just couldn't make the connection immediately.
"Though I must admit, what you did was incredible." The giant looked at the altar. "I thought I'd catch you on the first try, and only on the subsequent ones would you be attentive enough to avoid my trap."
'He thought I was going to kill one of them by now.' Ryan didn't respond, using the labyrinth of statues to conceal his figure as he circled around him. The giant watched cautiously, unsure of what Ryan was doing every time he passed behind one of them.
For a fraction of a second, he vanished.
He could be preparing an attack, he could be throwing a bomb, he could be tending to his own wounds. Who knows? The brief unknown he created made even the giant nervous.
Everyone feared the unknown.
That was a crack in the giant's awareness, and Ryan would use it.
But time kept passing and he never did, just kept walking and walking, using those brief moments of concealment.
His smile stayed fixed on his face like a demon who knew a mistake would be made sooner or later, he had patience, he could wait, while the nervous giant eventually lost the tension and cooled down...
And soon it happened...
It was in the blink of an eye, the giant, tired of waiting, shifted his posture and shed the tension he had built up to that point, and immediately Ryan noticed it. Without tension, reaction speed was slow, so he then detonated the bomb at his own feet and charged at full speed.
The giant's sword fell as fast as it could, but it missed Ryan, who quickly slashed the giant's foot before striking with savagery, dozens more attacks riddling that rotten pillar with wounds, each one deeper than the last.
The giant soon kicked at him, but it only threw himself off balance as Ryan went up and down with his axe faster and faster with demonic ferocity. The giant tried to stomp on him and would have easily managed it, the only way for Ryan to defend himself being to blow up his foot, and soon he would exhaust his stock of bombs.
Ryan didn't have an infinite supply, and both of them knew that.
But that didn't mean Ryan couldn't think of a new use that would consume far fewer bombs.
He detonated the bomb beneath his own foot to launch himself away, and moments later his blade fell upon the giant's thighs. This time he would feast on his flesh.
However.
Ryan blinked, and his axe came down on the apothecary at the altar. A result of the giant's dishonored and forced teleport.
His blade quickly redirected to the left, where the giant's sword was already falling toward him. He clenched his teeth just as the giant did, dozens of blows were exchanged, each more intense than the last as the statues in the way were obliterated.
Ryan blinked, and just like that, he was back on the altar, having been teleported. He threw himself backward, dodging the descending blade. "You're getting predictable." Ryan stared down the giant. "Is this desperation?" He then taunted.
Ryan said that, even so his eyes coldly analyzed the statues around the altar, as more and more of them disappeared despite not having been destroyed. 'He doesn't teleport, he swaps places with them.' Ryan smiled. 'Got you, you bastard.'
His face grew redder with each passing moment from the intense heat of battle while only the sound of steel could be heard. The giant teleported them to the altar once more, this time Ryan dodged having anticipated the attack and bit into the giant's stomach with his blade, shredding his entrails.
The giant spat a torrent of black blood onto the altar.
Ryan didn't wait, hurling explosives into his face, blinding him with the blast and destroying part of it. Making him look more and more like a zombie. He then fell back and readied himself for a new wave of attacks.
"Very well..." The giant murmured. "That was what I expected from you..." He rebuilt his face and wounds. "That was what I wanted to see. But let's see how far you can still go."
"You talk too much." Ryan spat. "I know regenerating comes at a steep price, by now you probably can't trade blows with me."
The weapon shifted into an orb.
Suddenly, he teleported to the other side of the room.
"You're right." He said with a smile. "But who said I need to?"
He teleported far away. To the outermost wing, well beyond Ryan's reach.
Ryan's brow furrowed deeply.
"You rotten rat, why are you running?" Ryan clenched his teeth. "I've always been smaller and weaker and even so I faced you head-on, so why do you run, coward?!"
"I'm not running." The giant shrugged. "Just using a different power."
Two portals opened side by side, dozens of small imps spilling out of each. Ryan's expression turned grim. "Keeping track of one opponent's attacks is easy, avoiding such a simple trap guided by a single person is straightforward." He burst out laughing. "But try the same now with thousands of opponents!"
"Son of a —" Before he even finished cursing aloud he was already trading blows, each of the demonic creatures was weaker than him and ridiculously easy to kill, but with every attack there was a chance of teleport.
And even so the triangular fangs and black claws were far from harmless.
And given their numbers, being surrounded meant death.
Ryan ran through the statues killing them, and without warning the statues vanished, giving way to dozens more enemies. Ryan's focus was pushed to its limit as more blood fell on every side.
The ancient sacred temple, with its pure white marble, was now stained with red and black blood.
Worst of all, Ryan was growing tired, he would lose if he got too exhausted. And it was in that moment that he was forcibly teleported, in a new forced sacrifice attempt. His blade nearly struck the slave.
"Don't worry." He murmured. "I'll get us out of this." He said, growing more exhausted by the second.
He knew he would make a mistake soon.
'I need to cut through them to reach the giant...' Ryan looked at the army of imps filling every corner no matter how small throughout the entire temple. 'But that's impossible.'
Ryan clenched his teeth, knowing he had already failed a second time.
Even so, he took a deep breath and relaxed his face. "I had a strange childhood." He said to himself, severing the head of an imp. "I learned strange things." He kept talking. "I cultivated strange habits."
"But..." Ryan said, looking at his axe, crimson with so much blood. "I never learned the art of killing." He looked at the army ahead of him. "Nor how to use an axe to decapitate."
He smiled like a demonic wolf. "Let's use that as a foundation."
The demonic wolf moved across the battlefield, reaping lives with the axe blade, and when that wasn't enough he used his fangs, and when that wasn't enough he used his claws.
Ryan soon discovered the first principle of killing. "Your entire body is a weapon."
Blood filled his fangs and soon he defined the second principle. "Everything else is just an extension of your will."
The more he fought, the more Ryan forgot who Ryan was. Blood filled his eyes, his throat, his hands and clothes. His body screamed for endless violence, and for the first time in his life he said yes. He did not hold back his murderous will. Kill, destroy, annihilate, quench your endless thirst for blood.
For the first time, Ryan asked a strange question.
Who am I?
No, actually, the one who asked that was...
The demonic wolf.
However, before he could find an answer.
He made a mistake and lost his axe.
He noticed right away and laughed, opening his arms with a demonic grin.
"Come to me! Quench your hunger and Devour me!" He cried out, letting the tide swallow him.
Suddenly.
"I'd call that..." Ryan gripped his axe in front of the giant once more, back in Eden. Both of them unscathed. "One to one, since you ran." He said, mocking with a smile.
"That's two victories for me." The giant smiled. "But I see you've caught the spirit of it." He burst out laughing. "I'll admit I'm growing fond of you, my dear Junior. Your spirit isn't just untameable, it's demonic!"
"You truly are the one I've been waiting for!"