Bam!!!
The demonic beast flew into the distance and landed with a thud. Duncan was not on his feet as well, he too had been sent flying by the impact. He slowly stood up from where he had fallen and looked over.
The demonic beast was struggling to get up as well. There were several cuts along its thick hide now. Unlike how it was previously, the change in Duncan had somehow sharpened his sword and attacks. This has resulted in the demonic beast getting injured as well.
Duncan wasn't in a good state either. His entire body was bleeding from the repeated clashes with the demonic beast. There were several cuts all over his body, courtesy of the demonic beast's claws.
Some were deep, some were mere surface wounds. But, the strange thing was that Duncan's regeneration aspect was working overtime and the small scratches that he had sustained earlier were closing up.
Despite that, it wouldn't matter much if he bled out from the new wounds.
Likewise, the wound he had inflicted on himself before this entire fiasco was refusing to heal fast as well. That made it hard for him to put weight on his left leg. But, Duncan didn't care about it that much. Battle was the only thing that occupied his mind now.
It had been five minutes since the nascent form of Heart of Killing had been established in Duncan's heart. And it had been a brutal five minutes since then. The fight between Duncan and the demonic beast had been one-sided until then with the demonic beast playing around with Duncan.
However, since the stabilizing of the nascent form of Heart of Killing, the fight had turned pretty even. Duncan's speed and offensive abilities had increased sharply since then.
Earlier, he had to try very hard to keep up with the demonic beast. But now, he was easily able to match its pace and react swiftly as well. Earlier, no matter what he tried, Duncan was unable to pierce the thick hide of the demonic beast. Now, he was able to inflict severe wounds on the beast as well.
Duncan's favorite strategy of forgoing defense to concentrate on offense entirely seemed to work like a miracle now. The demonic beast had obviously been spooked by Duncan's apparent ability to hurt it now and was behaving very defensively.
Earlier, the demonic beast never even bothered to defend. Why would it? Duncan's sword didn't have the power to harm it. This caused it to play around with Duncan to its heart's content.
But, the demonic beast was regretting its actions now.
Ever since the change in Duncan, the battle had turned miserable for it. Duncan had already been used to the demonic beast's speed and strength. While it obviously hurt him to take a hit, he was like a maniac that only focused on killing now and obviously didn't mind taking a few hits to injure the opponent.
Not to mention that the increase in his speed and offense meant Duncan can now easily anticipate the demonic beast's attack and evade it while delivering a return blow effortlessly.
By now, Duncan's subconscious mind had managed to note down the demonic beast's attack pattern and was able to react accordingly. Unlike the demonic beast, Duncan's attack, while pretty straightforward, had a sinister quality to it along with some unpredictableness.
Duncan always attacked in a straightforward manner. He didn't use any convoluted techniques to create an opportunity to attack. That was because he didn't know any. Even if he knew any, he wasn't in the right state of mind to execute it patiently.
On the other hand, while he did attack straightforwardly, he never targeted a specific place. He would attack any part of the demonic beast that was within his reach. There was no plan to it.
Just sheer instinct.
So, the demonic beast was unable to predict where the next attack would target.
This made it hard for the demonic beast to be continuously on the offensive. With speed and offense neutralized, the demonic beast had to fall back on its innate strength advantage and try to beat Duncan into a pulp.
However, that plan wasn't exactly working in the demonic beast's favor either.
Somehow, Duncan always managed to move at the last moment to minimize the impact of any attack the demonic beast made. Even when they clashed head-on, the demonic beast found itself battling against a slippery foe who changed the trajectory of his attacks at the last moment.
With the attack trajectory changed, the position of the attacker will also change according to it. This made it hard for the demonic beast to pin down its target and bring forth its full force. It was like swatting a fly and finding it always missing by inches.
And this fly wasn't weak either.
Duncan's powerful body came into good effect here. He already had a body that could take the punishment the demonic beast dished out easily. Now, that he was not facing the full impact, the burden on his body was reduced dramatically.
Still, each impact jarred Duncan's bone and reopened the wounds he had suffered during the course of the fight.
Duncan gritted his teeth and slowly made his way toward the stumbling demonic beast. The sword in his hands was dripping blood as he dragged his tired and injured body toward the demonic beast.
The demonic beast saw Duncan approach and roared in defiance. Duncan didn't bother to reply. He knew that the fight between them was coming to an end. Either he gave up and died, or he held on and killed the demonic beast.
He wasn't planning to die any time sooner. He had a lot of wine and women to enjoy in his life and he wouldn't let this puny demonic beast stop him from that. And he also needed to pay a visit to the Wang Clan.
There were a lot of things in his life he wanted to do. He had just realized the power the cultivators possessed and it was intoxicating. Not to mention the battle rush he felt when battling a powerful opponent.
There was no way he was going to give that up and die at the hands of this demonic beast.
Even though Duncan wasn't in the right state of mind, a part of him realized that what he was doing was something impossible for a normal human being. His mind obviously equated it to a cultivator as they were the only ones he knew that could do stuff like this.
While his mind was clouded with the desire to kill, the thoughts behind the cloud were filled with his base desires. Lust, Greed, Gluttony, Revenge, Domination, and several more.
Duncan's current state of mind was a place where all his basest desires dominated. It was a place rife for a demon to thrive. Unbeknownst to him, Duncan had truly stepped into the path of Demonic Dao.
The demonic beast roared angrily and tried to rush toward Duncan in an intimidating manner. Duncan wasn't afraid of it. In fact, he welcomed it. So, seeing the demonic beast rush toward him, Duncan started running toward it as well.
As he ran towards the demonic beast, Duncan spied a small rise in the terrain in the form of a high ridge in the way. The terrain around this area was already a hilly region in the first place. But, with the battle that Duncan had waged with both the wild beasts and the demonic beast, it had been splintered into cracks and rocks.
Duncan raced up the ridge and jumped off it with the sword in both his hands, aiming to cleave the demonic beast into two for good this time. The black aura surrounding him thickened with Duncan's contempt for the demonic beast and his desire to annihilate it.
The demonic beast didn't expect Duncan to confront it head-on as Duncan had always been avoiding that for the last five minutes. So, its attention had been focused on which angle he would use this time. But, the moment it saw Duncan jump off a high ridge and come directly at it, its mind blanked for a moment.
Not to mention the sinister aura that Duncan was emanating at this moment. It had always been wary of the black aura that was emanating from Duncan even if it couldn't see it. It was like something was crawling on its back.
Even the reddish hue it has been wary of until this moment was looking sharper at this moment. This rooted the demonic beast in fear at that exact moment. The demonic beast whimpered and tried to turn around and flee.
However, the time had truly run out for it. The moment it whimpered, Duncan was already above its head cleaving his sword with all the force he could muster. The reddish hue elongated along the blade and it cleaved the entire body of the demonic beast into two.
The demonic beast fell dead, cleaved into two, as its body landed on either side of a kneeling Duncan, who was heaving heavily and clutching his sword.
There was a sinister smile of satisfaction on Duncan's face as he looked at the cleaved body of the demonic beast on either side of him.
Duncan stood up and looked ahead proudly. With two pieces of a demonic beast laid out on either side of him, one hand holding a sword that was dripping with blood, bleeding all over his body, and a proud but sinister smile on his face, Duncan looked like an incarnation of the devil at that moment.
And it was at that exact moment that the sun decided to rise in front of Duncan, casting an even more sinister image into the minds of the three people that were watching the battle from the distance.
*****
A/N: Hey folks!
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