The creature’s red eyes brightened.

Not all at once. Like something warming up from inside, the dim flickering glow from after Damien’s strike steadily rebuilding itself, growing more saturated with each passing second.

Noah watched it happen and felt his stomach tighten.

’It’s recovering. And getting stronger while it does.’

The circle on the floor behind it pulsed once. Faint but present. Feeding something.

The creature rolled its shoulders. The motion was almost human in the way it looked, like a person loosening up before something. Then it straightened to its full height and the room felt smaller than before.

It took one step toward Noah.

He held his ground with Damien’s sword raised, the dimming golden light still bleeding from the blade.

Then it moved fast.

Faster than before. Noticeably faster than the first charge had been.

"Dammit!!" Noah cursed.

He threw himself sideways and barely made it. The claw passed close enough to his shoulder that the borrowed breastplate caught a glancing strike rather than a clean one.

The impact knocked him off his feet and he hit the ground rolling, losing Damien’s sword as he went, the blade clattering across the stone several meters away.

"Argggh!!" Noah groan in pain. It hit him harder that he thought it could.

He came up on one knee, his own sword already back in his hand.

His shoulder was burning. He didn’t look at it.

Damien intercepted from the side.

He was still moving stiffly from the rib hit but his sword was back in his hand and blazing again, the golden light rebuilt to something close to its earlier intensity. He drove in at the creature’s flank and landed two strikes in quick succession, the second one biting deep into the side of the creature’s torso.

The creature screamed again.

But it turned faster than before and the backhand that followed was faster too. Damien got his sword up to partially block it but partial was not enough. He was lifted off his feet and thrown four meters, landing hard on his side and skidding another meter across the stone.

He didn’t get up immediately this time.

Noah was already moving to fill the gap.

He pushed what remained of his mana into the blade and drove it forward at the creature’s knee, aiming for the joint the way he had against the hobgoblin. The ice formed and bit in and the creature’s leg stiffened briefly.

It bought him two seconds.

He used them to grab Damien’s arm and haul him upright.

"How bad is your condition?" Noah said quietly.

Damien’s face was tight. "My ribs are cracked maybe. Not broken." He straightened slowly. "I can still fight."

"Good because we need to move it....and you are the only one who could kill him."

"Okay...but move it where?"

Noah looked past the creature toward the hole in the floor behind it. The circle was glowing steadily now, no longer faint. The creature stood between them and it.

"Back into that hole," Noah said.

Damien stared at him for a moment. "You want to push a seven foot nightmare back into the pit it climbed out of."

"While it’s still getting stronger, yes."

A pause.

"That’s the bad idea," Damien said.

"I told you it was bad. But poor us...we got no choice" he said with small chuckled.

The creature turned back toward them.

ROARRRRR!!!

It dashed towards two of them.

Noah and already pulled out two recovery potion from his storage ring. And drank them.

The low amount of mana in his body slowly started to recover.

They dashed at creature.

Noah with his sword covered in ice while Damien with golden blazing heat clashed against it again.

The next several minutes were the worst of Noah’s time. It reminded him the time when he struggled against that intruder in academy during first incident.

Here they couldn’t fight it directly. That had been clear after the first exchange and became clearer with each one that followed.

Every time they engaged it head on the outcome was the same. Damien’s golden light was the only thing that genuinely damaged it but the creature had adjusted to it now, turning its face away when the light intensified, using its arms to shield its eyes, taking the hits to its body rather than letting the light reach its face.

Damien even tried light magic spells. Such as light spears and chains of judgement. And few others. But they didn’t had much effect of it since monster nearly dodge all of them.

It was learning.

And it was getting stronger with every minute the circle on the floor continued to glow.

So they stopped trying to kill it and started trying to move it.

Of course Damien could use his strongest attack. His ability. But there was also chance what if it didn’t died by it. Then Noah and Damien would be doomed.

Noah went in first, drawing its attention, landing one or two strikes to make it commit to him, then rolling or sidestepping to pull its momentum in a direction. Damien came in from the opposite angle whenever the creature turned, landing a hit to redirect it further.

Slowly and painfully they move three meters away. Then kept moving, five meters then eight meters.

The hole was behind it now instead of across the room.

But the creature was not cooperating.

It caught Noah across the left arm on the fourth exchange, the claws raking through the light armor at his forearm and opening three cuts beneath it.

He hissed through his teeth and kept moving because stopping was not an option but the arm was slower after that, the grip on his sword weaker.

Damien took a hit to the same ribs shortly after, this one a direct strike rather than a glancing one. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝔀𝓮𝒃𝙣𝓸𝒗𝒆𝒍.𝙘𝒐𝒎

The sound he made when it connected was short and involuntary. He bent briefly then forced himself back upright and went back in.

"Arghh!!"

Neither of them said anything about being hurt.

All they could do was fight and scream in pain and agony.