Ludwig’s frame disappeared from and through the foliage, he was thinking of how he’d have to deal with this creature. To fight it head-on would mean Ludwig’s death, though he still has some souls to use in case he died to return back from death, he felt that all his progress today would be wasted. And he really didn’t need to meet Deus Necros so soon anyway.
The hulking beast roared as it bore through two close trees, spreading them with ease using its arms to rupture the trees from their center. Ludwig saw that although the creature’s palm was bleeding from the gaping hole in it and the undead Lizardman’s head was still relentlessly clinging to his neck, the Champion seemed to be in so much rage that he wasn’t feeling any of that.
Ludwig scanned the Champion’s Status Window in that moment.
***
Level 25
Damage 80-100
HP: 1,100 /2,500
Tier: Rare {Boss} 💀
Status Effects: {Bleeding} {Laceration} {Poisoned} {Enraged} …
***
The status aliments were stacking up on the Boss. The Lizardman zombie head was causing it constant Contagion Poison and bleeding, and the lacerated wound on its hand was also bleeding it out, but its enraged status was making it oblivious to all of that.
Ludwig knew well that if he were to keep running away simply, the boss would soon fall to its knees dead.
There was only one problem with that plan, a tree trunk came hurling at Ludwig’s head.
Ludwig flung himself to the side, desperately dodging the trunk. And at the same time rolled forward and continued running. The Lizardman was bound to catch up to him. At this point, Ludwig slightly regretted not investing in Agility. Strength and endless Stamina are fine, but they serve no purpose when you need to be quick on your feet.
Ludwig rolled to his feet and sprinted forward, finding nothing but a standing cliff in front of him, he felt like a sitting duck as the Champion was running up to him head first, both arms opened forward as if to hug him in a bear hug, or lizardman hug in this case.
The absurdity of the situation made Ludwig respond in the same tone, instead of moving left or right and being caught by either of the open arms of the Lizardman, Ludwig decided to run up the creature and slide right under him while the latter grabbed at the empty air since Ludwig’s relatively shorter form allowed him to duck faster in a slide.
The lizardman who was sprinting at full force couldn’t stop as it stared under its crotch where Ludwig just slid from, though it tried to act fast, raising its tail and swinging it down, its feet weren’t stopping as its face met the cliff side.
A loud explosive sound echoed behind Ludwig, loud enough that even he winced, and strong enough that boulders and fractures of rock formations began crumbling and cascading down the cliff edge.
Ludwig saw that the lizardman who went face first into the wall was clearly in a stunned state, disoriented and unable to stand up properly had two choices.
The first was to run away while the champion was stunned. But that would only buy him some time before the Lizardman would catch up to him. After all, he won’t be as lucky to stun it again nor does he know if he could replicate that stupid stunt again.
The second option was far riskier but had a greater chance of success.
Ludwig did quick maths, between the two options, safe now, risky later, or risky now safe later, the latter sounded far more appealing.
He rushed up the lizardman’s tail and onto his back, he used the zombie’s clasping head as a handhold while he raised the dagger he took from Hoyo earlier high and slammed it as powerfully as he could into the champion’s left eye.
A roar that would wake the dead ruptured out of the Champion Lizardman’s mouth, and with it came a brutal retaliation. As if the dagger in its eye was enough to awaken it from its stunned state the lizardman went for a grab on Ludwig.
By sheer dumb luck, Ludwig’s body was nothing but a skeleton, quite lighter than a normal human body, and since the Champion tried to grab him, the mere contact between the palm of the champion was enough to send Ludwig reeling into the forest before the arm could even close its fingers.
[-65 hp]
[Your chest is fractured}
[You broke three rib bone, your skull is fractured, your right arm is fractured.]
[You strength has been reduced by 20%}
[You successfully negated [Concussion]
Ludwig’s sprawled form was enough to tell tales of his pains. Though he didn’t feel any, the broken bits and pieces of his body were only held together by the slime that was making the outer layer of his skeletal frame.
“That… almost killed me,” Ludwig said as he looked at the creature who was finally aware enough to lock eyes with Ludwig’s fallen form.
Ludwig had no intention of staying on the ground, and simply stood up, turned and left dust behind him.
“Son of a bitch, when is this buff ever going to stop!” Ludwig cursed as he was once again reminded of Bron’s fuckery of giving him a buff that made him a living human torch… though he was dead, and a skeleton.
And just as the thought finished in Ludwig’s mind, the aura around him began dying down, but not fast enough as the Lizardman had locked his eye on him. The champion fueled by enough rage that even a Berserker would tell him to calm down, ruptured through the forest and anything around him with only one though in mind, to bring as much pain onto the human that had caused him so much heart ach and bodily harm that its wounds would be called minor in comparison.
Ludwig tried his best to run away, but the creature was gaining up on him, and fast, enough that he could feel its breathing on his neck. In his panic Ludwig didn’t notice the large tree root extending in front of him. His leg got caught and he fell down on his face.
The Champion didn’t miss the opportunity to jump up and catch Ludwig on the ground. He then rolled Ludwig forward and shoved his opened jaw onto his body.
With nothing but sheer will and panic, Ludwig swung his entire body to the side, but didn’t manage to fully avoid the jaws that dug onto the ground, his left arm was caught in between them.
With a forceful rip, as would an alligator do to an unfortunate limb, Ludwig’s arm simply snapped free from the elbow.
There was no pain in Ludwig’s eyes as he recognized the eminent death, but though undead, no longer one with breath, something deep within him, something he didn’t think he had anymore. A feeling so simply so innocent and so strange that Ludwig couldn’t describe welled up inside him. Some might call it human nature to never give up and struggle till the end, and some might call it foolishness in front of death.
But for Ludwig, it was simplified in two words.
‘Fuck it.’
“I’m sorry Thomas,” he said as he used Thomas’s teachings drawing from Thomas’s emotion to fuel his own magic. Rage enough rage that it was hot and blistering.
His right arm flared with as much mana as his body could muster in that desperate situation.
The Lizardman’s eyes couldn’t recognize the manifesting fireball in Ludwig’s arm as his ‘hot’ body aura was still camouflaging it, and just as it opened its mouth to bite off Ludwig’s head, the latter shot his arm forward into the gaping jaws of death.
“EXPLOSION IS ART!” Ludwig roared out.