Aezaleon muttered to himself while dodging the darkwinds coming towards him. Soon, the energy ball also shot inside him, making his body overflow with vitality.
However, at this moment, as he became busy trying to organize the extracted, disorganized Information in the middle of the combat—to see if it was possible for him to comprehend a concept this time too or not—with his mind divided, Aezaleon let his guard down and was unable to dodge the condensed beam of darkwinds that shot from the mouth of the strongest Galescourge Bearer.
BOOM!
Hitting him square in the chest, the impact sent him flying and rolling on the ground. Moreover, this also pulled him out of his previous state. Whereas he, with an instant thought, immediately utilized the overflowing Energy inside him to heal his horrendous wounds as quickly as possible. Aezaleon also used his claymore to eliminate his momentum and inertia by thrusting it into the ground.
"Ugh." Aezaleon coughed blood and flesh. "Gugh! That hurts," he voiced through gritted teeth, his tone filled with absolute strain.
He quickly got onto his feet and observed the wound on his chest. Fortunately, the overflowing Energy had healed most of it and had also neutralized the concept of paralysis the Galescourge Bearer had used. But his movements were still sluggish and appeared forced. In any case, Aezaleon also wasn't given any time to recover, when he noticed a towering presence before him. He looked up, only to realize that the main boss was standing before him with a dark black-purple energy ball condensing between his antlers.
'I'm dead.'
He didn't even have the time to think as the Energy, like a dark beam of black void, shot towards him. But as though guided by muscle memory, his body moved instinctually to the right with his absolute speed, which reached a mark of sixty-five meters per second at that burst-phase movement. It was enough tension to break some of the muscles in his legs and rupture the veins too.
However, despite all this, his left side still got hit by the beam of condensed darkwinds which moved at roughly one hundred meters per second.
VOOM!
"Uaaaaggghhh!" he shrieked in agony, his scream tearing through the chaotic wind, with enough inertia to send him tumbling backward diagonally on the right side.
And as if knowing that the target managed to survive, the four-meter-tall Galescourge Bearer followed suit. Condensing approximately twenty darkwind projectiles through the superior concept, Darkwind Solidification, it shot them towards Aezaleon. Subsequently, spreading a dark haze in a one-hundred-and-fifty-meter radius with himself as the center, the beast utilized another one of its superior concepts: Lesser Decaying Haze. Something that did an enormous amount of damage to matter and Energy but had a limitation of time.
The good thing was that the Galescourge Bearer, despite having comprehended eight superior concepts and thirteen inferior concepts, was only capable of the simultaneous use of one superior and five inferior concepts at a time, because of being a pureblood natural core Calamity.
Meanwhile, Aezaleon, still in the air and having lost his whole left arm, was also going through a hell of a pain because of the superior concept the beam carried: Suffering. It was a mere physical pain but one that was simply heinous in nature. Honestly, Aezaleon would've already lost his desire to live, and would've surrendered and gladly accepted death over this excruciating pain anytime, if it weren't for his own ability effect one: Axiom of Unyielding Dominion. At this moment, it felt more like a curse than anything else to him.
Nevertheless, he couldn't die here. He still had a mischievous woman to tame after all. Henceforth, Aezaleon also used his own concept of Darkwind to generate controlled gusts to stabilize himself while again using his claymore to eliminate his inertia and momentum. The greatsword clenched firmly in his right hand. The moment he stabilized himself, he felt the approaching presence of the dark projectiles, ones that had locked onto his position like homing arrows seeking their final mark.
He instantly sprang back to his feet and used his claymore to deflect all the projectiles, swinging it more than twenty times within a second without much problem currently, despite his not-so-good condition.
Tink! SPARK! Tink! Tink! Tink! SPARK! SPARK! SPARK! SPARK! Tink! Tink!
The condensed darkwind constructs embedded themselves within the ground. Aezaleon, on the other hand, quickly and without any delay also distanced himself from the fast-approaching decaying haze and the conjurer of this mist, the four-meter-tall Galescourge Bearer. All the while quietly battling against the concept of Suffering inwardly.
If it was just Torment that was used instead of Suffering, his sub-ability effect one, Continuum Bastion Matrix, of his ability effect two, Throne of Undying Continuum, would've completely neutralized it. In fact, the concept wouldn't have even been able to penetrate his soul in that case to even give him any sort of discomfort, let alone soul pain. However, that wasn't the case, so there was no point pondering about it either.
Here, even the quality of his Energy wasn't of much help in resisting against this superior concept. Then, there were his festering wounds too. Not to mention, the superior concept of Microscopic Darkwind Erosion in the air of the boss deer. Aside from making his already worse wounds worst, it was also slowly grinding his physical defenses and eroding the effectiveness of his Energy. It was sapping his strength and making him weaker by eroding his muscles and was poisoning his Energy with decay, making it lose its potency.
Add on to that, these microscopic darkwinds were also damaging him, carrying within themselves the inferior concepts such as Festering, Infection, Blood Erosion, Energy Degradation, and Strength Bleed. Henceforth, effectively making time his biggest enemy when battling these kinds of foes. The fleeting seconds felt like a closing trap, slowly locking away his chances of survival.
All that Aezaleon hoped currently was for this four-meter-tall deer to not use the concept of paralysis on him too, but he couldn't put his life on a mere hope, meaning he had to end this battle as quickly as possible. That was the only way to win when every second was making him weaker. To that end, Aezaleon immediately focused on the two calamities outside the decaying haze. The weaker one was towards his back while the stronger one on his left side.
It was an obvious choice; Aezaleon instantly accelerated towards the weaker Galescourge Bearer to the back at his maximum speed of sixty meters per second, covering that one-hundred-and-sixty-meter distance in less than a few seconds. Also, to make sure to end this Calamity in one go—and to ensure that it wouldn't escape from him—Aezaleon utilized his inferior concept of Lesser Frost to connect the deer's feet to the ground by freezing them with it, when he neared it.
Such action made the savage Calamity panic, as it ignored its target and instead focused on regaining its freedom first. It was able to do so within two seconds, shattering the frozen ice. Alas, it was already too late by then, as its head was already severed by a clean slash from a two-meter-long blood claymore.
SLASH! SPURT! DASH!
Aezaleon didn't even take a millisecond on distancing himself after killing the Calamity while also activating Matter Absorption subconsciously and simultaneously. The broken muscles in his legs had already been restored by Clementine, so he was able to run at his full speed again, while being chased by an enraged Calamity with a speed of seventy-five meters per second. Where it got forty from his rank three core, ten from his rank one core and the rest of the twenty-five from his concepts and naturally strong body as a Calamity.