Daru gazed emptily at the grays as he fell, the chilly, forlorn winds brushing against his skin.

He was only snapped out of his disbelief and bewilderment upon hearing the grating wheeze behind him, followed by broken giggles.

He shifted his body, turning to look.

His fury flared at the sight of the laughing Lost Damnedling.

It had succeeded in dragging him down to the pits of despair, but Daru wasn't despairing.

He was simply frustrated beyond reason and a bit unnerved, for some reason, despite subconsciously reminding himself that he would only lose a life, at worst.

He genuinely hated this domain, as there was something he couldn't explain that was making his survival instincts overreact.

At least as far as he was concerned.

What's losing one life?

In fact, with the government's sincerity, he felt he could obtain another Heartsoul Gem if he simply promised them something.

So…why was he so uneasy?

This was what was irritating him — not to be in control of his emotions, which, in turn, would affect his focus in combat.

He despised the feeling.

Daru knew that his first objective should be to calm down, and to do that…

He locked gazes with the empty, abyssal eye sockets of the Lost Damnedling, knowing that the bastard could see him.

Daru made sure to let the hunched spawn know how much he hated it through the coldest of gazes.

But it merely wheezed and giggled harder.

They were about to hit the ground, which would probably hurt, given that they were falling from roughly three storeys high.

He would most likely lose a lot of hit points, too.

Hateful as the hunched abomination in front of him was, he had to prioritize his landing first, and it seemed as though the Lost Damnedling understood that, too, temporarily directing its malicious gaze to the ashen ground surface.

Neither of the two could really do anything, though.

They were at the mercy of freefall, and they were too far apart to hurt each other.

They could only try to live through the fall.

Before he hit the ground, Daru suddenly thought of something.

He leaned back, shifting his weight at a single point and spinning once, then twice.

Suddenly, he was in a somersault, knees tucked as he exploded into a sprawl, slashing out with his sword.

A red slash mark shot forth, the recoil slowing his fall a great deal, though not completely.

*THUD!*

Ash flew everywhere as both Daru and the Lost Damnedling crashed to the ground, the latter far more hurt than the former.

Daru couldn't suppress a smile, pleased after seeing the rather horrifying damage value above the hunched abomination's head:

[- 7,852!]

This left the vile spawn with just two hitpoints under five thousand.

Very killable for Daru, who only lost a little over six hundred.

He would've been on a dangerous sixty percent of his health already had he not been wearing his Reinforced Steel Armor Set that granted him a massive +65 in vitality, ramping up his total hitpoints to 2,400.

These were already rookie numbers.

But the Lost Damnedling didn't care about numbers.

It hissed with mocking glee as it lunged at Daru, the curved bone blade in its hands aiming to cut his neck off from the left

However, Daru easily parried the blow and planted his front foot a little to the right, transitioning into a diagonal slash of his own — a brilliant counter that wiped the hideous mocking smile off the hunched abomination's face as black blood spurted out of the moderately deep wound extending from its left shoulder to its gut.

Daru was a bit disoriented, expecting red cubic particles instead of actual, putrid blood, but he knew focus was more than half the battle.

He shook his head violently for a moment and jumped back to reset, glancing at the damage value that just appeared while his eardrums were assaulted by an anguished, demonic howl.

[-950!]

Daru was more than satisfied with the chunk of damage he inflicted.

Thanks to Onimaru Kunitsuna's weight, coupled with enough strength and dexterity, he was dealing far more than he should.

He had only ever seen such value in the past whenever he used Azure Swordfall, his current ace-in-the-hole.

Now, he was able to replicate the same damage with a casual strike — though it could be argued that his parry was quite slick and the immediate counter was like thunder descending from the angry heavens.

It was more than vicious.

Daru quickly rushed in again, not allowing the Lost Damnedling to recover, aiming to finish it off.

But he had been too optimistic.

It quickly jumped back…and turned tail, fleeing with everything it had while seemingly both laughing in mockery and whimpering in defeat.

The sound was certainly unholy.

Daru froze in disbelief for a moment before exploding into a furious chase, roaring: "Shameless! Face your death, vile scum! You chased me earlier as if I owed you money, and then you'll just run when you're losing?! Coward! Hey! Come back!! I said come back, you damned thing!!"

His voice echoed eerily far and wide in the silent gray world, but it did little to force the hunched abomination to man up and fight him.

It was certainly no man.

Coward? Shameless?

Such infantile insults would never make it through the imperviously thick face and skin of the hunched abomination, who had experienced and done unspeakable things that earned it the eternal ire of the gods.

Honor was certainly at the absolute bottom of its priorities. Why else would it be in this god-forsaken domain, otherwise?

And so, instinctively knowing that giving a long chase would only put himself in danger, Daru could only stop, eyes burning in utter fury and disbelief at the fleeing Swordspawn.

He had also been running for some time now and was forced to fight without taking any breaks.

It would be highly unlikely that he would catch the cowardly wretch.

Finding it difficult to suppress his emotions, he kicked the ground while hurling inexperienced curses, sending ashes bursting in a single direction and thickening up the eerie mist a little bit.

Shooting the disappearing Damnedling a final glare, he exhaled heavily, shaking his head as he returned to where the base of the staircases had been.

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