Ashley

  I turn my Gaze towards the needles before all the needles begin to disintegrate.

  Or to be specific, the needles in my line of sight disintegrate. All the others still continue flying at me.

  Alright. That’s workable.

  Then I see the remaining needles slam into the ground all around me. With the ones that were aimed directly at me having already been destroyed by my Gaze.

  Except for one needle that grazes my arm.

  I feel an immense numbness filling my entire arm as my arm quickly begins to freeze over from around the place of the wound. Only for said ice to shatter.

  Yet throughout the entire process I don’t feel any pain. And the edges of the remaining wound are frozen over completely.

  I can’t help but frown before trying to melt the ice so that the wound can heal. But fire and even destruction magic don’t affect it in the slightest.

  Almost like the ice isn’t meltable.

  A chill suddenly goes down my spine, making me instinctively jump away right before numerous needles all slam into the ground where I was just standing. Turning everything around into a frozen wasteland.

  I turn my Gaze onto my arm before destroying the frozen flesh, making me grit my teeth at the pain. Then the damage quickly begins to heal.

  Both from my health and from my various regeneration skills.

  It looks like the needles cause both damage and stop healing by freezing their targets. Which is a dangerous combination.

  And it’s something I really want to add to my list of skills.

  A vague sense of excitement fills me as I think of getting that true damage skill for myself. But that excitement sputters out rather quickly when more needles rush at me.

  I quickly begin dodging needles while also destroying a lot of them with my Gaze of Destruction. And while that does work, keeping me safe, it also has a major problem of its own.

  Specifically the fact that I can’t fight back.

  So I try to change things up by flying around the massive tiger. But that doesn’t work either because of the tiger’s size.

  When I try to fly around it, the stupid thing just casually turns its head, making a bunch of air move in a blast towards where he turned his head. Almost like he’s using some wind attack by simply turning his head.

  Just because of his size.

  And it also means that I can’t get around behind him.

  I grit my teeth as I continue trying to get out of the tiger’s line of sight, but I just can’t do it. The Unique Monster is just too big and there are too many needles.

  Thanks to that, we end up pretty much playing chase in a way. With me flying around trying to get out of the tiger’s line of sight while said tiger just sends thousands of needles my way. Turning everything in the Unique Domain into a frozen wasteland.

  Of course, I could use the jewels and the needles stored in them to fight back against the Unique Monster’s needles, but that would waste the needles. Making it so I can’t use them against the Unique Monster itself.

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  So I continue flying around while using my Gaze of Destruction to destroy the ones I can’t dodge. For hours on end, without any success.

  But right as I’m about to finally give up and use the jewels, I notice something.

  The tiger is getting smaller. I think.

  Are the needles related to its size, maybe? That would make sense.

  I narrow my eyes at it while continuing to dodge.

  Fortunately using Gaze of Destruction doesn’t cost any mana at all. It’s just a natural power that’s always active unless I’m forcefully restricting it.

  So the only thing exhausting about this is the flying around part. And occasionally healing when I miss a needle and it grazes me.

  Time begins to pass as we continue our runaround, with the needles continuing to come endlessly. All the way until the tiger is noticeably smaller.

  Small enough that I can finally briefly get out of its direct line of sight.

  And when that happens, I take the time to use my Gaze of Destruction directly on the Tiger of Eternal Snow’s body. All while sending dozens of spells and other skill attacks at it.

  But, of course, the only thing that actually does anything to the Unique Monster is my Gaze of Destruction. With all my other attacks either fizzling out without doing anything or freezing the moment they touch the tiger’s fur.

  Even the areas I get with my Gaze of Destruction just trim down the fur at those locations. They don’t even reach the tiger’s actual flesh.

  This isn’t really getting anywhere very fast…

  The tiger continues to attack me, and I continue to attack it while avoiding its own attacks. But no matter how much I attack, the fur always grows back.

  It’s just that when the fur grows back every time, I swear the tiger’s body shrinks.

  Almost like it’s using its own size to regrow its fur.

  Which may actually be the case in a way. Considering how it grew in size by absorbing that massive snowball before.

  Maybe the Tiger of Eternal Snow grows in size by absorbing snow? Then it uses that snow to create its fur?

  That would make sense.

  Either way, we continue our little game of tag while I whittle away its size by attacking its fur. And ever so gradually, its size reduces down to just a third of a planet.

  But only after an entire week passes as we battle.

  And yet, I swear neither of our energy supplies reduce at all. Since I’m just using my Gaze of Destruction while flying around, and the Unique Monster is sending needles everywhere that are just its fur.

  Even when I have to heal, my health just recovers again in the time between hits.

  I do manage to get more and more attacks in though as the Unique Monster’s size decreases.

  Which makes him shrink even faster.

  But eventually, when the tiger reaches a size that’s about a tenth of the size of a planet another couple days later, it finally changes things up.

  I frown as I try to destroy the next round of needles the monster will send at me while preparing to move around the creature, only to end up surprised when it doesn’t actually send needles at me. Instead, its fur moves in a large ring around the tiger. Moving so fast I can barely keep track of it. With more and more fur leaving the tiger’s body and entering the ring as the tiger visibly shrinks down more and more.

  All the way until the tiger is just about ten meters in height, with an enormous ring of fur needles revolving around it.

  Only for all of the fur to suddenly stop moving before turning towards a single spot right in front of the tiger.

  Well, this doesn’t bode well.

  I try to destroy as much of the fur as possible, but it barely makes a dent in it before I watch the fur begin to glow a bright, pale blue color. Following which the fur shoots out some sort of beam at a spot in front of the tiger while said tiger opens its mouth, sending energy into the spot as well.

  Forming a ball of frigid energy in the process.

  I quickly try to destroy the ball of energy with my Gaze of Destruction, but all it does is veeeery slowly whittle away at the sparks of energy flickering off of it freezing the air around it.

  Then, when the ball of energy stops growing, it turns into a massive beam that fires off straight at me while the fur in the ring around the tiger disintegrates. Losing whatever energy powered them.

  “Hurry and use the jewels!” Chaos says in a more frantic tone than I’ve ever heard him speak in before since meeting him.

  I don’t hesitate and finally activate the jewels. Since the beam itself is so large that there’s no way I could dodge it.

  And when I activate said jewels, a flood of needles come out of them before forming a ring just like the Unique Monster’s own ring of fur. Except that the ring is made of various different colors. Each representing the different Primordials.

  Then they form their own ball of energy and beam that rushes to clash with the tiger’s own beam mere meters from me.

  Creating a shockwave that sends me flying backwards along with a flash of light that completely blinds me.

  And the last thing I hear before my mind blacks out for a moment is the sound of the tiger crying out in pain.

  Only for my consciousness to return within seconds. Before the bright light even fades, leaving me blinded still.

  That hurt…

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