With Evan fleeing the city and the rest of the population brought to their knees, Selric found himself alone to deal with the creature of the Abyss.
Selric had faced difficult opponents before.
He had faced things that had pushed him to his limits, things that had made him question whether those limits were enough. He was B-Rank Mid-Stage, not a figure to be taken lightly in any normal context.
But this was not a normal context.
The creature moved with a fluid, predatory certainty that had nothing to do with intelligence or strategy, and everything to do with something older and more fundamental, an instinct for destruction so deeply embedded in its nature that it had become indistinguishable from breathing.
It didn't fight so much as it consumed, its long clawed arms sweeping through the air with a casual devastation that forced Selric to burn through mana reserves he hadn't expected to touch.
