The arrows surrounded Hal in the blink of an eye all trailed on him like missiles. Hal wept the only way he could. Up.

Boom!!

The arrows would hit and cancel each other out. The force would allow Hal’s ascent to rise higher, he flipped in mid-air and landed with a flourish before tossing the attack runes at salmon.

The attack runes exploded into flames and and lightening that blasted at salmon. However salmon would remain unaffected by the barrage, and instead absorbed the astral energy imbued in the runes

“That all you got?” It said in a jeering voice

‘Great, he can absorb my attacks’ That renders my planned offense useless’ Hal grumbled

To grimiore he asked ‘Any ideas’

‘Figure it out yourself or flee’ Grimiore told him

‘Grr. Useless as always’

Salmon then created two fists of astral energy that launched themselves at Hal and forced him to go in the defensive at least until he drew a rune on one of the arms and caused it to implode. Before the astral energy could disperse, hal absorb it with his astral sense but instead of refining it he kept it in his body for an attack he had begun to plan.

Unfortunately, Astral energy and cosmic energy usually couldn’t stay in the same body, at least it should have been impossible for Hal to do so

“Hahahaha, you’re just going to kill yourself” salmon laughed

Hal knew it was not being arrogant by laughing it was simply rightfully confident. It’s astral sense purity was higher than even Master Swanson’s as such it’s astral energy attacks were much purer as well.

Hal could tell that while it’s attacks so far had seemed irrational and expensive the salmon could afford it. It did not take a dent out of the astral energy it’s body was composed of as such Hal had only one chance to win and that was to weaken it with astral energy of similar purity as it’s own.

Salmon saw Hal’s art of storing astral energy inside his body as stupidity and a suicide attempt. What it did not account for was the Grimoire Hal had in his mind space keeping the balance between the two energies and keeping them from mixing and causing damage to his body.

It was at moments like this when grimiore was useful that almost caused Hal to forget now unhelpful he usually was.

Almost

Salmon kept sending astral fists at Hal and he continued to cause them to implode and siphon their energies

“Enough of this” Salmon snarled and a broadsword thickly composed of astral energy was formed and directed at Hal who leapt backwards to avoid a swing of the great weapon but he was unable to totally escape the sword’s length and it passed clean through his chest…

*Shink*

…leaving it unharmed, however Hal’s body was wracked with pain as the wound had not been external but internal, bypassing his skin to attack his bones directly

“Arrrrrrhhgghh” Hal yelled as his vision got blurry

Salmon sighed, he had wanted the fun to last a little longer but this seemed to be the limit it was inevitable when fighting against someone so weak

Hal on the other hand felt his split chest bones began to piece each other together and healing at a speed visible to the naked eye.

He had awakened the healing factor of his bloodline and just in time too because the sword was getting ready for another strike.

Hal raised his head suddenly and grabbed the astral broadsword with both hands, both hands held imploding runes

Boom!!

The broadsword imploded and the resultant force shredded Hal’s upper clothes and lacerated his body but he ignore it (it was already healing anyway) and absorbed the energy finally reaching his cap of astral energy he could hold in his body which he released so that it took the form of the first weapon that popped in his head; A Trident.

The Trident was mostly colored green but still a little flecked with blue astral energy making the three pronged spear looked beautiful and deadly.

Whoosh

Was the sound the astral spear made as it flew towards Salmon who tried to protect itself.

Ordinarily A person’s or beast’s astral energy will cause them no harm but Hal had rectified that by adding a signature of his own astral energy which now made it just as deadly to salmon as it was to Hal.

All of Salmon’s defense proved useless as the trident pinned salmon in mid-air and Knowing the hold would not last long, Hal got to work using the trident as a conduit to refine the salmon by corrupting it with his own astral energy in small doses.

It was long and tedious work that strained Hal’s mental faculties, he persevered until the energy became too much and he had to release the excess violent energy

BOOM!!!

The entire cave like lair exploded and rained down rubble of rocks which buried Hal beneath them.

Hal managed to claw himself out of the rubble, bleeding from several parts of his body, and also sporting a few broken ribs. As he clawed himself out he couldn’t help but reminisce about how he had almost being caught in the same situation back on earth and how if he had not been able to escape that cave early and was buried in the rubble like he was in this cave, he would have died instead of breaking a few bones.

A light in the distance caught his eye but it had faded when he turned his attention towards it, when he brought his eyes down he came face to face with the veiled beauty in a red dress whose afterimage had just faded in the sky.

Even before he saw her, he had smelled the scent wafting from her, it smelled like roses but at least ten times purer and enticing, the part of the face he could see had perfectly slanted eyebrows and almond shaped green eyes needless to says she was breathtaking.

“How dare you ogle her” a growling voice sounded behind him and released a pressure that treathened to suffocate him but if Hal was affected it didn’t show on his face.

“If she didn’t want me to ogle her then why did she push her face so close” Hal said calmly

“Y-you…” The man seemed to be choking

The lady however simply raised her eyebrows

“Do you know what you just did?” She asked in a calm tone of voice

“I wasn’t ogling you. I was admiring you” Hal told her as he stood up and wiped the blood that covered his face

The man was so angry he wanted to choke the smug bastard. How could anyone be so shameless, since when did admiring looks hold lustful intent

“Of course you were not ogling me” The lady nodded

While the man’s jaw dropped. He knew she was not naive she was aware of the look the smug bastard had given her so why was she condoning it? She should be beating him up right now, right?

“I wasn’t talking about that, I was talking about this” she waved towards the cave debris before pointing her right index finger towards Hal and a rune that he recognized as the binding rune (it was after all the same ruin he had added to the Trident to allow it it pin Salmon in mid-air) materialized in front of it instantly. It slammed into him binding his hands and forcing him to his knees

“I was talking about the astral beast you just defeated” she whispered but he could hear clearly and wondered if he had not just stepped into a hornet’s nest by coming after The Salmon.