Chapter : 731

The sound was a sickening shriek of metal on claw, a deafening thunderclap that echoed through the jungle. Sumaiya was thrown against the hard wood of the banyan root by the force of the impact, the air knocked from her lungs. For a moment, her vision went black.

When she could see again, she was staring up at the jagged, volcanic plates of the demon’s back. Four deep, parallel gouges were carved into the magma-like armor, each one wider than her hand. From the deepest of the gashes, a thick, black, viscous substance—the spiritual essence of the wounded Iffrit—was beginning to ooze, sizzling like water on a hot forge.

The Sabercat had been thrown back by the force of its own attack, landing gracefully ten feet away. It shook its massive head, seemingly surprised by the unyielding defense.

Lloyd, still shielding Sumaiya with his body, let out a low, guttural growl that was not his own. It was the sound of a patient guardian whose anger had finally been stirred. He turned his head, the two points of white-hot fire that served as his eyes within the helmet locking onto the Sabercat. The air around him, which had been hot, now grew incandescent. The controlled flames on his zanbatō roared to life, doubling in size and intensity.

He had been holding back, playing a role. He had been a doctor with a powerful but manageable spirit. But the beast had made a critical error. It had threatened the civilian under his protection.

Now, the Major General was taking over. The fight was no longer a test or a performance. It was an extermination.

“Stay down,” he commanded, his voice a dual-resonance of his own and Iffrit’s, a rumbling chord of thunder and fury.

He turned to face the Sabercat, his stance shifting from defensive to a pure, aggressive assault. The beast, sensing the fundamental change in its opponent, let out a wary hiss. The game had changed. The demon it had been toying with was now preparing to unleash a hell it could not possibly comprehend.

Sumaiya, still gasping for air, could only stare at the deep, bleeding wounds on her protector's back. He had taken a blow meant for her without a moment’s hesitation. The quiet doctor, the saintly healer, was a selfless, terrifying, and magnificent guardian. And he was wounded because of her. The realization struck her with the force of a physical blow, igniting a strange and powerful mix of guilt, gratitude, and a profound, overwhelming awe.

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The fury that coursed through Lloyd was a pure, cold thing. It was the righteous anger of a commander whose charge had been threatened, the protective instinct of a guardian whose ward had been targeted. The Sabercat’s tactical decision to attack Sumaiya had been a sound one from a predator’s perspective, but it had also been a catastrophic miscalculation. It had transformed a strategic engagement into a personal one.

The nine-foot-tall form of Iffrit moved with a new, terrifying purpose. Gone was the ponderous, reactive defense. In its place was a relentless, flowing offense. Lloyd was no longer just wielding the greatsword; he was dancing with it. The colossal blade, now roaring with an uncontrolled inferno, became a liquid wall of fire and steel, a constant, sweeping storm of annihilation that forced the Sabercat onto the defensive.

The beast was still faster, a phantom that flickered at the edge of his perception. But it could no longer dictate the pace of the battle. It was forced to react, to dodge, to retreat from the demon’s relentless assault. The clearing became a whirlwind of motion—the crimson-and-white blur of the cat and the black-and-red storm of the demon, their battle a primal force that tore the jungle apart. Trees were splintered, the ground was scorched, and the air was filled with the shriek of stressed metal and the enraged roars of the magical beast.

Sumaiya, her back still pressed against the unyielding wood of the banyan root, watched, mesmerized. Her fear had been replaced by a state of adrenaline-fueled clarity. She saw the fight not as a chaotic brawl, but as a complex duel. She saw the intelligence in the demon’s movements, the cold, calculating purpose behind every swing of its fiery blade. She saw how it was systematically herding the Sabercat, cutting off its avenues of escape, forcing it into a smaller and smaller kill box.

And then it happened again. The Sabercat, frustrated by its inability to land a telling blow on the demon, saw a fractional opening. As Iffrit swung his blade in a wide, horizontal arc, the beast didn't dodge away. It ducked under the attack and, in a breathtaking display of agility, launched itself past the demon, once again making a direct, suicidal run at Sumaiya.

Chapter : 732

Lloyd’s curse was a silent, furious roar in his mind. The beast was obsessed. It had fixated on her as the key to this fight.

Once again, instinct overrode strategy. He abandoned his attack mid-swing, the momentum of the massive zanbatō almost throwing him off balance. He spun, bringing his left shoulder forward just in time to intercept the cat’s flying charge.

This time, the impact was even more brutal. The Sabercat’s claws, honed by a thousand battles, raked across his armored shoulder and down his back, tearing through the already weakened magma-plate. The sound was a horrific, grinding screech.

Lloyd grunted in pain, a very human sound that was jarringly out of place coming from the demonic form. He felt the claws dig deep, not just into the spiritual matter of Iffrit, but through it, scoring the physical body beneath. A searing, white-hot pain lanced through his real shoulder. He had miscalculated the beast’s power and the limitations of his suppressed form. The damage was real.

He staggered back, a deep, guttural roar of pure pain and rage erupting from him. He swung his free arm in a backhanded blow, the armored gauntlet catching the Sabercat on the side of its head with the force of a battering ram. The beast was sent tumbling, crashing into a thicket of glowing ferns with a surprised yelp.

Lloyd stood his ground, breathing heavily, the phantom pain in his real shoulder a sharp, insistent reminder of his vulnerability. He looked down at his armored form. The gashes on his back and shoulder were deeper now, gaping wounds from which the black, viscous essence of his spirit bled freely, steaming as it hit the damp jungle floor.

“Are you alright?” he asked, his voice a strained, dual-toned rasp, directed at Sumaiya without turning to look at her.

She could only nod, her throat too tight to form words. She was completely unharmed, shielded once again by his body. But he was not. The wounds looked horrific. He was bleeding the very substance of his soul to protect her.

“It’s just a scratch,” he lied, his voice a low growl of dismissal. He forced himself to stand straight, ignoring the screaming pain in his shoulder and the dizzying drain on his energy reserves. He had to end this. Now.

The Sabercat disentangled itself from the undergrowth, its amber eyes burning with a furious, frustrated light. It shook its massive head, clearly dazed by the blow, but it was far from defeated. It let out a low, warning hiss, its powerful muscles coiling once more.

Lloyd knew he was in trouble. The beast was smarter and more resilient than he had anticipated. His suppressed power was not enough to overwhelm it, and the sustained combat was draining his stamina at an alarming rate. He was wounded, tired, and his only trump card—unleashing his full Transcendent power—was not an option.

He was a god playing at being a mortal, and he was beginning to realize that the game was far more dangerous than he had ever imagined. His selfless protection of Sumaiya had not just been a noble act; it had been a series of tactical blunders that had left him weakened and vulnerable. The hunter had become the hunted, and the Saint of the Coil was on the verge of becoming a martyr.

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The fight had reached a critical, dangerous tipping point. Lloyd could feel it in the ragged rhythm of his own breathing, in the protesting groan of Iffrit’s damaged spiritual form, and in the relentless, intelligent fury of the creature before him. The Crimson-Striped Sabercat was a perfect killing machine, honed by a lifetime of survival in the Dahaka’s crucible. It was faster, it was seemingly tireless, and it had the home-field advantage.

His current strategy of overwhelming force was a miserable failure. Each massive swing of the zanbatō was a colossal expenditure of energy that the beast evaded with contemptuous ease. The battle of attrition he was fighting was a war he was destined to lose. The Major General, the cold, pragmatic soldier who had survived a hundred battles in another life, asserted control over the rising panic of the Lordling. The current tactical model was flawed. It needed to be discarded.

‘Adapt or die,’ the old mantra echoed in his mind.

He let the Iffrit form slump slightly, a deliberate projection of exhaustion and weakening resolve. He allowed his fiery aura to dim, the roaring flames on his greatsword sinking to a sullen, flickering glow. He let his breathing become more labored, more audible. It was a performance, a piece of battlefield theater designed to lull the beast into a false sense of security, to make it believe its strategy of wearing him down was succeeding.