On the Death's Door

Against the heavens Sword art, while this sounded tyrannical it was still within his expectations as he had hoped to gain the sword skill soon. But Balls of steel skill was a total surprise he could not imagine how high the system was when it decided such a name.

He quickly opened the notification to see more detailed information about the skills.

Against the Heavens Sword Art: It is a mutation of normal sword art gained by the user by learning this sword art in extreme conditions. It gives the user the ability to learn sword skills extremely fast and for every kill the user makes using a sword the user steals 5% of the total mana the enemy had.

Balls of Steel: Going against all odds and fighting against extreme adversity has helped you learn this skill. When you under extreme danger or are fighting against someone far more powerful than you then you gain a 10% boost on your all-over fighting capabilities.

"Sweet" Jason commented as he tried out his sword amidst his rush towards the creature. And somehow it felt different as if he inherently knew how to use swords. Engraved in his mind were three types of sword attacks, A horizontal slash, A vertical and a Diagonal slash. Even though these three were the most basic slashes they were the foundation of all the sword forms out there.

*Roooar

The creature opened its mouth which was filled with pointy teeth and a slimy tongue wide open and gave out an unnatural roar that almost sounded like the roar of a T-Rex shown in the movies.

It turned its predatory gaze at Jason and then it used its surprisingly strong bird legs to rush at him with great speed.

Both Jason and the creature rushed at each other at blazing fast speeds as they readied themselves for a confrontation in the middle.

Just as they reached each other the Creature used two of its arms to claw at Jason's torso. But Surprisingly Jason dogged by stomping the ground and jumping high enough to safely avoid its claws. It seemed as Jason had already planned to jump as his next move made the creature roar in agony.

Jason while in mid-air slashed vertically at the creature's back causing a deep gash on its back as green-colored blood gushed out of the wound. Unfortunately, Jason missed the backbone of the creature as it had turned its body just in time to save it.

The creature on the other hand roared in agony and used its other two hands to claw at Jason with its nails which were stronger than steel.

Jason suddenly felt struck as he was in the air and had nothing to stop the claws. He immediately used the sword to horizontally slash at the claws.

*Clang

The creature's two arms had an overwhelming force that launched Jason in the air as his wrists hurt badly after taking the slashes head-on.

Jason performed a flip mid-air as he landed on the ground heavily.

His breath was hitched as he analyzed that the creature in Infront of him was similarly at the same power level as him. And he was only alive because the man had seemingly lost all his intelligence when he turned into this monstrosity and was now fighting with pure instinct. If this creature had been capable of using the abilities of the man like the golden shield then he would be dead meat in seconds.

Suddenly blood seeped out of Jason's mouth as he felt his situation turning worse.

"One minute left" The system's timely reminder came.

"Let's be over with this" Jason grit his teeth tightly as he again rushed at the creature that was still growling in agony.

Jason rushed at the creature and slashed at it diagonally aiming at its torso. The creature suddenly turned and it used one of its hands to flick the sword away at the cost of loosing the front part of its claw as it was cut off cleanly. Green blood gushed out from the arm akin to a showerhead.

But a savage glint flashed in the eyes of the creature as it suddenly used its other three arms to garb Jason in a bone-crushing hug as its mouth moved towards Jason's head to swallow it whole.

Jason felt like he was just at Death's door. He had been in many life and death situations these past days, but he had never felt as terrified as he was right now. It seemed that being literally crushed in a bone-crushing hug while a mouth as wide as your whole head was just about to swallow you can terrify you on another level.

*Aaaaah

Jason roared out loud as he used every single bit of his power to wrestle out his left hand from its hold. Fortunately, only one arm was holding him on that side as he forcefully freed his left hand and used the inventory to swap the sword from his right hand to his left and he aimed it at the incoming mouth of the creature.

The creature sensing immense danger chose to totally sacrifice its last arm which Jason had removed the top part off to block the incoming strike at its mouth.

"I'm not letting you block this one fucker" Jason cured as he used one of his newly gained skills on the sword. He knew that if this strike did not end the creature then it would be him who would be eaten alive by it.

Soon a blinding crimson light covered the sword as it glowed so bright that Jason had to immediately move his head sideways and close his eyes to prevent his eyes from being fried dry by the blinding light. The creature's eyes on the other hand were burnt into crisp by the light.

The sword was vibrating fiercely as a sizzling sound came from the air around the sword and the smell of ozone came from it.

The Sword pierced right through the arm as if it was nothing and just when it entered the mouth of the creature the sword exploded into bits and pieced of sizzling hot metal that dug right inside the creature mouth and inside its brain as the creature was burnt from the inside by the explosion.

The explosion happened suddenly and one of the sizzling hot meal pieces came right at Jason and pierced right through his stomach and then smashed onto the ground.

Ding!

Jason did not have the time to look at the notification as a look of pure agony came on Jason's face as he felt the area that was cut by the metal piece was burnt severely and he felt all his nerves flare up as the pain signals overloaded his mind.

He used the system store and the inventory to put a healing pill directly inside his mouth as it melted away.

"Cut off the mana supply to the runes," Jason said to the system.

When the system cut off the runes the transformation Jason went through because of them was put off and the exhaustion and the overload that his body was in kicked in causing him to lose consciousness. His body suddenly shriveled as if it was sucked dry by a straw.

"I specifically told you not to use any mana related skills." Jason heard the system say just before losing consciousness.