Ch-36 Julian's Strength

There was immense strength behind the Red Crown Crane's attack sending Julian flying but instead falling on land in a pathetic manner he managed to land gracefully on the ground due to his experience as a warrior fighting countless battles.

For beings at the peak of the Arcane World, a simple clash was enough to reveal a lot of information about their opponent. Julian sensed otherworldly physical and magical strength from the Red Crown Crane. Its movement was slow in his eyes but it compensated this disadvantage with massive strength that bore down like a mountain falling along with its ruthless character, it was being not to be trifled with.

The fact bothering Julian the most was Red Crown Crane's state of mind. He had expected it to have already gone senile, unfortunately it still had a well functioning sane mind.

Beasts having well functioning brain's were always the toughest to deal with. The moment Red Crown Crane finished its preparation and was able to sense the pesky human with 100% certainty, the only reason stopping it from attacking disappeared and it rushed towards him. Luckily Julian was able to summon his mace before they started fighting. The strikes exchanged were too fast for Jasper too fast to follow, all he saw were flashes of cold steel and red.

The body of the Red Crown Crane was a lethal weapon by itself being endowed with strong beak, claws not broken easily. As if coupled with its insane physical strength it was not too overpowered, the hair that spread through its body could turn sharp protecting its flesh and giving it an impregnable defense. This was why their race was feared by the people of the Arcane World hunting everyone of them.

There was also the fact that selling their body would give enough money for a man to never need to do anything, that's how valuable and rare it was.

Julian was abnormal just as his weapon, a mace was. It was named ' The Mace of Poison ' which was a cursed weapon.

Julian and his clan possessed the 'Healing Magic' which could be used to cure many kinds of injury, ailments and diseases as long as their was enough supply Healing Magic. For this reason, they had been exploited for a very long time.

They couldn't retaliate due to the nature of Healing Magic which was useful only for healing and not suited for attacking. This exploitation continued until one of Julian's ancestors found a way to increase his physical prowess instead of magical capacity. He used this epiphany to increase his physical strength, growing it to an absurd level that he was able to counter all the Magicians suppressing and restrain healing mages.

However this technique was not the reason for Julian's immense strength. It was because of his own efforts.

Julian strength kept increasing as time passed and when as he faced the Ancient Beast, Red-Crown Crane feared by the ancient people whose stories were spread far and wide in the Arcane World, he felt absolutely no fear against it.

Healing Magic had been extensively used by Julian, so he was confident of his physical strength but this strength was rendered useless. He now understood the reason Red-Crown Crane were so feared, because they must be feared. They were frighteningly strong and a normal Magian or Warrior had no hope of winning against it.

Speed, Agility, Strength and Flexibility had to been trained to the extreme which was necessary for a body practitioner use his power at full potential. Julian had again and again broken the shackle on his body to make it strong. He used it to kick, punch, dodge, charge and deal strikes at possible fatal spots but they all they did was sting the Red-Crown Crane and make it lose a small amount of blood.

A sword filled with Cursed Energy was nothing to scoff at. It was as if the weapon had been made in hell, something that shouldn't exist. The burden on the Weapon's master was easily enough to kill him , so he didn't use it often. Julian had a little resistance to this side effect, but the burden was still too much to handle even for him. He preferred to avoid using it, but Red-Crown Crane was an opponent who could only be dealt by 'Mace of Poison' .

Julian unfurls his weapon , Mace Of Poison. The only way to describe it in one word was Cursed. It had a history of its own about how it came to existence. Hideous in appearance, rusted from outside and inside like a scrap of metal, filled with ancient drawing ,twisted sharp edges meant to pluck out skin and make blood flow making one's skin crawl just by looking at it.

Healing mana began to congregate in this scrap metal and surprisingly it absorbed the mana like a black hole. As, the congregation of mana continued, it released black miasma around it. Once Julian was done charging ' Mace Of Poison' , he charged at the Red- Crown Crane.

The Red-Crown Crane was an adult with a lot of experience under its belt. The Red-Crown Cranes had a fearsome reputation and most of the beasts stayed away from them in fear of being hunted and killed. This made hunting a tough task assigned to a chosen few with exceptional hunting skills. They had to use these skills to lure the prey outside or prepare a trap to hunt them down.

Finding beasts to hunt was a tiring task, especially for someone as big as the Red-Crown Crane when it could be seen from a mile away. The only way to hunt beasts was to destroy a portion of land, killing all the beasts in. It was a beast after all why would it care about other beast life.

Still the area to be destroyed had to be picked carefully because if not careful enough there was a chance of offending another fearsome community of beasts or a frighteningly strong beast it couldn't deal with. If it ended up doing that then instead of hunting the prey, it would become the prey.

When it sensed two presences, it immediately tried to lock on to the stronger presence. Once it was able to do that it was satisfied and confronted it. To its shock it was a puny sized being it had seen once or twice before. It was initially not interested due to its puny size but after sensing the mana the puny sized being possessed, it changed its mind wanting to eat it. It was sure to be delicious.

As it fought Julian it was surprised by his strength. It had seen his kind before, but had never fought them, however it assumed his kind to be very weak because of their puny size.

With the strength Julian displayed it seemed he could entertain it for sometime until it decides to deal with it.

The puny human flayed with impressive speed and stricking him in many place on its body but the strength behind them was pathetic.

However when the puny human removed a scrap of metal, Red-Crown Crane's heart started to palpitate. It didn't know why it felt like this but it instinctively focused on the puny human and for safety measures activated its skills, covering its body in golden flames.

Julian and Jasper saw the Red-Crown covered in golden flames, but it was just a mix of fire and gold elements. The Red-Crown Crane's race had natural affinities with the Fire and Gold element as was every Magical Beast of Arcane World was born with natural affinity which may vary based on certain conditions.

The Red-Crown Crane released scorching hot flames around its body and tough golden plates on its vulnerable parts ,giving them additional protection. Julian enters the ring of fire experiencing hot flames which were too hot to bear, burning him up entirely.

But this was not some random weak entirely, it was Julian who had lived for more than hundred years and experienced everything a person could possibly experience in his life. As his body burned, he used Healing Magic to heal that area. Even though, he was burned till his skeleton was visible, he would heal himself by regenerating his muscles, organ and skin. This was the way Healing Mages fought.

With the heat of Red-Crown Crane's flames Julian should not be able to enter the ring of fire , but the ' Mace of Poison' made it possible as it cut through the flames.

Julian reached the heart of Red-Crown Crane, but he was unable to move an inch further as he faced the protection of the golden plates.

These gold plates were similar to a warriors armour protecting him. To break it, Julian increased the Healing Magic supply to ' Mace of Poison ' increasing the Cursed Energy emitted by it breaking open the golden plate.

There was nothing to protect the heart, as the ' Mace of Poison' pierced through it. By the time Red-Crown Crane realized what had happened it was too late. It tried repairing its inuried heart but to his dismay its whole body had stopped functioning as an unknown type of energy flowed through his body corrupting every organ, muscle and skin.

Just after Red-Crown Crane realized it was actually going to die, it lost its ability to think and in a short time turned into a rotten corpse. The atmosphere seemed to be grieving the death of Red-Crown Crane as the whole jungle seemed to stand still for a moment before everything became normal again.

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