BOOM!
Another explosion.
Damien was thrown back several tens of feet, but the Uruk had it worse. The massive beast was flung into the sky, its back facing the ground.
It wriggled around, trying to reorient itself to land on its feet, however, was Damien going to allow that?
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Waves of barrakh rushed into the sky. Every time the Uruk moved, a wave of purple-black energy struck its opposite side, canceling out its motions.
'Alright. Stage one is over.'
Damien smiled.
He had taken some time to get here, but it was all according to plan.
The Uruk was powerful. Damien understood that its power couldn't be underestimated from the start. It hit him like a tank whenever it could get a hit in, and the fiery breath it let loose was enough to turn the surrounding jungle into a molten hellscape.
It hadn't even used the acidic breath attack it was said to have, but it was safe to say that Thalia was the only living being remaining in the vicinity. Everything else had either died as collateral damage or ran away.
Damien, as always, started his battle with a physical confrontation. Through it, he learned how dense the Uruk's scales were. After that, he continued provoking it so he could learn its attack patterns and weaknesses.
After experimenting for a while, Damien got a hold of the information he wanted.
The Uruk was as heavy as it was strong. It moved slowly, but its large sweeping attacks seemed to reach its enemies before they could react. Damien, however, was able to use its slowness against it relatively easily.
Especially when it was combined with the beast's limited range of vision was exploited too.
The Uruk had forward-facing eyes just like most predators, but its body was too big for it to completely make use of the advantages that gave it.
It had huge blindspots that got bigger as one got closer to its body. From those blindspots, Damien could easily land any attack he wanted.
The problem came back to its defense. The beast had evolved through millennia of battle, after all. A weakness like that had been covered long ago, specifically with a dense canopy of scales that Damien still couldn't puncture.
Hence, he put the beast in the air.
'I think that'll be the method.'
It may have seemed like Damien made no progress at all, but he actually did get somewhere with his experimenting.
By ruling out so many possibilities, he was left with really only one way to kill the beast.
Flash!
He flashed into the sky and slammed his foot down on the Uruk's underbelly. The beast came crashing down to the ground at a speed fast enough to turn any other creature into a bloody mist.
BOOOOOOOM!
The Uruk didn't have sentience, but it was smarter than the average beast.
It understood that Damien was an enemy it had to take seriously, and it understood that he was looking for its weaknesses.
However, it was unaware of what he found, assuming that, like every other challenger, Damien was stumped by the defensive power of its scales.
With that assurance, it waited for the perfect moment to strike back.
And this was the one it found.
The Uruk could be slow at times and fast at times. It really was difficult to understand the limitations of its movement capability.
This was entirely intentional.
Until it found the opportunity to corner its opponent, the Uruk would never show its true power.
That was why, as Damien watched with wide eyes, the Uruk managed to flip itself during its split-second freefall and land on its feet.
ROOOOOAAAAAAR!
It wasn't just a roar.
The Uruk accurately pinpointed Damien's position in the sky, and, with its jaw open, it spewed a mixture of acid and flames that blanketed the sky.
Damien was caught in the attack. No matter which direction he moved in, he wouldn't be able to escape before his body was too damaged to move.
The Uruk's acid could melt most metals and go through organic material like butter. Just like its speed, its acid was an attack saved until the final moment. That meant the Uruk was confident Damien would die here.
Unfortunately for it, Damien was a half-immortal.
'There it is.'
Damien saw it the first time the beast used its breath attack, but he wasn't completely sure.
The Uruk seemed like a beast that prioritized offense, but it really didn't. It was born with inherent strength, and that was the basis of most of everything it did offensively.
The Uruk's evolution through its life was to use defense as offense as well. By getting rid of all its weaknesses, it could become an unbeatable enemy to anyone. That strategy got it to the position it was in today.
Usually, for beasts that had densely protected exteriors, the solution was to attack their internals through their orifices.
The Uruk was aware that its mouth would be a tempting target for its enemies, especially while it was shooting flames, therefore, it evolved so that its throat would be closed off when it did so.
The inside of its mouth was also reinforced so that its tongue and the areas connected to its nose and other organs couldn't be pierced.
This way, in its most vulnerable moment, it wasn't actually vulnerable at all.
Damien had been increasingly impressed with the Uruk's instinctual intelligence as he fought it, but, at the end of the day, it was still a beast ruled by instinct.
If one looked at the minute details, one would find countless cracks to exploit.
The one that Damien found was related to its mouth.
'Let me retreat first, since…'
He could see a certain woman whose skin was usually a dark grey color sitting in the distance, her face a pale white color.
If he didn't show that he was fine, she would surely have a heart attack.
'Plus, I need a better angle.'
Damien pushed out of the acid cloud, barrakh gathered in his hands and feet.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The purple-black energy blasted through the atmosphere, slamming into the Uruk's body from every side.
As the Uruk maneuvered to tank them with its scales, it failed to realize they were just a distraction.
Shik!
Shik!
Two massive needles made of barrakh punctured the beast's eyes, rendering it blind.
ROOOOOOOOOOAAAAAAAR!
As always, the beast's instinct was to clear everything around it.
It thrashed around in case the enemy was near, and it shot waves upon waves of flames and acid into the skies in case the enemy was trying to retreat.
'Just like clockwork…'
The instinctual patterns of a beast, especially an arrogant beast, would never change.
As the Uruk's flames died down, there was a split-second opportunity.
In the spark of an instant, before it closed its mouth, there was a flaw.
The defensive wall that hid its throat from enemies went down.
And Damien was given access to the easiest method to kill a massive beast.
VOOOOOOOOOOM!
He summoned a tsunami of barrakh and condensed it into a 100-foot-long harpoon.
His muscles bulged and flexed. He assumed the perfect form, transferring the energy contained in his flesh into the barrakh.
And as he pushed his arm forward and let go, the harpoon flew at a speed comparable to light, practically becoming invisible to onlookers.
The rest was history.
Damien's barrakh had no plans of staying hidden for long.
The second it hit its target, it exploded.
And the world quaked in fear of its power.
