Chapter 230: Training (P3)

I think I have a cursed tongue,

The moment I let my guard down, the moment I think not even the most basic creature of the forests, a snake, wants to have a piece of me...

I'm attacked by a ridiculously massive one.

The moment Anselm and I noticed the lumbering beast hiding within the thick shrubbery, it struck at us with a great, thirsting hunger. And even now it chases us.

"Uh...How the hell are we going to get rid of that thing!" Anselm yells over the hissing and crashing sounds of the giant snake slithering and pushing its way through the forest and after us.

At last I realize why there was little in the way of a predator when we entered, why nothing had made to attack us up until this point; the snake had taken complete control of the surrounding area, any monster trying not to die would know not to cross here.

Unfortunately, we didn't. And so for the past minute or two I've been running, vaulting and sliding my way through the forest. Anselm merely needs to hang at a height that the beast can't reach, but besides that, it seems keenly interested in eating me in particular.

I wonder if this is because I'm on land or it can sense that only one of us is made of true, real, digestible meat. I suppose I'll never find out, the thing can't talk after all...or can it?

"I don't know Anselm, maybe try to help me out here!" I find myself yelling back as the snake comes to a stop and stares at me several feet away, almost as if it were studying me. I gulp and take full advantage of this unprecedented break, "Shaco, here's your chance to get off quietly and unnoticed."

"On it." My familiar, also a serpentine creature whispers back and slithers down me and away to his mission.

"I don't know about that, this thing seems pretty....terrifying, I mean those teeth!" Anselm yells back, completely useless and unhelpful, something that I do not relate Anselm with on a normal day.

But looking at the beast of a creature we face now, I can't entirely say I blame him or any of the creatures in the forest for keeping their distance. The snake, even with half of it's body held up in the air towered over me by several feet with it's head nearly scrapping the canopy of the insanely giant forest trees.

In this posture it has it's hood flared out, red and colourful with bones sticking out of the sides, an intimidating picture to look at. And as it hisses at me, I catch glance of its purple, sick tongue; very likely to be venomous.

However, it's large size likely also meant that the large forest felt compact and restricting to it. I have more than enough space to maneuver whereas once out of it's swampy deep waters it is but a giant target.

"Anselm, get serious." I say as I carefully but swiftly take out my dagger.

I hear Anselm moan in silent complaint and protest but he complies nonetheless, flaring up with Frozia's power a cool chill soon sweeps over me. 

As though sensing what is to come and from where the beast snaps to Anselm, still glowing with the Goddess' power and lunges of the ground at breakneck speeds I barely catch any of it.

Anselm's swift and abrupt swallowing is not  what I wanted, but it's just good enough as a distraction. Not wasting a second more gawking as the beast comes falling from it's lunge I drag my blade across my palm and pull on my mana.

"Blood Series; Blood Spikes." Blood leaps out of my open wound, crystallizing and hanging in the air beside me as four reasonably size spikes. I fall on one knee as vertigo from the sudden loss of blood hits, but this is merely a small sacrifice, I would have gone for the Blood Shower to end this encounter quickly but that would mean ending my own life.

Huffing I drag myself back up just in time to watch as Anselm phases out of the beast's stomach, materializes above it, mace over his head and plunges down with a fury of a man that'd just been eaten alive.

At the strike the serpent screeches and hisses in pain, it thrashes about, looking for it's assailant but Anselm is long gone, intangible once more. So it turns to me.

"Get ready Shaco." I speak telepathically to my familiar that'd narrowly avoided Anselm's ice strike.

"Ready." He speaks back.

The Giant Snake coils and from merely watching Shaco I know it is about to lunge at me, preparing to swallow me whole as it did Anselm. But that's exactly what the spikes are for.

A second before it lunges I let two of them loose. They soar through the air, startling the snake with their approach and then blinding it in one eye as they embed themselves in its sockets.

More screaming and thrashing follows, but it is all but mute as I utter words of death to it, "Soul Drain."

The thrashing intensifies and Anselm reappears with his mace ready and frosty, delivering a powerful blow across it's face with a roar that inspires me to set loose one more spike at the beast's neck. It's a direct hit, the red crystalline spike digs in deep at the throat of the snake and it begins to sputter, it's movement coming to a still.

Letting out a satisfied sigh I retrieve the fourth and last spike back into my body and let the HP I'm being fed from the Soul Drain close the wound.

But...this is the longest it's taken for Soul Drain to end a life...perhaps because it's too large?

As I ponder this more pertinent things occur; the Giant Snake trembles and rises on its belly, all the way down to the very tip of its tail and it's mouth tears open, blood pouring out and more...certainly more as another snake spills forth and onto the ground.

Stunned to silence, Anselm and I share a look, "Did it just..."

He nods and we turn back to look at our new foe. A freshly born, no shed....vomited? Snake much smaller than the last but still very much giant.

It hisses and coils to rises, slime, blood and guts drip from it's body as it does. I prepare my Dagger and Anselm blows up with frost, ready for round two. 

But then, something or someone falls upon it, spear first. The Snake is speared through it's hissing mouth and pinned to the ground. The figure then pushes away from it, and the pinned snake head detonates with a cleansing fire.

Before I have a chance to react to this entrance the figure turns to face me, their face covered by a green, tribal looking mask and their clothes barely rags of vines and leaves, they demand, "Who are you and what are you doing in this part of the forest?"