Chapter 441: A Snake goes for the kill steal

With one vulture down there were currently two left that were busy bombarding Lilly's beast companions with mana empowered feathers continuously. Luckily one of the birds was still having trouble trying to get back up into the air do to Titus's vines so Joshua decided to lead the group into attacking that vulture next. Since they knew that fire was these creatures weakness he had all of the members of the group with fire based attacks go on the assault at first. Before Joshua's group even started with the plan Cinder seemed to have figured out the weakness of her opponent as she leaped into the air over the vines while creating some webs up in the air that connected from vine to vine.

Titus quickly figured out what Cinder was up to and helped her out by creating more vines that twined together and created ten story tall trees around the area of the grounded vulture that was finally about to break away. These vines toward above the bird and were a bit more sturdy than all of the other ones that had been used up to that point. Cinder leaped over to those vines and used her legs to steady herself as she held onto one of them. Feathers were still raining down from up due to the other vulture, but Cinder agilely avoided them as she leaped from tree to tree and created large webs around the vulture that had broken free from the vines that were clinging to its feet.

The webs that Cinder created were smolderingly hot since she was in her flame form and they were more than sturdy enough not to snap easily. The moment that the vulture broke free from the vines and flew up into the webs it thought it could easily burst through them, but instead it only got tangled up by the web that clung to its feathers. Since the webs were connected to the trees tightly, it was as if the vulture was trying to fly up while pulling all four giant trees out of the ground which clearly wasn't easy since they were being controlled by Titus. The roots of the trees dug deep into the earth just to make sure that the vulture wasn't able to rip them out of the ground in an attempt to get away.

Soon the feathers on the vulture started catching fire thanks to the heat from the webs and their flame attribute. Even in such a dangerous situation this vulture didn't start panicking like the other one had. Instead it started concentrating aura around its body which kept the flames from being able to spread from feather to feather. Its chest was puffing up as it planned to spew out its black fog to weaken the trees so it could break free which Joshua noticed right away. They needed to get in some hits before it could do just that and break free from the trap that Titus and Cinder had set up, but at the moment the other vulture was bombarding them with mana enhanced feathers that Katsumi was blocking with her barrier talismans at the moment.

Laura, Julia, and Ariel all started sending their more powerful flame based spells in the direction of the trapped vulture, but it shot out several feathers in return that clashed with the spells causing them to explode before they could reach the creature. It then let out its poisonous fog that started to wither the trees before it began pulling itself up with its wings once more. Its strength helped it rip the trees out of the ground which made the webs useless since they had nothing to anchor themselves to.

Cinder leapt off of one of the webs she had set up and slammed herself into the giant vultures back. At the moment she wasn't at her full size so that she could move around more easily, but she was still big enough to stab her legs deep into the vultures back and hamper it. Once she latched on she grew to her full size weighing the beast down even more so that even though it was able to rip the trees out of the ground it still couldn't fly fully into the air. Cinder then started blasting its back with torrents of flame now that she didn't have to worry about the fire burning away the trees and becoming an issue.

The vulture screeched in pain as it hovered over the tall grass that the coyotes had come from and that ended up being a death sentence for it. The vultures weren't the only creatures around that were looking to take away the dead coyote bodies. At first Joshua was paying too much attention to the fight that was going on in front of him to notice the approach of another predator, but the fact that it was about to go on the attack made it much easier for his aura sense to find it. Joshua looked down towards the grass beneath the vulture and Cinder and could see it parting as another beast moved through it. It was then that said beast made its presence known.

A large green snake struck out lunging into the air as it mouth opened wide and its fangs gouged themselves deep into the shoulder of the vulture. Its body then coiled around the right wing of the vulture before squeezing it and creating several cracking sounds as the vulture let out an alarmed shriek before the fact that's it wing was broken and two giant creatures were hanging on it caused it to fall to the ground with a loud thump. Cinder notice the tail of the snake shoot up and tried wrap around her so she quickly dislodged from the vulture and jumped off and away from both creatures. She sent a few fireballs to slam into the both of them before leaving trying to injure both parties.

The vulture shrieked once more as the injuries on its body started to pile up, but the snake didn't make a sound as it started to coil more of its body around the vulture in an attempt to squeeze it to death. More and more of the snakes body was now wrapping around the vulture preventing it from being able to thrash around in attempt to escape. With a broken wing it had no chance of breaking out of the hold and flying away so in its weakened state the vulture let out another cloud of black fog in attempt to damage the snake, but the flames on its body caused the fog to catch fire only damaging both of the creatures even more.

While the vulture looked like it was on the verge of dying from the sudden explosion of fire the snake hardly looked injured at all. The scales on its body seemed to not only resist the poisonous fog, but also the heat of the flames around the vulture as the snake just continued to squeeze away. Joshua frowned at this situation since he didn't want the snake to steal their kill and all of the experience that they would have gained from taking down the vulture. The bird already looked like it was on the verge of dying and Joshua didn't want the snake to end up killing it.

Making his decision Joshua made sure his body was covered in his aura shroud that he empowered even more with his will to make sure he could withstand the flames that were surrounding the two creatures. He then dashed forward through the tall grass and leapt off one of the torn out trees to get up higher so that he could reach the neck of the dying vulture. When he got close enough he could see that the vulture wasn't only dying faster because of the flames, but the skin around its shoulder and neck seemed to be turning green from some sort of poison that the snake had injected it with. Joshua kept that in mind for when his group was going to have to fend off the snake.

Joshua coated his scale blade with will empowered aura with the idea of making it as sharp as possible as he used an aura string that he attached to the neck of the vulture to pull himself even closer. The sudden pull allowed him to avoid the sudden snapping beak of the vulture at the last second as he got underneath its head and swung his scale blade at its neck cutting its head off for good. For such a huge creature its neck was surprisingly thin making it the most glaring weak spot on the beast.

The snake seemed to notice the fact that the struggle of its prey seemed to end and it glared its eyes towards Joshua as he kicked off the vulture and landed back on the ground a few paces away. The vulture in the sky let out an angry scream, but it still didn't dash down towards the group. Instead it flew up even higher and got further away so that it wouldn't be in danger of getting shot at by spells, arrows, or bullets. It stopped raining feathers down on the group and glared down at them for a bit before gliding away and landing on a far off hill. It continued to stare at the group in anger, but did nothing else.

The giant snake however was much closer to them and could have gone on the attack against the group if it wanted to. Instead it squeezed hard enough on the vultures body to create several snapping sounds before it turned away and started dragging the large body back into the grass. Although Joshua felt that fighting the snake was well within the realm of possibility for the group he knew they had already attracted one predator from the scuffle and didn't want to end up getting caught in the cross fires of multiple large beast at once. He had already gotten what he mainly wanted out of the fight when he cut through the vulture's neck as he could feel himself level up once more.

He turned back to all of the dead bodies left behind from the battle and decided to put all but two of the coyotes in his inventory. Everything else he took for materials that the alliance could use later. He was hoping leaving a couple of dead bodies behind for the vulture in the distance to eat would prevent the creature from following his group later with a grudge was the best thing to do. For now he was just focused on moving away from the area so that they'd be out of danger.