Chapter 452: Cunning and Poisonous are two Annoying Traits

The only sign Joshua had that something was rushing at him from behind was the fact that he could feel a sudden gust of wind that aligned with the danger warning that he had been feeling before the battle even started. Joshua quickly turned to look in the direction of the wind while raising his scale blade to defend himself and covering his entire body in aura. He took up a defensive front on whatever was planning to take his group by surprise and it was a good thing he did as a large figure impacted his scale blade sending him sliding back with his feet digging into the dirt and the ground beneath him cracking from the impact.

The blow sent waves of pain throughout Joshua's arm and he was certain that he heard a few cracks here and there as his bones creaked under the strain of taking on such a hit. Luckily he had his aura up or else he'd already have two broken arms from that attack alone. Whatever Joshua was fighting against he knew that it was something he'd have to face while using his aura hardening ability or else too many blows like that could end up causing his body to have a break down.

The dirt cloud that had formed from the impact of the attack started to quickly fade away allowing Joshua to get a better look at what had attacked them. What surprised Joshua was the fact that even though he could feel the weight of what was pressing against his scale blade at the moment he couldn't actually see what was attacking him. The only hint that anything was in front of him was the fact that the light around the beast in front of him seemed to curve in an unnatural way as if Joshua was looking through a window instead directly at what was in front of him.

Joshua tried to feel out what was attacking him with his aura sense, but it wasn't registering anything in front of him at all outside of the grass. He knew his aura sense was working just fine since he could sense his group fending off the bobcats behind him along with the aura of the bobcats themselves, but whatever he was fighting at the moment was able to completely camouflage itself from every sense that Joshua had. It was even more difficult to notice than Vince was when he was using his illusions for the most part.

After holding off the beast until the dirt cloud cleared its figure started to shimmer in front of Joshua until he could start to see a large fang appear right in front of his scale blade. The fang lead to a giant mouth that was currently stuck hanging above Joshua since he was holding it back at the moment, but the long forked tongue that was flicking back and forth in front of Joshua gave him a good idea of what he was fighting against. Seeing a bit of dark green venom drip from one of the large fangs hanging above him, Joshua quickly used a sword smash to knock the beast back as he leapt out of the way of the venom that nearly dropped on his head. Seeing the venom create a puff of green smoke on contact with the ground told Joshua that he wanted nothing to do with touching the stuff.

After leaping back Joshua was able to get a good look at the beast that was in front of him as it reared its head back and coiled its body as if it was ready to go in for another strike. It was clearly one of the snakes that Joshua had seen take down a vulture out of the air. The snake wasn't as large as the ones in the canyon, but it definitely had more power in its strikes from what Joshua could tell from the previous blow. The fact that it could kill him with its poison or its ability to coil around prey and strangle them until their body broke down was another reason why this snake was much stronger than its counterpart from the canyon.

As its head reared back Joshua took the brief moment of the snake preparing to go in for another strike to observe it to see what he was dealing with. The beast was level eighty-seven which was a higher level than any beast they had actually fought in the prairie up to this point and had four stars next to its description as well. Before Joshua could even worry about that the snakes body went invisible once more right in front of him before Joshua could sense danger coming his way and dived to the side as the snake gouged a hole in the ground as it tried to swallow Joshua in one quick movement.

After the snake had made contact with the ground its head and a part of its neck became visible once more, but the rest of its body still wasn't in view for Joshua. Even so he used his aura sense to focus on the grass around him to see what path the snake's body was taking. He didn't want to get surrounded by it completely and be in danger of its ability to coil around him. He also needed to keep a look out for the tail of the snake since it could likely be used like a whip to try to attack from his blind side. Tracking the indentions the snake's body was making in the grass was the only way Joshua could figure out how it was moving around him.

Once Joshua noticed the snake almost had him surrounded he used an aura blast from his feet to leap over the snake's body, but jumping into the air seemed to have been a part of the creatures plan since even though Joshua could still see its head Joshua could feel danger coming from his left so he quickly used aura hardening and blocked as best as he could as something slammed into his scale blade too fast for him to try to move out of the way of while being up in the air.

The impact of the attack sent Joshua soaring through the air as he slammed into the ground feet first making sure to brace himself as best he could. He used his scale blade while bracing it with his free arm to block the blow, but even with his aura hardening it was still a very jarring experience. Joshua wasn't sure if he was lucky or not, but the attack had sent him away from the rest of the group and that could be a bad or a good thing. It could be bad since he was on his own in this fight against the snake since the rest of the group was busy taking on the three bobcats that had surrounded them at this point. Apparently the two bobcats that came in after the first helped it break free so that they could go in for another attack.

Joshua's current situation could also be beneficial since he was certain that he had the full attention of the snake now that he had been knocked away from the group. He could still feel the sense of danger even though he couldn't see the snakes head anymore as its tail once again turned invisible and Joshua was forced to rely on paying attention to the movement of the grass to keep up with the snake. After their last interaction Joshua knew that this beast was far more cunning than the snakes he had faced in the canyon or any of the beast he had fought in the prairie up to this point. It had planned out their last clash and forced Joshua into a situation where he either had to take the hit or use an ability that would get him out of the bad situation in the first place.

That level of planning was something Joshua had only seen in boss level beast that had high amounts if intelligence. The fact that some random snake in the prairie could do all of this was a good sign that they needed to be more prepared for when they went towards the center of the prairie or tried to take on the guardians of the prairie. The grass started to crumble in front of him which told Joshua that the snake was on the move. It didn't seem to be in a rush with how slow the grass was being flattened underneath it.

The issue Joshua was having at the moment was the fact that he couldn't tell whether the snake had its head raised up in the air or low to the ground which completely change the trajectory of its next attack. Suddenly the grass was brushed aside as a gust of wind started to rush the surroundings as the snake was on the attack again. This time Joshua blinked out of the way so that the snake wouldn't be able to catch him off guard like it did last time. The moment its fangs gouged into the ground its head became visible once more, but Joshua didn't plan on just letting it fade away once more to escape being targeted.

This time around Joshua had an aura string tethered to his previous location that he blinked from. He had set it up while the snake was circling him earlier and he had connected it to one of the explosive grenades he had in his inventory. The moment the snake crashed into that spot the string was pulled and the grenade went off. The small explosion didn't do much more than singe some of the snake's scales but after being hit the camouflage around the snakes body disappeared for a moment giving Joshua a chance to see its entire form.

Before the snake could back away he sent down a couple of energy slashes in an attempt to keep the snakes body visible as he dashed over to attack it before it could disappear once more. The energy slashes only slightly cut against its scales since they were casually used and from such a large distance. When Joshua got in close he coated his blade in aura just as the snakes body began to disappear once more. He quickly sliced downward into the snake's side since he wasn't able to get close enough to its head in time and grinned when his blade empowered by aura and will was able to cut through its scales. It was still tough to pull it through the heavy muscle and large scales of the snake.

The large beast let out a loud hiss as it quickly backed away blood pouring from its wound and started to drip on to the grass. As its body turned invisible once more Joshua smiled a bit since he now had a trail of blood that he could follow to keep an eye on the snake's movements. Even so the amount of damage he was able to do to it was minimal and it was going to take a while to take it down.