Chapter 173 A Cold-Blooded Opponent

The party slowly made their way through the now changed forest, the sounds of the crickets and birds chirping that were present previously had now disappeared. The beautiful foliage had turned to one that seemed weird and out of place, the gray leaves of the plants and their yellow and blue flowers and fruits contrasted the surroundings.

The whole forest was silent as only the sound of the wind whistling could be heard, Reign and the others were visibly alert as the whole situation was weird, they looked back and saw the green leaves and the beautiful foliage of the forest. Many different kinds of plants grew in the forest and the variety of different flowers and fruits made it look like a forest straight out of a cartoon.

There was a clear divide between the two forests, well, technically they were still the same Ironbark Woods, but the difference truly was staggering. A line could be seen dividing the two as no animals were in the vicinity, probably because they feared the inhabitants of the gray woods.

Walking forward everyone made sure to be on the lookout for any enemies. The deathly silence of the woods was nerve-wracking as they slowly walked through the forest. Beast suddenly stops and crouches on the ground while everyone looks at him with eyes filled with apprehension.

"What's wrong, Beast?" Shadow asks as he spins his daggers in an attempt to calm his nerves. The two wind wolves were suddenly summoned, they immediately sat down on each side of Beast while he had his eyes closed.

"Something is near us, it's silent, but I can still hear some low sounds that it creates." Beast suddenly says as he tries focusing even further. A sound of something seemingly crawling on the ground could be heard, judging by the sound Beast wasn't able to determine just how far away the thing was, nor how big it was or even what exactly it was.

"I hear something crawling."

"Where."

"It, it's-" Beast suddenly gulps as he opens his eyes, "It's everywhere, the whole area around us."

"Wolf set the area on fire." Reign suddenly looks at Wolf who nods to him before flames erupt from his sword, he slashes multiple times with one hand while he uses the other hand to throw fireballs. Quite soon the area around them was lit on fire, the gray plants and the iron trees were actually quite hard to set aflame and the fire was probably not going to spread, that was of course a good thing as they didn't want an uncontrollable fire to be burning around them.

Hiss!

Reign suddenly jumps back as a fast shadow passes next to his head. The figure hits the ground and smoke immediately goes up as the others jump to the side while looking at the enemy curiously.

"You couldn't wait any longer huh?" Reign smiles ferociously as he looks at the long, gray body in front of him. The total length of the body was about 14 meters, hard scales could be seen on the surface of the body as they shined under the sparse sunlight. The body was about half a meter wide and its strong muscles allowed it to quickly crawl and create some distance between itself and Reign.

[ Lvl 34 Iron-scaled python ]

Hiss!

A huge python was staring at Reign and the others with its white eyes. It couldn't see well, of course, the python, similarly to every other snake used the tongue to pick up chemicals from the air and recognize them as smells that help it keep track of its prey.

"That's a big fella, a lot bigger than the one that attacked me." Tank whistles as he looks at the giant snake that looked like it could easily swallow a human whole. The strong muscles that the snake had could definitely crush them if they allowed it to coil around them, since this was the first time Reign and the others were going to fight such an enemy they made sure to be as alert and careful as they could.

Reign attacks first, he uses his lightning stab and lunges at the snake's head, attempting to pierce through it and kill it quickly. The snake however quickly lowers its head together with the rest of its body before springing back up in an attempt to bite Reign.

"Tch!" Reign clicks his tongue in frustration as Shadow shows up next to him in the air, they twist their bodies and kick the soles of their feet. The kick was enough to push them both out of the snake's way and they immediately attack it further. Shadow throws his two daggers at the snake while Reign coats his katana with mana before throwing it like a spear.

The attacks hit the target but with less effect than they expected, the katana had managed to pierce almost completely through the snake while the two daggers were fully inserted, their acidic poison was truly good for helping them pierce through armors and scales. Still, to the huge body of the snake even though these two wounds were painful and made it trash around the area they were no serious injuries at all.

The huge body of the snake thrashes around as Reign and Shadow immediately jump back. The tail of the snake creates a loud sound as it whips at Reign who manages to dodge it at the last minute. One of the trees was hit by the tail and it immediately snaps before falling down on the ground.

Wolf and Tank stop in their tracks as they wait for the snake to calm down before attacking it. Wolf first sends a Flame Slash towards the snake while Tank throws his shield, the flames however don't deal as much damage as Wolf had expected, most of the damage was done by the slash that managed to cut through the scales and draw blood that quickly got turned to vapor by the fierce flames. The scales were however quite resistant to fire and only a small burn could be seen on them.

Tank's attack fared similarly, the shield managed to hit the snake and the explosion actually managed to move its huge body a bit, that was however all it did as the snake simply stabilized after a moment before staring at the two with a fierce glint in its eyes.

With fearsome speed, it lunged at the two while completely ignoring the others. Tank quickly brought his shield up and used the mana shield 2 to block it. The snake opened its jaw wide as it attempted to bite Wolf who was simply staring at it with a calm expression as Tank appeared in front of him.

Bam!

The snake collides with Tank's shield and manages to move him back by half a meter, but that was all it managed to do, its mouth was biting down hard on the shield as its fangs were out and close to Tank's face.

​ "Since cutting won't do well, let's see how well you will be able to defend against this," Wolf says with a fierce smile as he clenches his fist before jumping towards the snake, with an amused expression he punches the snake on the top of its head as fire explodes all around them.

"Dammit, my flames didn't go through?" Wolf jumps back as he exclaims in surprise, so far no enemy had managed to block his volcanic fist completely, even the bosses they had previously faced would suffer if he managed to connect his fist, one should know that the Volcanic Fist would send a wave of mana inside the body of the opponent before turning it into flames that would burn the insides, stronger opponents were able to minimize the effect before, but none had managed to completely block the flames like the snake.

An effect was visible however as the snake coiled back in surprise, its head was now burned on the top as its scales were broken while blood gushed out from the gaps. Greenie quickly joined the battle and hit the snake fiercely with his hammer, the scales were a good defense against swords and similar weapons, but blunt damage was something they couldn't defend against that well.

The scales break and the snake hisses fiercely while trying to coil around Greenie who simply punches it with full force. His Shattering Fist hits the body of the snake and it immediately gets pushed back while blood spurts out from the wound, contrary to Wolf's attack, the Shattering Fist was purely a physical attack that would simply send a strong shock throughout the body, the same of course worked with Reign's Compact Punch and Tank's Shield Rupture.

Seeing that the attacks had an effect everyone changed their strategy, well everyone except for Shadow whose daggers could pierce through the thick scales with relative ease, and Beast who simply had to use his bow. Laura drew a small pentagram on both of her hands as she kicked the ground and sped towards the snake as dark, violet flames could be seen shrouding her hands.

Beast quickly summoned his lion, the lion was the same level as the snake and it shouldn't have any problems while fighting it, just to be safe he also summoned Blackie and Fluffy, even though their levels were lower and the snake could defeat them, he was certain that will be able to fight it evenly if they were together.

He used his bow while trying to hit the snake's eyes, even though its eyesight was already bad, piercing through the eyes would deal some significant damage.

At least that was what he thought before he quickly jumped in the air while avoiding a fierce attack from behind.

Bam!

The ground where Beast previously stood on was filled with cracks while two trees were snapped in half by the huge monster that was staring at him.