Chapter 65

  Skald-ing Cold Water

  “Hiss!”

  An annoyed angry cry of an enraged serpent cried out, as a giant lumbering form rose from the thick ground fog that had momentarily been pushed back to only encircle us.

  The beast was so large and imposing that it only needed to coil itself once to stand over the waist high fog that coated a depressingly dead and dying marsh land.

  As the beast rose, we could see two dimly glowing green eyes burning within the beast’s massive skull. A skull that looked like it could swallow any one of us easily. Well, maybe it would have a harder time with Mr. Karl, possibly needing to unhinge its jaw before fully devouring the muscle bound brute. A brute that I could almost swear has grown in size and stature since our arrival into this rift.

  For a moment I try to pull up my status screen to see my mana, only to realize that for whatever reason the glitch that made my system fade away was gone. However, that didn’t seem to matter as I still had access to my Skills, I could still feel my mana pushing through my body, I just didn’t know how much was left. Instead, I had to know by feel alone where I was and how much I had left.

  Fortunately for me, I had an amazing Golden Life Ratio Mana Regeneration*, the only downside to that Skill was that I had to do mental repetitive math to regenerate my mana quickly, but that was almost nothing for me at this point. Compared to my days of studying to be a nurse, where I was reading textbooks, memorizing test questions, while interning as an assistant, this was easy.

  Pulling my wooden practice sword free from its scabbard, I prepared it by infusing it with energy from my Bloodline’s own Soul Devour Skill. Well, the modified version that also used Life mana as a method of starting the process.

  Apparently, using my Life mana in such a way was wrong, as the serpent that had been focusing on Mr. Yi, the person at the top of our diamond formation, suddenly shifted. It’s dimly glowing green eyes turning to face me and my practice sword.

  Focusing, I stayed still, making sure to wield my blade out in front of me, while turning my body to the side. Making sure to provide as small of a profile as possible.

  “HIISSSS!”

  The creature shrieked out in anger at me. For a moment, I remembered the actions taken by the flying serpent, the three winged monster that spat acid.

  For a moment it appeared like this creature too would spit acid right at me. I was prepared for such an attack, but fortunately, it seemed that the glands that were used to make that defensive measure were gone. Only after a half second did I remember that the one from the arena only spat acid due to it being pregnant at the time. The fact that this one also tried to do the same would imply that she was likely recently pregnant. But had hatched her eggs long enough ago that the acid would no longer be produced. That’s when I remember Mr. Karl’s attack against the smaller serpent and realize that might have been the baby of this mother.

  Odd, as I didn’t expect serpents to be that filial, figuring them to be a mostly trial by fire type of species, but I was apparently wrong. At least when it came to this one, as this one seemed ticked, and now focused on me.

  Seeing its green eyes, and the faint greenish glow that has now been added to my blade, I get an idea.

  Taking the blade, I dip it slightly to the right, and am almost impressed by the fact that the snake shifts its large face to follow the tip of my blade. Out of curiosity, I again shift the blade to the far left and watch as the serpent again tracks the blade’s tip to the other side.

  Suddenly I feel like Dr. Malcom with a signal flare trying to distract an agitated short armed dinosaur.

  While I see that I have the beast’s attention and that it is not moving to strike yet, I don’t quite know what to do next. Fortunately, I am with a well oiled team of fighters who have seen countless battles together. Seeing the beast’s reaction to my blade, Madame Voyou takes charge.

  “That’s good, keep to the rhythm,” Madame Voyou speaks to me, then grabbing her altered violin and its bow, she turns to the others and states five words that everyone else seems to know. “Just like operation Frozen Lake.”

  There is a nod from the others, but Madame Voyou is already strumming and singing.

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  I don’t even pay attention to the words, instead I focus on the rhythm of her music. Starting slow, I gently shift the glowing blade to my right, then back to the left. Like some intricately glowing metronome.

  At first this seems to work, but the serpent soon seems to grow agitated with the actions, inching its way forward.

  By now, Mr. Yi and Markan have already moved forward, taking up key positions to flank the monster, while Mr. Karl has moved even with Madame Voyou and Me, placing himself directly in between the two of us.

  The more Madame Voyou sang, the more dark blue power rolled off her in waves, stretching out and causing a layer of minor frost to appear on the ground. She was freezing the ground, why she would do so I didn’t know. Other than I assumed reptiles here were cold-blooded as well, meaning they would be naturally hindered by the amount of frost on the ground. Also the operation that Madame Voyou cited, Frozen Lake, it seemed to further reinforce what Mr. Karl had hinted at earlier with Madame Voyou being deadly near water.

  There wasn’t enough time, as Madame Voyou still needed more time to do whatever she was doing, and the serpent was coming closer.

  That’s when I decided to be an Actor in this performance. Dance was definitely a part of Acting, which I had the Skill for, which along with my Musical Resonance made me a perfect choice for dancing, spinning and ultimately distracting the large serpent with my glowing blade.

  By now my mana regeneration was high enough that I had mana to burn, which I did by empowering my other class Skill Life Reinforced Movements*.

  With the blade held out wide to my right, I began dancing and jumping like I was a main character in a Chinese Martial Masterpiece. As I ran, sword fully extended, the serpent too followed its head bobbing up and down with each sprint.

  Seeing my performance, Madame Voyou gave a slight nod that I caught from the corner of my eye before she too began increasing her tempo as well.

  I ran until I felt I was nearing the effective ending range of Madame Voyou’s song’s power. Feeling that I was too far, I spun to turn back and head back the other way. As I spun, I spun away from the serpent, letting the blade be momentarily hidden by my back, before returning in full view before the creature. This time the blade was extended far to my left.

  Frozen coiling spikes began to appear on the ground, as they appeared, I made sure to weave and dance between them, their size and shapes clearly visible to my eyes.

  This time, as I passed Mr. Karl, I could see him moving forward, taking a protective step in front of Madame Voyou.

  I could feel the serpent becoming more and more agitated as it no longer seemed content to follow my blade as it began swerving forward in an attempt to cut me off. However, this seemed to be exactly what the team had expected. Suddenly, the forming giant balls of coiling frozen ice came to life upon contact with the large lumbering serpent.

  Shink!

  Spikes of ice erupted upwards and outwards stabbing into and gouging at the giant serpent.

  “SHRIEEK!”

  Upon being impaled once, the beast let out a giant cry of pain, before angrily slithering forward, into and through the next few clusters of ice spikes that I had skillfully danced through.

  Turing to see their destructive powers, I was suddenly glad I didn’t try to set them off.

  “NOW!” Mr. Karl called out, taking his giant glowing axe and infusing it with some type of fire attuned Skill that glowed crimson for a second before slicing into and through an already open wound that was created from the ice spikes that came up and attacked the beast’s tender underbelly.

  At the same time, giant spikes of dirt fired out from Markan’s pistols with pin point accuracy. Striking at other open and bleeding wounds that were lower on the beast’s stomach area. As the bolts of dirt struck, they impacted and immediately began spreading, causing a wedging effect that caused the wounds inflicted to be deeper and ultimately more deadlier.

  I could even see a glowing sword from the far side striking the beast from its flank, no doubt caused by Mr. Yi’s odd Light-based talents.

  This just left me, turning I saw the serpent still focused on the blade. Turning to face the beast, I danced the blade back and forth, distracting the beast a bit more as the team cut into its flanks.

  Each strike having an immediate impact on the beast as it’s rapid surge forward began to slow. Seeing that it was near the end, I did something that at the time seemed like the best option, but in hindsight was an idea that ultimately reeked of stupidity.

  Rather than moving to the right or left, or worse, turning my back on the creature entirely, I decided to charge forward.

  As the serpent opened its maw wide, I charged into the beast’s mouth and using my glowing blade I struck upward. My body moving thanks to my enhanced speed provided by Life Reinforced Movements* before my mind had a chance to even question the action.

  Slink.

  My glowing hot blade easily sliced through the cartilage and thin sheet of bone that separated the beast’s mouth from its brain.

  From my position, I could see the moment when my blow proved to be fatal, it was at the exact same moment when the world around me went dark from the massive maw of the beast suddenly closing, driving me down deeper onto a wet and moist flooring that caused my footing to slip and for me to fall down on my backside.

  Instantly, I felt the a slimy coating of sticky slime grabbing hold of my clothes, but that was the least of my worries, as the serpent began biting down repeatedly. As it did, I could almost feel it trying even now to swallow me whole. Spreading my legs wide, I braced my feet at the sides of the serpent’s mouth, while I continued to infused more and more altered Soul Devouring energy into my blade as I continued to jab it up, as hard I could, directly into the skull of the beast.

  Chomp, chomp, chomp.

  The beast gnashed and gnawed futilely as I continued to pierce more and more of its brain, until finally the beast’s movements stopped.

  Only then, did I relax a second, and catch my breath.

  With only my feet being braced at the sides of the monster’s mouth as my only real reason I wasn’t even now being slowly digested by automatic muscles, I paused and finally realized just how stupid that was.

  I could hear the others still working on dissecting the beast, but they were far away. Only the echoes of their efforts reaching me.

  For a moment I thought about crawling my way out of here, but stopped myself as my shaky body told me I needed a rest.

  Just as I was basking in the moment’s peace, the giant maw of the beast opened up wide. Seeing the action, I immediately grabbed my glowing sword and pointing it upward found an unblemished patch of skull to aim for and waited.

  And waited.

  “Ho-ho, look at that. You treated its skull like an oversized pin cushion,” Mr. Karl exclaimed excitedly.

  “You found her?” Madame Voyou’s voice called out, a bit of nervousness in her voice.

  “The degenerate, yeah, she’s right here,” Mr. Karl stated, then turning back to me, he asked, “well you going to get out of there? Or you just going to take a quick nap while the rest of us do all the work?”

  At that question, I let out a deep sigh, before turning over and carefully working my way up. Making sure to give Mr. Karl a glower for his comments.

  Taking my first wobbly step out of the serpent’s giant maw, I was free and once again breathed in the all too familiar smell of ozone and morning dew. Or at least I tried to but was quickly cut off by my own stench.

  “Bleh!” Snake brain and saliva covered me creating a terrible mixture of death mixed with burnt hair. Not even taking a moment, I used my Trash Skill on myself, only to see that this time things were different when I used my Skill.

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