*Boom*
Zura was knocked back through the air, his hands and feet holding open the large snakes mouth as it pushed him further up towards the ceiling of the cave.
*Dhoooombb*
Zura's body collided with the cave ceiling as he held firmly onto the snake as it attempted to push him further and further into the stone, but he did not care. He was elated for he had met for the first time, a tier 4 beast.
The snake reeled back upon realizing that the bat would not become a cave painting and once again readied itself to smash him into the ceiling, however, could Zura simply allow this?
As the snake coiled its body back and prepared for another ram, Zura started to use his fingers and toes to close the snakes mouth, so as to clamp it shut and avoid the fangs that were far too close for his comfort. However, when the snake realized this, it changed its tact.
Zura felt the energy in the dungeon shift, as if it were being pulled past him into the snakes mouth. He could feel the temperature spike like he just jumped into the mouth of a volcano and in the span of 1 second the snake had produced a ball of fire at the roof of its mouth, directly in front of Zura.
As much as Zura would like to wish it weren't the case, in that moment he became painfully aware of his greatest shortcoming. He had not spent any time actually practicing combat as a bat. Until that moment, he believed that if his will was strong enough he could manipulate all phenomenon to his design and produce any number of attacks. However, what he had forgotten in his arrogance was that it doesn't matter how many tools you have, if you aren't proficient at using them. Zura's mind swam. Muscle memory failed him as he did not know what to produce in order to counter or combat fire breath. So, he did the only thing he could do after that 1 second of hesitation. He removed his right hand from the top of the snakes mouth, cocked back his wing, and in one swift motion he pulled himself up above the snake with his left hand and he let loose a punch that he imagined contained the weight of a mountain directly onto the upper lip of the snake and used that momentum to propel himself from its mouth before zipping thirty feet away.
Though, in the next instant he realized that it was not necessary to fly that far backwards because the snake was moving in the opposite direction to him.
'Oh.' Was the only thought that flashed through Zura's unconscious mind as he saw blood gushing from the snakes lip as it careened backwards through the air before being swallowed by the darkness.
Zura did not hesitate.
He flapped his wings once and in half a second he was grabbing onto the tail of the snake and whipping it over his head and slamming its body of more 30 feet into the cave floor. But he did not stop there.
While fighting with magic and energy were foreign concepts to Zura, the act of suppressing an individual through sheer physically domination was by this point second nature.
Be it a soldier, martial artist, brawler, or an animal, Zura had beaten and broken multitudes growing up. His body may be different, but his instincts are that of a combatant trained to the highest level and always prepared to break bones.
Zura's mind became calm. His reasoning devolved to that of place pain in x location to produce x result. He was no longer a man or a bat. In that moment, he was a beast simply looking to destroy his prey.
Zura once again grabbed the tail of the snake as he hauled it up over his shoulder, jumped into the air, before bringing over his head, smashing its head into the ceiling several hundred feet high, and smashing its body back into the ground.
Then, he pulled the snake under his body as his feet were still in the air until they came down directly onto the beasts head, crashing into it as if he had just once again done a dive from 100,000 feet in the air. The cave trembled from the force of the collisions, but he did not care.
He walked down the beasts head until he was standing directly on top of the monster mouth, then he bent down and wrapped his wings once around its fangs.
{Wa…it} Zura heard a voice speak into his mind.
It took less than a second for him to register who was speaking.
Zura blinked his eyes twice and focused on that voice, attempting to trace its essence and replicate.
{Speak}. Zura spoke out in his mind, but he received no answer.
'That's not it.'
{Speak}. He tried once again, but still felt that he was not reaching the snake, but then he realized why.
'I need to use my energy to link to his conscious mind.'
Zura focused his mental energy onto the snake, attempting to sense the snake's consciousness.
However, just as he was believed himself to be bridging a connection to the snakes conscious mind, he felt a sense of danger sink in to the very fibers of his soul as the image of a snake swallowing every facet of his being completely took over his consciousness.
*Thump*