"So, what are we going to do about that giant crawler in the oasis?" Briar asked, stretching lazily after finishing her breakfast. "It doesn't feel right to leave the damned thing be after it chased us away like that," she added with a frown on her face.
"We should leave it be," I answered, shaking my head. "We don't have the luxury of wasting our time on that talking snake, with the dungeon constantly changing," I added as I stood up, heaving a sigh.
"But I've been thinking, and that oasis could be our passage to the next dungeon level," Briar reasoned as she too stood up, making her way towards me.
"I can't think of any other reason as to why the snake is there," she added, retrieving a rubber band from her pockets, which she used to tie her hair into a ponytail.
"It could also be guarding some sort of treasure, too," I added with a thoughtful expression. "In any case, we need to explore more of the area before making that decision," I concluded while shaking my head.
"So, we explore the area, and if we find the passage to the next level, we ignore the snake," Briar interpreted with a nod of her head. "But we go back and kill the snake if we don't," she added with a smirk.
"Pretty much," I replied with a shrug of my shoulders as I materialized Snow-white. I transformed it into a pair of wings and flew into the air, causing Briar to follow suit with her own pair of fleshy wings.
...
"Well, it looks like we don't have much choice," Briar remarked with a smirk as we landed back in our little campsite after exploring the desert for several hours, finding nothing but sand and monsters.
"Looks like it," I replied with a sigh as I took out a water container, emptying its contents in a single gulp. "We'll rest here for a little while to replenish our energy and then go back to the oasis," I added as I sat down on the floor, cross-legged, closing my eyes.
...
"It looks like we're expected," I remarked with a raised eyebrow as I stared in bemusement at the oasis ground, crawling with snakes of all sizes.
"We did leave quite an impression on that reptilian piece of shit after all," Briar added from the side as the giant serpent emerged from the water glaring at us, with its wound still gushing blood.
"Filthy humansss," the serpent exclaimed in an outraged tone, its hate-filled glare intensifying. "You will not leave here alive thiss time," the viper added, hissing strangely.
Several snakes turned to look at the giant serpent as it hissed, their bodies shivering as they sprouted pairs of fleshy wings, clumsily flying into the air.
"Ah yes, flying snakes," I murmured with twitching eyes, applying my aura armor to myself. "As if normal snakes weren't bad enough," I added, materializing Bloodsport and covering it with back flames.
Ideally, I didn't want to use this ability in front of Briar as it was my trump card, and that is precisely why I was against killing the giant snake in the first place, as I wasn't confident in winning the fight without using this power of mine, but I digress.
The first flying snake reached us and lunged at me first. I caught the snake that was roughly my size with my free hand by its neck and bashed its head with my baseball bat.
The snake shrieked in pain, and it did not die instantly from the head blow as black flames began spreading all over its scaly body, slowly but surely reducing it to nothing but ashes.
I let go of the dying snake, dodging to the side to avoid another of its brethren lunging at me, and frowned as I noticed another viper sprout a pair of wings and fly into the air after the first one turned to ash.
'Is there a set number of flying of snakes?' I quickly took a quick glance around, counting at least twelve snakes, as I swung my baseball bat, hitting the serpent I had just dodged.
'As I thought.' The snake quickly died in the same manner the first one did, and another one of its companions quickly sprouted a pair of wings, flying into the air.
"There's a set number of flying snakes," I exclaimed as I turned to look at Briar, who was fighting two of the said flying reptiles. "Every time we kill one of them, another will sprout a pair of wings and take its place," I added as I began channeling energy into Snowwhite in its wing form.
Spreading my wings wide, I launched aura projectiles in the shape of transparent, white feathers that exploded upon impact, effectively bombarding the ground below me.
"You take care of the big guy, then," Briar remarked after slicing the two snakes attacking her to shreds. "I'll keep the little ones off your back," she added.
Briar transformed her blade arms into two sharp, metallic whips, which she swiped the ground with as she landed, slicing all snakes in the range of her attack into two.
I watched this scene and shrugged my shoulders with a sigh as I bombarded the ground in front of the giant serpent with aura projectiles, creating a clearing for me to land.
The overly talkative serpent surprisingly did not intend to mince words with me, immediately lunging its head at me with its maw wide open in an attempt to swallow me whole.
I kept a neutral expression as I too jumped into the air, meeting the serpent's head halfway as I swung my baseball bat at one of its fangs, as that was the only thing available for me to attack.
Though I managed to push the snake back thanks to augmenting my strength by pumping energy into my muscles, the monster only staggered for a fraction of a second.
The serpent jerked its head back and lunged at me again before I could react, pushing me back to the ground, and pinning me there as I used Bloodsport to stop it in place with my feet planted on the ground.
And although I was standing my ground, the giant serpent was slowly overpowering me thanks to its size and the unrelenting force of gravity.
I took a deep breath as I channeled a significant portion of my energy into Bloodsport, manifesting it in a wave of black, fiery aura that I immediately shot into the viper's wide-open mouth.
The giant serpent hissed in pain as the black flames began burning it from the inside, jerking its head back and burying it in the oasis' lake in an attempt to put off the fire.
I resumed channeling my energy into my muscles as I prepared to lunge at the wounded beast, noticing a rather large viper, roughly two times my size, charging at me.
I ignored the incoming snake and jumped at the wounded serpent king as a long, metallic whip appeared seemingly from nowhere, cleaving the viper, trying to sneak up on me in half.
I floated above the serpent king as it tried to put off the black flames, frowning for a second in concentration to create an aura clone, which I left Snowwhite with, still in its wing form.
I took the clone's hand, and it spun me in the air, launching me towards the serpent king like a speeding bullet while the giant monster was too busy attempting to douse the black flames to notice the danger.
I still maintained my frown in concentration as I covered my body in aura armor, giving it a sharp edge just above my head as I flew face first towards the serpent king's back.
Though I faced some resistance, I still penetrated the serpent's metallic scales reasonably quickly, and going through its flesh was a much quicker process.
I went through the serpent's body, creating a circular hole in it as I exited from the other side, emulating a bullet hole, which was precisely what I was aiming for with my stunt.
I, of course, did not forget to scrape the monster's insides with Bloodsport, infecting with even more black flames, and my clone wasn't standing still in the air either.
The clone quickly channeled half of the aura I left it with into Snowwhite, bombarding serpent king with explosive aura feathers, with a lot of them hitting the bullet hole I created, worsening the giant serpent's injury.
I looked at this scene and smiled as my clone threw Snowwhite in my direction, diving towards the serpent king that was thrashing and hissing in pain.
The clone fell precisely in the bullet wound I had created and exploded itself inside the serpent's body, finally killing the monster as it breathed its last with one last hiss.
I heard some clapping and sighed as I turned to look at Briar, who was smiling in amusement as the remaining vipers began fleeing in all directions after the death of their king.