Leslie feels exhausted after losing that much flow but she can't help to feel confident. She's having Graham rub off on her slightly which might be bad in her opinion. She's getting the hang of her flow even if it's lower than normal. She gets into a fighting stance with her crystal gauntlet "Graham, After this fight I want a long nap."
"You two seem confident in fighting this mythical beast, I oddly feel the same." Caelan has this excited rush going through them. They're standing in front of a myth in their village, Normal people would be scared being here. "I hope this isn't blind arrogance."
The beast opens its massive jaws and strikes at Graham. He manages to dodge towards the side and goes in for a few slashes. The snake's massive body only gets a few shallow wounds but something odd happens. The head disappears into the ground like it's sinking into a soft clay.
"This thing is crazy tough! Use all the force you can muster!" Graham looks at the snake's tail disappearing and It's pretty concerning. It has the ability to move through the ground like gooey clay which means It can attack at any moment. His eyes widen when a sudden thin spike shoots from below.
He's lucky to avoid fatal damage but it went through his shoulder. The ground rumbles a bit as the snake bursts from below at Graham. He barely manages to rip out the spike for dodging that attack, This beast is using clever tactics against him. It reduced the spike size for speed and used the moment of him processing the damage.
"It's known as a wise snake king in myth, Look out for tricks!" Caelan dashes forward and pulls back their two swords. They do a spinning slash on the snake's backside while it's on the surface. The damage is just like Graham's slashes, Only shallow wounds which barely draws blood. "The scales absorbs so much of the damage-"
The snake bends its body backwards and opens up the mouth to reveal a giant stone spear. Caelan is shocked for a second before the beast fires off this spear. They barely manage to hold up their sword formations in a cross shape to block it. There's cracks and bits breaking off while they slide backwards from the force of its attack.
Graham takes this moment to reform his sword into a spear and thrusts it into the beast. It has tough muscle structure, His spear only manages to go slightly deeper than his slashes. He pulls back his spear to avoid a giant spike shooting out of the ground. It has great control over the ground.
"Damn, That was close..." Graham nearly was impaled by that spike. The snake must have great control over its powers for it to do that while its guard was down. He's unable to stop it from going back into the ground but Leslie runs to its head. "What are you doing!?"
"Holding this bastard snake still!" Leslie grapples this Snakes head as it tries to slip underground again. She's using her crystals to hook into the in-between of its scales and struggles holding it. A stone spike shoots up that pierces through the stomach, Only bits of crystals fall on the ground. "You missed my vitals."
Caelan goes in and slashes into the eyes as Graham throws the spear with his full force into its jaws. The snake whips around in pain which knocks Leslie off! Its right eye has been blinded by Caelan's blades but the membrane is tougher than steel! They ruined the blade's sharpness from cutting it.
"Its whole body is covered by tough scales, even the eyes." Caelan watches as their sword formations crumble from the structures taking too much damage. They burn more flow making a new pair than maintaining It. That must be from creating a solid form of flow? They take no time in forming another pair.
"Leslie, Are you okay!?" Graham sounds super worried about Leslie from that pretty big hole in her stomach. He knows her body is made of crystals but it still acts like a living body in some ways. There might actually be dangers in taking that level of damage.
"Yeah... I can tell it missed something important." Leslie feels the pain from this wound slowly intensifying. She has dulled and slowed pain because of her weird body structure. She's feeling more sluggish even after forming crystals to block the flow loss.
Graham notices some bubbling in the ground as a humanoid figure forms, No... A few humanoids made out of the ground forms. They're blank in appearance but their bodies are made of dirt and stone which seems troublesome but Graham grins at this. "Wow, This snake thinks I can't see through its tricks!"
Graham instantly digs his hand into the ground while ignoring those golem formations. That's merely a distraction to the snake's real plan. He managed to reach the snake's body and wrapped his starry darkness around its body. It's caught off guard as soon He rips it out of the ground. He's really pushing his strength in this one moment.
"Good Job, Graham!" Caelan jumps at the chance of stabbing into the Snakes body. The pain makes it struggle harder against the Starry bindings and throws them off but It's still too shallow. The wounds still bleed. However, It's not enough to kill it at all. "Shit, Still not enough."
The snake twists its body and goes towards Graham with its massive jaws. He merely grins before catching the roof of its jaws then holds Its bottom jaw with his foot. He holds his free hand into his mouth to unleash a sharp blade from his umbrakinesis to stab right through its mouth's roof. "That should finish it-"
A large boulder made of gray stone suddenly shoots from its throat. Graham is blasted away from it and hits the ground with some blood flowing from his mouth. He's unable to move when the snake raises its tail to slam into him. Something seems off about it, The scales look like they're crumbling.
Leslie jumps in front of Graham to catch the tail. The cracks reopen along with several new ones forming on her body. It's so much more painful than anything before which shocks Graham to see her this badly cracked. "Ugh... Graham, Be more careful next time!"
"Sorry, I underestimated It." Graham has a slight struggle to get up but notices there's weird movement to the snake now. He must've done some damage to its brain; why is the scales acting like that? It's unable to control the golems anymore... Its scales start to break off and reveal a slightly smaller version of itself.
Master of the forest creates more golems than before and it looms over the two. Caelan comes out of nowhere for a flying slash into its remaining eye. It throws them off before going back underground to leave its golems to fight. Graham looks at the ground but it seems to have gone deeper than before.
The scales left from its sudden change have turned into dirt and stone. Caelan thinks about it for a minute, It must be using its geokinesis to merge with its element. That's why its scales are much tougher than any other reptile beast. It's going to be much harder than breaking through some scales.