So... let’s go greet this suspected Magical Beast and see what kind of conversation we can have.
Hopefully it is the talking kind rather than the fighting kind, but given the descriptions I had heard from the Amazons, I should probably prepare myself for either outco.
***
BOOOMMMM!!
The sound of the initial impact was deafening, a thunderous explosion of force and energy that shook the ground beneath my feet and sent shockwaves rippling through the air in all directions.
It was a bloody fight from the very first mont.
There was no polite introduction or exchange of words, no opportunity to establish whether the creature could speak or understand any language.
The Grootslang simply attacked with overwhelming ferocity the instant it beca aware of my presence in its territory.
From its long trunk, which was sided and lined with sharp thorns that dripped with so kind of venomous secretion, it shot out Power Stones at — violet crystalline projectiles that carried imnse destructive potential, and sothing that an ordinary beast should not know how to do.
And from its warthog-like mouth, wide and filled with rows of jagged teeth, it breathed an aggressive combustion of flas that turned the air between us into a roaring inferno of heat and light.
It did not even let reach its cave before its hopelessly large body ca at like a flashed light, moving with a speed that seed impossible for sothing of its enormous size and mass.
One mont it was coiled in the distance, watching approach. The next mont it was directly in front of , its trunk swinging with its mouth open, and its tail lashing.
Maybe it had been rciful to the Amazons that faced it before?
Because the fight here would have been terrible for anyone else, even for elite Amazons with years of combat experience and powerful magical abilities, due to several factors working together in the creature’s favor:
First, how fast it was, moving like lightning despite its train-like dinsions.
Second, how it could hide such a large body so effectively, using its environnt and so kind of stealth ability to vanish from sight and then reappear at close range.
Third, the existence of the Power Stones as a ranged attack option that hit hard and fast.
And the worst of all, the most dangerous and unexpected factor in this entire engagent:
The Grootslang... was casting dangerous spells in tandem with its physical attacks, weaving magic and raw force together into a seamless combat style that left no gaps for counterattacks.
Simultaneously, while attacking with Power Stones from its trunk and fire from its mouth, it was also trying to crush my body with its massive serpentine coils.
Its tail ca lashing toward like a whip made of living steel, moving faster than eyes could track.
I managed to put a leg up to block or deflect the strike, but the force of the impact was so trendous that I was tossed several ters into the air, spinning and tumbling without control as I rose higher and higher above the battlefield.
From that view in the sky, suspended helplessly in the air with nothing to push against, I saw how hopelessly long the creature truly was.
Its body stretched out below like a dark river winding through a savannah, coil after coil, extending so far that one might not see where it ended.
It truly was like a train given sentience, a locomotive of flesh and scale and fury.
While I was in the air, unable to do anything more than fall and wait for gravity to reclaim , it gathered energy on its mouth — spiritual energy, that pale and ghostly glow that indicated sothing beyond normal magic — and blasted with a concentrated beam of that power, aiming to eradicate from existence before I could touch the ground again.
I teleported from the sky using [Reality Jump], disappearing from the path of the spiritual beam an instant before it would have struck , and appeared close to the creature’s massive body, close enough to touch its scales.
I sent an Earth elental stone at it, but it created a barrier around that part of its body, a shimring shield of magical energy that absorbed the impact of the Earth stone and dispersed its power harmlessly.
Then it shot another spiritual energy blast at the small , aiming to finish the fight with a single decisive strike.
I gathered all the elental stones I could create in that mont, summoning them without raising a hand to direct the process.
All of them swirling around in a chaotic vortex of elental power.
I began mixing and manipulating them rapidly, combining their energies and balancing their forces until they ford a single multicolored glowing ray that I shot back at the Grootslang with all the force I could muster.
PEEEEEEEWWWWWWW!!
The sound of the collision was unlike anything I had ever heard — a high-pitched whine that escalated into a roar and then into a scream, as if reality itself were protesting the violence being done to its fabric.
The two energies collided in the space between and the beast, eting at a single point of perfect opposition, and the resulting explosion devoured everything in that intervening space.
A deep canyon ford underneath the point of impact, carved into the earth by the sheer force of the clashing powers.
The residual power from the collision tore through the ground in a deep long line that went miles and miles away from normal human sight, creating a scar across the landscape that would definitely remain for centuries.
Basically, the entire area here had been burned and wrecked terribly.
The ground was scorched, the grasses were ashes, the trees were splinters, and the very air tasted of smoke and sothing else I could not na.
The barrier I had set over the area before engaging the creature — a precaution I took without thinking about it much — was the only reason the Amazons had not co checking out the bursts of power happening here.
Without that barrier, the explosions and energy releases would have been visible and audible from Verdant Spire.
The serpent moved back slightly, coiling its massive body into a defensive posture, and stopped attacking.
It simply turned to watch with those small but steady eyes, cautious and waiting to see what I would do next, studying as intently as I was studying it.
Smart.
The creature was smart. It recognized that I was not an easy opponent, that I could match its power and survive its attacks, now it was reassessing its strategy accordingly rather than continuing to fight blindly.
{Notice: That creature is a variant of a Supre Dragon. But none of its kind exist anywhere else in the world.}
[Ah, so it is even a unique monster. That explains why it’s so much stronger and versatile than the Amazons’ descriptions had suggested. They had only seen a fraction of its true capabilities during their encounter with it.]
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