Chapter 154 - 154: The Serpent

After helping Keith and Layla as much as they could the party moved on to continue hunting enemies for experience.

With their mana sense heightened a little more than before due to the improved Constitution of their bodies, they were able to avoid dangers that previously required Ezekiel to point out.

The number of enemies in the dungeon were near the hundreds but finding those enemies was not easy without Ezekiel basically cheating with his eyes of god.

"Part of me wants to just split up and go to find our own enemies but I'm afraid that would be a bad idea."

Ezekiel sighed when he expressed an idea for how to improve their leveling speed.

He knew that if he just abused the dungeon he could travel much faster to destroy enemies for experience, with such a larger enemy population it would also be beneficial.

"Wouldn't we risk getting lost? Maybe we should just hunt the boss instead of wasting time like this? Levels seem to be doing much less than before you know."

After Keith spoke about the seemingly reduced effectiveness of leveling up the party began to think about how little they've improved.

Ezekiel had been putting points exclusively into his intelligence stat and it had not risen above the F+ grade that it had been placed in after the update.

He shook his head after a bit of time and began to fly into the air to find the massive lake which housed the serpent boss.

It took a few minutes of looking around with his mana sight but when he saw it he returned to the party below, he then pointed out the direction of the boss so they could make their way to it.

Every enemy they passed was dispatched so quickly that they could not even react before someone had slain them.

With Hope being so much faster than before she had been able to join in the combat using her constructs, her agility made her a true threat amongst the monsters as her natural race ability to leap and dash paired well with the wind element which had tempered her body.

Layla even felt the changes in her body as her body was not getting tired as quickly as before, purging impurities seemed to make her stamina consumption far less.

When Ezekiel finally signaled that they were near the boss the party gathered around to let their energy refill itself and gather all the information they could from the only member who had fought it.

"I wasn't always able to reach the boss but when I did fight it... well the boss is tough."

He began to describe each phase of the boss fight where the serpent would use the lake made of heavily poisoned water as attacks before ever even burning thought any mana.

"It can control mana in ways I didn't know could be done, it will use basic waves from the lake to try and wipe us out before sending large bubbles of that same water after us like tracking bombs."

He spoke while remembering the most basic version of the fight.

The most dangerous attack was when the serpent would send water spouts out to hit enemies in the air and throw them off balance.

If they got too close it would use a tail whip or a bite from the cavernous maw, luckily that maw wouldn't be able to inject venom easily since the fangs were almost as large as they were.

Being swallowed however-

"After the first phase the serpent will start to use it's own attacks, mainly stamina and low mana consumption skills like venom spray and some sort of control ability over snakes."

He patted Amaru hoping she would be immune to that as his pet.

She had grown so large that her head was as large as his own head and her body was at least twice as long as he was tall.

Her spells and control over mana had also grown rapidly under his guidance.

"The serpent will use much more aggressive attacks with the lake water in the second stage, the serpent seems to value it's own power more than the massive lake it lives in so it conserves energy."

"So we should do the same, I can create barriers that should keep the water out and maybe even let us get into melee with it."

"If you get into melee it can just try to swallow you so stay out of melee until it tries to rush you."

He made sure to take small glances at Keith during his explanation since his friend had revealed a severe snake phobia.

As he began to explain the third stage where the serpent would finally start casting spells he put heavy emphasis on the potency of the poison mana this serpent had.

"The serpent can easily use spells like toxic chains to restrain and poison clouds to harm the vision of enemies but the most dangerous spells involve directly attacking through the use of toxic spears and beams of raw poison mana."

"The boss will keep using the other attacks during this right? Or does it stop using the lake?"

He shook his head in response to Layla's strategic question.

"The boss will pretty much quit using physical attacks unless you're in melee range of it, the majority of the threat are the wide range attacks from the lake water and the spells that can easily overwhelm a single target."

"This is sounding like a raid boss dude, are you sure you didn't bring us into a raid and not a dungeon?"

Keith looked visibly pale from hearing about the attacks of the serpent.

"No it is definitely a dungeon. I don't know if this game has raids, if it does then we are too low to know about it."

With the third stage out of the way he finally explained the last stand of the boss.

"The serpent will stay in the lake all the way until we bring it to the ten percent health range."

He turned to Layla first as he explained the threat.

"The serpent is an extremely powerful physical beast but it will use magic constantly during the fight, my ability to tank this boss will be almost non-existent without Hope to heal me so I rather she focus on healing you while I use spells from above."

The others nodded before Layla spoke back up.

"Try to stay ln the ground, I know you don't want to risk tanking against the boss but we do need a way to keep heat off of us sometimes. We definitely cannot allow it to turn on Keith."

He couldn't argue with her logic but he knew he would need to use an extreme amount if mana to keep it from breaking his defense.

"I will focus on creating barriers and buff effects to keep you both at peak condition for as long as possible. If the boss attacks me I can just run away to heal."

"I will stay hidden and take shots when I can, I won't hold the group back."

As they turned to Keith the party tried to convince him that he wasn't to blame for his own phobias.

With their game plan ready the group approached the lake through the trees.

~~~~~~~~~~

Entering boss domain, applying poisoned condition.

~~~~~~~~~~

They watched as their hp began to fall by a quarter of a percent every second, some could heal it with no problem through their natural health recovery like Layla and Hope but Keith and Ezekiel had to cycle their life affinities to heal the constant damage.

With the threat now clear Ezekiel raised a large stone in one of his wing claws to throw into the lake, through his mana sight he could identify exactly where the serpent was through the lower density of the mana filling the lake.

Not that the lake was low density, in fact the lake had some of the most potent ambient mana he had ever seen.

Water mana mixing with poison mana to the point of the lake glowing like a hot spot.

It was just that the serpent boss had much denser mana within itself.

The serpent boss began to rise through the water after the stone had crashed through the surface and slowed to a soft bump against it's head, as soon as it exited the water the boss bar appeared and a wave of poisoned water flowed across the ground towards the party.

~

In a forest within the Dragon Empire, a group of people wearing all black began to separate to reach the farthest corners.

Eleven figures in total with six moving far to the edges of the forest while four of the group made their way to equidistant points around the center of the forest.

The final figure made their way to the heart of the forest where the mana was at it's densest, each figure waited before they seemed to receive a silent signal.

Across miles of forest these eleven figures had created a massive pattern with near perfection as they began to pierce the ground with black crystals.

They used earth mana to push those crystals deep into the land until they could no longer sense the mana signature of the stones, or even see a trace of disturbance on the surface.

In the center of the pattern a single man placed an altar down before placing the stone onto it.

Once he was done he began to chant a spell that they had been given before leaving on this mission.

The magic of the chant flowed through all eleven figures before the final word was spoken and a barrier rose around the crystal.

As the barrier sealed the figures turned to leave before feeling their hearts stop.

Every figure collapsed to the ground and all was silent until a spectral hand rose out of the chest of the central figure.