Chapter 744: Searching For New Opponent.

Moon walked deeper into the island, and gradually, the landscape began to change around him.

The familiar twilight-dappled forest was long gone, the sky returning to its ash-grey colour. The trees grew more sparse, and the ground beneath Mirage’s hooves shifted from soft soil to cracked, pale stone.

Moon felt the change visually and physically. He could feel a very subtle oppressive aura of a hidden beast somewhere within the region.

The trees ended entirely, and Moon, Honeybun and Mirage emerged onto the edge of a vast sunken basin.

It was unlike anywhere else Moon had seen on the island. A huge, bowl-shaped depression carved into the land, its floor a maze of towering stone pillars and jagged rocks that rose like petrified trees, threaded through with lines of a glassy black mineral. Pale mist pooled along the basin floor, drifting between the pillars in slow, ghostly currents.

Nothing moved. Nothing grew. The basin was a dead place, and that wrongness set every instinct Moon had on edge.

"Stay sharp," he murmured, Honeybun tensing beside him, its jade shell catching the dim light. "Something lives here. Something that scares everything else away."

He urged Mirage forward, descending carefully into the basin, weaving between the towering stone pillars. The mist swallowed their legs. Their footsteps made no echo, the sound somehow deadened by the strange black mineral threading the rocks.

Then, from the depths of the basin, he felt a powerful, vast, cold presence stirring somewhere ahead, likely roused by their intrusion. The mineral lines in the surrounding pillars began to pulse faintly, and the mist thickened, drawing inward toward a single point deeper in the basin.

Moon reined Mirage to a halt and activated Eye of Truth, directing it toward the shape that slowly began to move from the mist ahead, uncoiling from where it had lain dormant among the pillars. Its body was long and sinuous, armored in overlapping scales of that same glassy black material. To his surprise, its eye sockets had no eyes.

[Obsidian Hollow Serpent]

[Details: A blind, ancient predator that dwells in dead stone basins, so old it has outlived its own offspring. It perceives the world through vibration and mana, feeling the tremor of every footstep and the pulse of every beating heart around it. Its obsidian scales absorb light and dampen sound, rendering it nearly invisible and utterly silent in its chosen domain. It lies dormant for years, striking only when prey enters its basin, and its territory is barren because nothing that wanders in ever wanders out.]

Moon read through it, and a slow, excited grin spread across his face.

"There you are," Moon murmured, his eyes gleaming as he took in the massive serpent uncoiling from the mist. "The island’s second surpasser rank monster and a worthy one."

The Obsidian Hollow Serpent’s eyeless head fixed on the three intruders who had disturbed its ancient slumber, its black scales pulsing, the mist coiling around it.

Then it opened its jaws, and a low, resonant hiss rushing through the dead basin. Moon felt the vibration in his bones, and he made his decision instantly.

"Honeybun, it’s yours. Show me how strong you are now."

The turtle shot forward without hesitation, its shell flaring to that deep jade green, and then it vanished, the Jade Turtle’s inherited speed carrying it across the basin in a blur that even Moon’s eyes struggled to follow.

The Obsidian Hollow Serpent struck.

Its massive head lashed out with terrifying speed for something so large, but Honeybun wasn’t there.

The turtle juked aside at the last instant, its blinding velocity letting it slip past the serpent’s strike and dart along its flank, landing a ramming blow against the beast’s obsidian scales with his claws before rocketing clear again.

The serpent hissed and coiled, trying to track the darting shape through vibration, but Honeybun moved too fast, too erratically, flitting around the massive predator and peppering it with physical strikes and crystal projectiles from every angle.

It was a beautiful display, the turtle’s speed turning a close-range monster’s domain into a frustrating game of catch-the-wind.

Suddenly, during a crucial moment of Honeybun attacking, the serpent’s tail whipped around.

A spike of obsidian at its tip slammed into the turtle’s jade shell and sending it tumbling through the mist before it righted itself.

Moon’s brow furrowed.

That shouldn’t have hurt it. Honeybun’s defense is really powerful, its shell tanked multiple Surpasser blows at full strength. A tail strike like that should’ve bounced right off. His eyes narrowed. Is something wrong with Honeybun?

But the turtle was already back in motion, moving at the same insane speed, apparently unbothered, and Moon dismissed the worry for the moment, focused on the fight.

The fight continued, Honeybun weaving around the serpent, and then the beast managed to catch it off guard again. A sudden lunge, and its head clipped Honeybun’s shell. A hairline crack appeared across the jade surface, nothing worth mentioning.

But Moon saw it.

"Could that jade shell transformation be increasing Honeybun’s speed at the cost of its defense? A trade-off? That would make perfect sense. Honeybun’s normally far tankier than this, none of those attacks should be cracking that shell. But in the jade form, it’s pouring everything into speed, and its legendary defense drops to compensate, it seems."

Which meant against a fast, powerful close-range fighter like the serpent, the jade form was the wrong tool to use.

"Honeybun, change tactics!" Moon called out. "Drop the speed form, fight it from range! It’s a close-range predator, so don’t trade blows up close, keep your distance and let your defense and crystals do the work!"

Honeybun responded immediately, trusting the command. It disengaged, its blinding speed carrying it to the far side of the basin, opening up a wide gap between itself and the serpent. The jade color left its shell quickly, returning to rich gold, and crystal formations surged back across its body, its near-impervious defense restored to full.

The Obsidian Hollow Serpent, sensing its prey had stopped fleeing, slithered toward it with surprising speed, trying to close the distance and bring the fight back into its optimal range.

But Honeybun had the window it needed to land several blows from a far.

As the serpent closed, the turtle unleashed a barrage of crystal projectiles that hammered into the serpent’s obsidian hide, several punching through where the scales were thinner near its throat. The serpent continued to push on despite the injuries, and reached Honeybun, lashing out with its head and tail both as a get back, raking its obsidian spikes across the golden shell.

The attacks landed cleaner than any other attacks by the serpent, but they barely did any damage in comparison to the previous attacks.

The crystal-armored shell stood firm, the serpent’s strikes skating off without leaving so much as a scratch, Honeybun’s full defense more than a match for the beast now that it wasn’t sacrificing it for speed.

Moon grinned, his theory about the little turtle’s inherited skill from its mother confirmed.

"Not bad... Honeybun has a form that favors speed, and a form that favors durability. Although it’s not as powerful as one complete package, it will still add immense versatility to Honeybun’s combat prowess." Moon muttered under his breath.