Chapter 36: Hornback Serpents
Name: Hornback Serpent
Classification: Monster
Specialty: Close-Range Combat
Current Rank: II
Threat Level: C - Local
’What? That’s all?’
Theo didn’t get the time to process whatever he’d seen, though.
An elongated body sheathed in deep-violet scales plunged out of the Gate and shot straight at him, its maw stretching wide on a vicious screech.
The first thing Theo’s instincts offered him was to dodge. In fact he had almost stepped away before his gaze sharpened and he planted his feet back into his stance. He lunged his blade forward across his torso, and as the serpent slammed the bladed horn at the center of its head down on him, Theo blocked it with his sword.
The impact of the block travelled up his arms and set them trembling, the shock rattling on into his shoulders before he forced them still.
The snake rose, pushing against Theo’s sword with its horn, then its other end curled and whipped around, slapping Theo out of the way. He rolled towards the edge of the rooftop and sailed clean over it. In time, though, his fingers caught the lip of the roof and he launched himself back up, almost in the same breath, gravel biting into his palm.
There was a desperation in his eyes as he regained his footing and dashed at the Hornback Serpent. The monster turned to him, hissing menacingly as Theo closed in.
But another Serpent intercepted.
Theo was sure he hadn’t been looking. But his body reacted.
It was as if his body had been watching the whole time. The moment the second serpent closed in and almost crashed into him from the side, his reflex kicked in and he threw himself out of the way with incredible speed, somersaulting through the air and over the serpentine monster.
Right there, Theo found his opening.
He felt his whole body work in the same instant. His muscles rippled and drew tighter to pull up more strength, while his mind and the sharp perception of the Limitless Body mapped out a strike that could land. Theo twisted his balance in the air. From simply hanging there horizontal, he straightened, gripping his sword as he turned. He clenched both hands on the longsword’s handle and looked down on the scaled length below him.
"Hyaaaaaa!!"
With a powerful shout, he came down on the serpent.
A wave of shadows gathered along the edge of his sword, and as he dropped with immense force, the shadow crawled up the steel and painted it obsidian. In the same breath, Theo crashed onto the serpent and drove the sword through it, the point punching past scale into the meat beneath.
The horned, purple snake let out a pained screech, and violet gore burst out of it, splashing hot across Theo’s face. He blinked it out of his eyes, straightened, and wrenched the blade free, gore sliding off the steel in ropes. At once his sword traced an arc towards the neck. Holding the longsword in both hands, he cleaved the snake at the neck before it could recover.
[You have slain a Hornback Serpent]
More of the serpents were pouring out of the Gate, but the moment he cut down the first one, every one of them froze and turned to him. For a moment Theo stood alone on the rooftop, in the dim light, a steel sword coated in shadow in one hand.
A strange, dark presence bled off him, and the shadows around his feet seemed to pool deeper than they had a second before, gathering thicker around the blade’s tip.
[Your Mastery of the Shadow Sword has increased]
[You have received a New Subskill: Heavy Shadow Drop]
The serpents on the roof, about seven of them, all hesitated at the evil aura coming off the thing that stood before them.
Theo counted the snakes in his head and wondered if he could defeat them all before help came.
’It does not matter if I can or not. What matters is I have to.’
He looked down at the sword in his hand.
’Right now, I feel very strong, like I can actually do it. My body feels light, and it’s like I can feel every single one of their movements.’
Theo was confident. He wanted to be careful too, but with this much confidence in him, caution felt like it would cost him, and he couldn’t afford that.
Theo locked eyes with the serpent nearest the door, and it shuddered and let out a fierce shriek a beat too late.
"Yeah, you better get away from there."
Theo’s face went dark, and he moved.
The shadows reached up his legs as he tore off the ground into an explosive run. They seemed to carry his speed. And in barely two seconds he had closed the distance to that snake.
The horned serpent had reared above him by the time he arrived, its shadow falling across him, and it slammed down the moment he closed in. But Theo reacted faster, twisting his body aside in a roll. He turned his sword hand over, remembering Uthed’s one-handed style. Then, with what rough momentum he could gather, he pushed off one leg and hacked at the snake’s scales. But the sword bounced off, sparks flying. The snake had used the opening to right itself. Now it rippled its body and brought its tail around again. But Theo ducked, driving the tip of his obsidian blade up beneath the soft underbelly of the tail as it slid over him, and punched it upward.
The snake shrieked, high and frightened. Theo straightened and viciously tore his sword out of the tail. Then he ran up the wall and leaped, rising above the snake with his sword raised over his head in both hands.
The shadows on the blade thickened again, and the serpent twisted its skull up to take the strike on the bladed horn at its crown. The impact rang back through Theo’s hands, and the snake lunged forward while he was still mid-air, its deadly maw gaping to catch any limb it could reach. But Theo twisted in the air, curling in on himself like some animal and clearing the snake by a hair’s breadth.
Then he thrust the sword out one-handed and stabbed down into the creature’s eye, and with the whole force of his fall behind it he ripped the blade free.
The snake reeled back with a terrible shriek, staggering.
Theo was surrounded at once by more Hornback Serpents. About three of them closed in behind him, his back turned, their bellies dragging over the gravel.