"That's another group down. How many more till you level up Michi."

"How Annoying!!! Only a pixel left in my experience bar. Why did it not level up with that!?"

Michelle was smacking her greatsword in frustration. I was calming her down while Aria was looking for the snake we would be killing. ChickB was busy watching the videos I send, and Fifty Silver closed his eyes for some reason.

'It is not that late yet, right?'

"Leader is quite late, isn't she? She should have guided a group of Hydrophis right now."

"Hey, don't say that. You will trigger some death flag."

Your adding on the probability if you say that, is what I want to say to Michelle but choose not to do so. Although I am really worried about Aria. It has already been four minutes since she left us. Normally it only takes a minute to find one and return them here to be slaughtered.

Maybe she met with Smiling Hound's party along the way. That would be the worst-case scenario. Fortunately, we do not need to worry long because Aria was walking calmly towards us.

"You're alone?"

"Yeah. There were no monsters at all. No matter how far I went, I was not able to see any signs of snakes. I even reached deeper to the next area where there are different monsters."

She said something strange now that I think about it. Observing our surroundings, the Marsh has become weirdly quiet. Even during this time, we should be hearing hissing or rustling among the tall grass. Yet, there was none of that except the silent wind. I turned to Aria and Michelle if they know something about this kind of phenomenon, but I only saw their nervous faces. They definitely know something.

Aria noticed my expression, so she gladly explain to the group on what is currently happening.

"When normal monsters suddenly disappear like this, usually a field boss shows up."

"Is it good or bad?"

"I can't say yet because we don't know how strong this boss is. But I can tell, we are luckier than I expected."

Her answer made me remember the past experiences I have with bosses. I never experienced anything this sort in either the Goblin Chief or the Flower Guardian. Although it may be because there are some special circumstances for some bosses like the place of Moonshire.

Whatever this boss is, it seems to have heard our conversation since noises returned followed by a long shadow appearing in our sights and begun patrolling around us. We did not wait for it to show itself before we ready our weapons up.

"There it is."

Michelle pointed to a spot where the shadow stops moving. It still was not within the vicinity of our light source that is why all we see was a towering shadow slowly moving towards us. It has an odd shape on top of what I assume its head while the whole body was clearly a snake-like figure.

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Fifty Silver, who was situated in front, hold his candle lantern up to have a better view of what was coming-- And what we saw was a beautiful yet horrifying sight.

A face which was difficult to explain and can only be seen on works of fictions. The best I can do to describe it is that it was a bunch of disjointed faces of different animals stitched incoherently together. If I have not changed my game settings to a more friendly view, I can imagine this thing to be a terrifying sight.

The bizarreness of the monster in front of us does not stop there, What is more strange compared to its face was the whole body which can captivate anyone who will see it with its rainbow-coloured striped scales till the tip of its tail.

I know this because the whole twenty to thirty meters length of its body circled around us and covered all the exit before we even notice what it was doing.

[Galverus, the Rainbow Serpent Lv. 35]

"!!! It's ten levels higher than us. We need to escape."

"We can't. It's completely locked us in a cage. I'm surprised that it doesn't crush us yet with its enormous body."

"What do we do."

It was a question that has no answer. Panic could clearly be seen in our eyes. Luckily, the rainbow serpent seems to be not interested in attacking us at the moment. But we were doing nothing with the given time.

"We have no choice but to fight. This Rainbow Serpent should have the same characteristics as Hydrophis. How many antidote potions do you have left, Fifty Silver?"

"I got half a dozen left, but this thing is far from being similar from the previous snakes we killed. That thing can swallow me whole. I doubt it will let itself stick to me to be attacked."

We would be lucky if this monster's attacks are simple as swallowing, but I highly doubt so. Like they said, even with its appearance is far from the silver beauty of Hydrophis, spawning here means that this thing likely has the same poison properties of the latter species.

"Leader… We got a problem."

"What's wrong."

"Is it just me, or our space has become smaller?"

We have not yet recovered from the initial shock and another one come out. ChickB's concern made us realize how dire our situation really is. We have not noticed it because the head stayed in the same position, but its body was slowly closing on to us. The distance it crept was still too little to be aware during the short amount of time.

If it was not for ChickB, I will not be able to notice that the rainbow-striped body were millimetres closer to me.

Looks like it will not attack us if we do not attack first. However, from the looks of it, it does not need to do anything except to crush and suffocate us with its body.

"This is my first time to have a time-attack type of battle. Might be unconventional way, but we will die if we don't do something soon. If we start attacking, there is no turning back. Since we don't know anything about this guy, our best bet is to attack without any hesitation."

"Use all your strongest skill at the beginning! Don't worry about using resources. We're going to die anyway."

Michelle and I, who both strongest skills have a casting time, are preparing while the rest waited for our skills to connect before using their own. When my [Charge Arrow] and Michelle's [Heavy Crushing Strike] were done, it was the start of the fight.

-141

-167

-21, -23, -23, -21, -26, -18, -25

….

From Michelle's crushing slash to ChickB's rapid combo, damage after damage numbers were showing on our field of view. Yet, I can say that not a single one was any closer to being significant damage done to the Rainbow Serpent.

When the last strike was eventually done, the Rainbow Serpent stretched its tongue and hissed at us as if nothing happened. This has crushed everyone's little bit of hope left on leaving this place alive.

Everyone has their body frozen out of fear of what is to come. Well, everyone except me.

Despairing over it does not help the situation at all. I followed up my initial attack with [Rapid Arrow] then followed by normal shot after normal shot.

My futile efforts woke my party members up and they also followed up with their own attacks. When our damage haves accumulated to the point the Rainbow Serpent seems to be annoyed, it has finally begun to move its head.

"Here it comes."