The small boss pressed his eyes together into a thin slit, focusing every ounce of his killing intent onto Augen’s body before he squatted down, holding a folded athletic position before exploding forward, the sharpened edges of his new Axes swishing through the air once again.

Augen felt for his movements, listening as the sand around the small boss's feet became pushed apart by the twisting of his feet. With a flick of his fingers, he tossed the Forbidden Autumn card into the air before he also dashed forward, his arms turning fully grey under the efefct of the forbidden Cast as he swung his fists laterally, clashing them right against the coming Axes as they melted like butter. Then, the momentum of the two men continued forward until they clashed, and Augen's figure moved past the splintered body of the small boss like a ghost, leaving behind a body that collasped inward like a sacked balloon.

Augen halted his momentum with an abrupt stomp into hte sand, and he turend to faace the rest of the soldiers as their Wave waivered despite their tough exterior that Augen was sure that they had.

“Quite an impressive ability.” Zmey said as Augen turned his hand open and caught the still hovering playing card. Then, Zmey reached out to the side and grabbed onto the body of one of the snakes as he spoke into its head.

As words came out from his mouth and passed through the snake’s head, it started to glow golden, as Augen caught onto a line of Wave suddenly forming between the snake and some other object way out beyond the horizon. That’s…Zmey’s version of the communication Cast!

“Is she still around?” He said with just enough volume for Augen to hear as he slowly rose up to his feet as the snakes all around the town became unwound and straightened accordingly.

Then, Augen felt the Wave within Zmey's body build up more and more as the snakes from all around slowly started to cross the streets, weave through the creeks, wind through the ropes, and gather all around in a circle arounud him. As the snakes started to gather, what remained of Zmey's men quickly scattered, accompanied by the panicking snake feeder who dropped the bucket of dead rats and ran away.

“Yes, boss.” Beardy’s muffled voice came from the other side, “What do you want me to do?”

“I suppose that will depend on what our friend here decides.” Zmey said, looking down at Augen, “You have proven your strength once again, Augen, and I will not lie that your strength will become valuable for the future I foresee for Western Necrovia…”

Augen stood still like a statue, and Zmey’s yellow eyes focused on his closed fists as he grinned from ear to ear.

“I would offer you a position back in my army with guarantee of Tonya’s safety…” He said with great excitement as a living snake armor formed around him, covering the regular golden glow and containing his own power. Then, dozens of eyes from the snake's head stared at Augen at the same time as strange tingles started shooting up Augen’s back, forcing him took half a step backward, “But in all honesty…I just want to fight you ‘til my heart’s content…”

“Boss?” Beardy’s voice came from the other side once again when Zmey stepped off the edge of the roof as a column of snakes rose up through the air to catch onto his foot and lower him down slowly.

“Take good care of her.” Zmey said, “Don’t let her leave your sight. And when I give you the signal, kill her.”

“Very well.” Beardy said, before hesitating and lowering his voice, “Did…the boy make it back somehow?”

“A trivial matter.” Zmey let go of the snake responsible for communication as it escaped into the pile underneath him. Then, he snapped his finger, freezing the movements of all of the individual snakes all around him before pointing forward with his finger.

In a single synchronous movement, all of the snake heads turned and faced Augen, the countless eyes focusing solely on Augen's outline, and the sheer amount of Wave signatures around him made it the more unsettling.

It was far worse than when he was in the pit of snakes, as the mature beasts now readied their revenge against the killer of their heir.

“I had wondered how you managed to get out from the pit of snakes.” Zmey said, “So please…fulfil my curiosities. It must have been a different ability than what you have used here.”

“Are you so scared to take me on by yourself that you had to use her as a hostage?!” Augen shouted, “You and your dessert men, all but cowards at the end of the day! You should be ashamed to call yourself Necrovian!”

Zmey looked down at the body of the small boss who had already been eaten up whole by the ferocious snakes, and he pointed a finger straight at Augen and let out a whistle as a circle of snakes suddenly coiled up and launched themselves at Augen like a storm of living arrows.

In that instant, Augen activate his Winter Bark card, creating an ice sphere around him this time as the temperature rapidly cooled with the ground slowly freezing over. At the same time, he drew his Summer Lotus card, sending out the beam of Wave in a wide-reaching sweep just outside the ice sphere and knocked back the snakes back onto the ground.

For those that were already in melee range, the cold within the sphere slowed the movements of these cold blooded animals enough that Augen easily swiped them away with a single cooridnated gust. As the bodies of the snake clattered against the icy surface, Zmey’s unmistakable presence suddenly appeared right in front of Augen.

Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

There stood the king of the Dune's Hive, holding the body of a thin snake as a whip before its head flicked through the air, connecting with Augen's face and tearing a large chunk off before sending him tumbling out of his ice sphere and straight into the sweet embrace of the group of snakes waiting to feast. As Augen landed, they jerked their neck forward, their fangs stapling into Augen’s flesh and their venom pumping into his bloodstream.

His entire body twitched when suddenly, a pulse of Wave exploded outward from his entire body as Augen forced himself up, driven by pain and anger. Purple blood poured out from the countless bite wounds still open all over his body as he tried to shake off the snakes with small blasts of his Summer Lotus, yet only a few were warded off with the majority of the damage had already been dealt.

The dizzying effect was instantaneous, and soon, Augen was overcome by nausea and a great difficulty in breathing as he collapsed onto the ground, his heart pumping overtime. With his entire surruonding sent into a frenzy as the snakes suddenly drew away, he felt Zmey's presence cutting in.

Without a single moment to take a struggled breathe, Zmey stabbed his hand forward, piercing Augen straight through the heart as his entire body froze before softening.

“You fought valiantly, Augen.” Zmey said, glancing down at Augen with a smirk as he feasted on Augen's broken body with his sharp yellow eyes, “But my snake babies said hi.”

“Say…say…” Augen coughed out blood as it splattered onto Zmey’s clothes, and he struggled to lift his hand as his fingers clawed their way and slowly picked out a card, “Say…cough cough…”

“Say what?” Zmey looked in with a taunting smile as he twisted his hand with even more blood streaming down the gaping wound on Augen's chest.

“Say hi to them yourself.” Augen’s entire face were suddenly tensed up like the skin of a drum, and an explosion of grey smoke shot out from his feet up where the Forbidden Autumn card was dropped to the ground. All of the snakes that once again crowded him became turned into dust at a far faster rate than before.

Zmey’s eyes widened, and he yanked his hand back, calling for yet another snake as one snapped into his hands with its fangs out, and he swung it diagonally across Augen’s body when its venom left behind a trail of vapor through the air as it became disintergrated.

“How are you still alive?!” Zmey shouted as Augen brushed down the droplets of teh venom, “How have you not succumbed to the venom of the snakes?!”

“If your venom had countered the usage of the Wave itself, then perhaps I would have been dead five times over.” Augen smiled lightly as he took reached into his pockets and took out a glowing golden card with the drawing of the sun over its surface. One moment, Zmey could see Augen's beating heart, yet the wound were closed in the very next moment, “But it makes no sense for snakes born and grown in a place scarce of the Wave to develop such an ability. You cannot defeat me, and you cannot kill me. I will always come back, and in the moment of your relaxation, I will strike you down.”

“That time will not come!!” Zmey leaped back and created more distance as he watched Augen with high alert as the latter slowly started to conjured up his next attack as the accumulated damage just now became reverted thanks for his Forbidden Spring cast, “Swarm him!”

With that singular command, all of the snakes hissed loudly and surrounded Augen, their bodies weighing him down physically while attacking him with a far higher frequency and intensity. If large bursts of damage cannot take Augen down, then Zmey will simply fight this battle of attrition and outlast him with his countless snakes!

However, a rupture of the local Wave around him were felt by him and all of his snakes before he watched the pile of snakes around Augen closely. There were small movements coming from underneateh, then, the bodies of the snakes bega to be torn into individual vertebrae surruonded by skin and flesh before Augen pushed outward, the pieces of snake flesh raining out in all directions.

"What...what is this..." Zmey swallowed nervously as he watched Augen's evolution.

“Ah…So this is how it feels…” Augen felt for the patterns over the shattered sun card, his Forbidden Summer card. He never thought his Casts could be this…dynamic and fluid, yet in the heat of battle, he was forced simultaneously commanded multiple regular and forbidden Casts all at the same time. In a way, it was only when he was pushed to his breaking point, did he strive for true fluidity in his Casting.

With simple commands of the Wave changing the patterns on the cards, he instinctively adjusted the pre-written Casts lines in the heat of battle, adjusting not only the output, the intensity, but also the distribution of the Wave-field ruptures around the targetted area.

He needed only to do affect the immediately environment around him, just like how Fatera does it. Just like how Ver does it. Just like how Wu does it. And that's what his body gave him.

All of those battle experiences, all of those hours he spent training and refining his skills...it's all come down to this very moment. The coaliscence of all he had.

“This is what I needed…”

Augen slowed his breathing and felt for the spontaneosly forming and disappearing local Wave ruptures around him. Then as he came in contact with the snakes around him, the armor tore apart the bodies of the snakes upon contact before sending pieces of their corpses out flying away, “This is my next step…The Rupture Armor…”

"No...what are you...what the fuck are you?!" Zmey cursed.

With his fingers pointed ahead at Zmey’s wavering Wave and spirit, Augen marched forward slowly, parting the mountain of snakes and walking over the lake of blood, “The fire of your rebellion, shall be put out by me.”

“KILL-” Zmey called for and gripped around the head of the communicator snake and shouted as Augen dashed through the space between them in an instant, his movement leaving behind a wake of complete and utter destruction.

Before Zmey could finish, Augen stabbed his hand that was covered by the layer of his rupturing armor straight through Zmey’s chest when the interior of his body started getting shredded instantly right as jets of blood shot onto Augen’s face. However, despite the rock solid feeling from his finger tips, and the body in front of him exploded in a scatter shot of snakes.

Augen ground his teeth together and reached his senses outward. However, each of the surviving snakes all hissed simultaneousl, releasing out as much of their Wave as possible to cover Zmey’s escape.

“Tsssss...Beardy…” Zmey murmured as he hid underneath the layers of moving snake while making a run for it, “Kill that...Tsss...bitch.”