"LIGHTNING WAVE!" Lone roared as he swept out his sword spear, Dawn, towards the enormous snake he was fighting. It was about one-hundred meters long and five meters wide. Truly, an intimidating creature. Lone's lightning wave hit it and it's body convulsed for a moment before its head slammed past Lone's body. It would seem that its muscles being affected by Lone's lightning had slightly altered it's lunging trajectory, making it miss its target of Lone's body.
Sophie was duel-wielding her two swords, Slesh and Chakoo as she and Breena were fighting a group of far smaller snakes than the one Lone was fighting. Breena was using Sophie's shadow as a base of operations, so to speak, as usual. She was jumping in and out of Sophie's shadow as she assisted in the slaughter of the reptiles using her now alterion daggers.
'The big one shifted its body! It's gonna slam into Lone's side!' Sophie thought rapidly in worry. "Breena! Cover me!" Sophie shouted. Breena immediately took a defensive stance in front of Sophie and several purple orbs appeared above her head and began assaulting the minds of the snakes attacking them while Sophie looked at Lone and created a large green barrier around his left side to defend him from the incoming impact.
"What?!" Lone shouted as he swivelled his body around and he had no more than a single second to see the colossal body slamming towards him. It took the body half of a second to rip through Sophie's barrier, but that was just enough time for Lone.
His feet destroyed the earth beneath him as he slid across the ground and after he came to a halt, his newly created shield of his multicoloured bones shattered. It would seem that at the very last possible moment, Lone had created a shield to defend himself from the snake's body since he knew Sophie's barrier couldn't hold against the weight of it.
"Tch, I was careless," Lone mumbled as he expended some of his mana to heal his broken left arm and recreate the damage done to his new alterion armour sleeve. 'Thanks, Soph, that was a close call,' Lone thanked via telepathy.
Sophie coughed up a mouthful of blood as a backlash of having her barrier destroyed so violently before she replied, 'It's okay, be careful, Lone.' she then redevoted her full attention to the smaller, human-sized snakes that Breena was struggling to hold back.
"It's no wonder we haven't seen anyone since Hope. These bosses are far too strong for this Dungeon to be labelled as a B-Rank one... even mental destruction stopped working on this floor... you bosses just get harder and harder to deal with," Lone mumbled. He then took a deep breath and a deep red glow began emitting out of his body, much like the aura of the Reikling Chieftain from floor forty. "I refuse to let Eolande kill you for me, so COME!" he roared.
The snake hissed thunderously in response and coiled its body around before charging at Lone once more. Clearly, his attacks and provoking had angered the beast.
"Hmm, I wonder how he'll handle this boss? He's been quite creative thus far. What do you think, Swind?" Eolande asked the Lemurian floating next to her. Both she and Swind were levitating high in the air above the battle because Lone didn't want Eolande to take part in the combat and Swind was too weak to even be considered.
Stolen novel; please report.
"Mr Immortus will find a way-ss. He always does-ss," Swind responded as she rubbed the stump that used to be her right hand.
"I agree," Eolande replied before she shot a sidelong glance at Swind's limbs. "Does it discomfort you at all that you're too weak to help him? It's been 7 months now since we've left Hope, and this is the one-hundred and ninety-ninth floor. Not once have you helped Lone and the girls, even though he could heal your wounds and any one of us could teach you some form of combat," Eolande said with interest as she watched the giant snake rapidly approach Lone.
Swind looked at her wrist with complex emotions. "I get phantom pains-ss. In my wrist and tail-ss. These pains help me remember my sins-ss. My actions could have led to the destruction of my people-ss. I can't abandon such feelings-ss. Not yet-ss," Swind replied with the same answer she had replied with every time this topic was mentioned.
"I see... oh, Lone isn't dodging or attacking this time?" Eolande commented in curiosity as she continued to watch Lone's battle intensely.
The giant reptile's beady eyes watched Lone with suspicion, but it continued to slither in his direction at an unmatchable speed. Lone remained standing in his position with the red aura flailing around him wildly. His hair was defying gravity and floating in the air above his head and the stones around his feet were slowly lifting off of the ground.
"Let's see if you can take this move head on, you scaley bastard..." Lone whispered before he slowly lowered his body into a crouching stance. His swordspear, Dawn, disappeared, presumably into his dimension and he pulled back his hands to be level with his chest. His face had an exceedingly serious expression on it as if he were concentrating as much as he possibly could.
Sophie could see Lone out of the corner of her eyes and a memory flashed through her mind. 'Isn't that the technique, Eko, the Monk, used to nearly kill Lone back in Milindo's capital? I was wondering what all the loud explosions were in the waiting area when he went off on his own... so he was training this... but how high is his mastery if he can activate it so quickly?' Sophie thought as she cut a snake in half with Slesh and pierced another one's body with Chakoo.
"Forgive me for mutating this powerful skill of yours, Eko, but it's not my fault that I can make it far stronger," Lone said to himself before he suddenly created several splinters. These splinters were made from his bones and they seeped out of the cracks in his left arm's armour sleeve and his right hand's glove to float right in front of his open palms.
The snake was now only ten feet away from Lone and would need no more than a second to close this distance, but just before it reached him, Lone smiled which alarmed the creature. However, it was far too late to change its plans now, so it opened its jaw as far as it could and hissed powerfully at lone as it tried to eat him in one gulp.
"EAT THIS, YOU FUCKER! HOLY FRACTURE!" Lone screamed as he pushed his palms forward. The first thing to happen was that the snake suddenly stopped moving mid-bite. A few seconds passed before suddenly, the entire body of the snake imploded into a rain of guts and gore.
Eolande waved her hand, making any parts of the snake avoid her and Swind completely. "Wow, how frightening. Holy power, eh? Truly a jack of all trades. What a waste of a perfectly good Basilisk body, though," Eolande sighed.
Steam was rising from Lone's entire body and his palms were bright red, even redder than his aura that was blocking all of the blood. "Ah, you fucker! That hurt way more than I expected it to... I feel weaker too... did I lose a life stat point?" Lone asked himself before suddenly two blue screens appeared, blocking his vision.