The light of Kene’s blessing spell swept over me, followed by the green light of a regeneration spell. My vision re-focused, and I had just a moment to cast Foxstep and get out of the way of another breath weapon attack from the serpent.

Dusk, on the other hand, was so small that she didn’t need to dodge. Glowing with golden light, she ran over the surface of the mud, her body too light and ethereal to get caught down.

As she moved, she sketched, and when she arrived at the serpent, everything happened very rapidly.

She leapt upwards, the force of it rocketing her upwards like some sort of mythological hero, and releasing an overcharged shockwave spell dead center on the serpent’s face.

At the same time, hundreds of tiny palms of earth began to arise from the mud, grabbing onto the serpent’s scales and tail, pinning and dragging it down.

For my part, I let my mana rotate and spin like wild until I released a five-layer Fungal Lock over the serpent.

The serpent’s scales began to shimmer and spin again, and both my mycelial network and Dusk’s conjured hands rapidly were torn to shreds. The serpent lunged at Dusk, who took another empowered leap, soaring into the air and pummeling the gigantic snake with multiple overcharged shockwaves.

Runes flew from Kene’s fingers over to me, and I drew out my Pinpoint Boneshard spell. On its own, it wasn’t great, but if Dusk was buying me a bit of time… I overcharged a single boneshard, and wrapped all of my assisting runes into it.

“Buy me time,” Kene said as they dropped into the mud, pulling out a knife and starting to saw away at the destiny plants.

I nodded and sprinted forwards to help Dusk, using my Briarthreads to cut at the serpent’s spinning scales, and drawing its attention.

None of my Briarthreads could do much more than get cut away quickly, but it let me catch the attention of the serpent, who opened its mouth. More of that swirling, compacted energy appeared in its gaping maw…

And I fired my single bone shard into it’s throat.

I knew full well that no amount of bones would likely do much to punch through the monster’s scales. They were thick and powerful, even when not enhanced with any spells.

The monster’s body was also enforced with tons of physical and telluric energy, so I wasn’t entirely sure its insides were that much more vulnerable. Even if they were, I was certain it would all but destroy my bone shards.

Which was why I’d compacted as much power onto a single bone as I could, and wrapped all of Kene’s flame runes on it.

The serpent’s jaws snapped shut as fire rushed through it for a moment, then a bright brown light ran along its entire body. It opened its mouth and released a massive blast of its breath weapon, now laced with flames, right at me!

I teleported out of the way by a hair, but these non-energetically supported teleports were really taking a toll on my second gate life and time mana. Even with the restoration granted by my temporal basin, it was down to half power.

Dusk used the moments of reprieve that I’d bought to release another barrage of hands, and though they were shredded as well, the constant maintenance of the shredscale spell was clearly taking a toll on this thing’s mana.

I hit it with a few more Fungal Locks, just single layers, designed to drain power more than actually contain it, but the serpent didn’t even seem to notice.

Whatever brown light it had summoned around itself seemed to have quickly amended the weakness that the serpent had displayed, quite literally. Every whip of its sharpened scales was enough to down a small tree, and I was forced to burn most of my remaining temporal and spatial mana on a series of four quick Foxsteps to not only keep Dusk and I out of the way, but to keep it from shredding the destiny plants.

Dusk helped ensure its attention stayed on us, rather than Kene, by pelting it with several quick bursts of her shockwave spell – not overcharged, this time, merely

I kept enough mana in reserve for two decent teleports, just in case, and then shifted to a purely defensive fighting style, catching the serpent in a few more Fungal Lock spells.

With all the Fungal Locks and the couple of pinpoint boneshards, my death mana was beginning to gutter low, however. The Greenroot and all of the mana apples I’d consumed to grow my life mana were certainly showing their worth.

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I might have gotten good at managing my power, but at times, there was no substitute for just having more mana.

Speaking of which…

Dusk leapt off my shoulder and launched an overcharged shockwave, then ran right. I took several steps left, and connected my mind to Dusk’s plane. I channeled mana into my harvesting spell and drained energy from my plants. The spell converted it to mana, and after a few moments, my mana was restored.

I wondered if there was a way I could modify the harvesting spell to directly implant some of the energy into me, rather than converting it all to mana.

The surge of mana did help spin my Magister’s Body spell along quickly, however, which meant that the energy was starting to restore itself in my body far faster. I drew my hands back and conjured Briarthreads around me.

When I saw and felt just how tired Dusk was, I Foxstepped in front of her. Her mana had drained to near zero, and she needed a moment to ask the small folk in her realm for their help.

Between rapidly reconjuring my Briarthreads spell and my aura pin, I managed to keep its attention off the clearing for a little while, while Dusk caught her breath. Then I got a moment of warning and shut my eyes.

Even with my shut eyes, the explosion of multicolored lights that Dusk unleashed in the face of the serpent was impressive.

Too impressive. Dusk had solar mana as a part of her composition – all forests needed light, after all – but she didn’t have any spells like that, as far as I knew.

My eyes snapped open as I realized what had happened.

She’d cast a spell from one of the pixies. Rather than her own mana-garden.

Meadow had told me a long time ago that Dusk would likely be able to draw upon the spells of those within her astral plane to cast, but she’d never been able to. I thought this might be something akin to Riving a spell – she’d done it under the pressure of not having a way to hit the snake where it hurt.

“Got it!” Kene shouted.

“Glowing orb, too?” I asked, using a Foxstep to dodge a tail-slam.

“Yes!” Kene said.

“Fly!” I shouted as I unleashed a crescent of Blademoss at the snake to defect a massive blast of its breath weapon away from where Dusk was standing, panting.

Kene zoomed by on his broom, and I drew my own from Dusk’s realm.

I didn’t like to use my broom in combat, since I didn’t have a way to repair it, and paying would be expensive. But this was an instance I could accept.

I grabbed Dusk and shot into the sky, joining Kene as we rose higher into the sky.

“What in the name of all the primes was that thing?” I said, taking a breath. “Its mana felt bottomless. I’ve fought third gate monsters before, but that felt more like fighting the War Root than Ed.”

“I think it’s a dragonblood serpent,” Kene said. “It's clearly an old one, too. There’s a reason that people say that third gate is where you step into true power. It’s also got a strong Nascent Truth. I felt it when my spells touched it.”

There was a shifting in the trees underneath us, and I tensed.

Oh no.

My fears were confirmed when a moment later, the giant serpent exploded from the tree line. It seemed to be flying under its own power.

Because of course it could.

The serpent opened its mouth and unleashed a breath weapon right at me, but Kene’s hands were moving, and a blue-gold light spun itself around us. His newest spell, which provided some small degree of spell resistance.

I lashed out with overcharged Briarthreads, and between those two and my Aura pin, I was able to just barely weather the breath weapon.

Why was this thing so angry at us?! Sure, we had robbed it and fought it, but…

No, actually that was entirely fair. If someone robbed me and beat me up – though that was generous, as it implied we’d done far more damage than we’d actually managed – I’d be pretty pissed off too.

I loved my plant magic and beastial magic, as well as all of the utility spells I had in my kit, but primes, in that moment, I really wished I had some other sort of raw offensive mana type that would let me blast it out of the sky.

There was no sense in crying over what I didn’t have, though, so instead, I just urged my broom to fly as quickly as I could.

Based on the mana composition of the serpent, I was guessing that it was supporting its massive bulk with gravity, and pushing itself around using the forcelike elements. From some of the things Ed and Meadow had said, I knew that kind of flight was far more expensive than the wind-and-pressure approach that tempest mages could manage.

But my broom was a terrible, secondhand one. I was still infinitely grateful for it, and I’d gotten amazing use out of it, but it simply wasn’t fast. Not compared to a flying mage, well kept modern broom, and apparently, not compared to a flying snake.

It chased us through the skies, releasing occasional blasts of its breath weapon, which were countered with copious amounts of power from me, Kene, and even Dusk, who had recovered enough to add in a bit of her own power in our defense.

“This isn’t working,” I muttered to Kene as we suffered our third blast. “We need to land. You get into Dusk’s realm, and I’ll lose it in the trees with Foxstep.”

“Do you have enough mana and energy for that?” Kene asked.

“I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’ve been wrung dry a couple of times, but restored myself each time. I might be okay, but I might not. If I’m not, I’ll jump into Dusk’s realm, and we can try again in the morning.”

Kene’s jaw locked, but they nodded, and we angled our brooms down to land. The moment we did, Dusk opened a portal, and Kene flew through. Dusk dove through, yelling at me to be careful.

I shoved my own broom inside, then Foxstepped as far as I could see.

The snake was ripping through the trees, and I felt it catch the attention of quite a few other creatures in the area. Most were fleeing from this potent threat, but a few did hunker down to hide, or loudly call out challenges for their territory.

I didn’t care. Without Immovable Lock mastered, I didn’t have aerial maneuverability, but I did have plenty on the ground.

I Foxstepped out of the way of a breath attack, then dove behind a tree and teleported even further, but the snake had recast its brown, strengthening aura, and was lunging through the forest, chasing me down. Each teleport bought me time, but I was barely able to keep myself from losing distance, and I was burning mana fast. It had to be low too, but that didn’t matter if it ate me.

With one final act of desperation, I snapped open the portal to Dusk’s realm and Foxstepped inside.