Riseth drove her bone swords into the unsuspecting Nyuvwira, extending the blades as she had done before. Despite her efforts to twist them, her [Power] seemed insufficient against the tough body of the snake, preventing her from carving a chunk out of it as she usually would.
The Snake reared its entire body in pain, lifting its massive trunk; he witnessed Riseth manipulating the space around it, encasing the snake's head in a shell of bark. She used her wings as she flew along the body, repeatedly piercing the body with her bone blades and whipping the body with her bladed tail whip, stirring the snake into a frenzy as it started smacking its head into the floor and nearby world tree roots in the hopes of smashing the bark encasing its head.
Alistar looked down from above, doing his utmost to avoid interfering or influencing the battle as he observed the exchange, his breath caught in anticipation. The Nyuvwira was far from being killed, but this was a brilliant start. He then noticed that Riseth had coated her blades in some liquid; he presumed it was some kind of venom. She had been using a boosting skill as her [Power] had drastically increased as the wounds became deeper and caused more severe bleeding and pain in the thrashing monster.
Eventually, the snake managed to crack the stump as it smashed its head into a nearby boulder, freeing itself and turning to attack Riseth, spitting streams of venom at its own body. Riseth turned invisible and used [Blink] to dodge the snake's attack. The venom sprayed over its own open wounds; he could see the wounds sizzling and slightly turning necrotic; however, it seemed to have strong resistance to either its own venom or to poisons in general, as any poison or venom Riseth used on her weapons seemed to have little effect on the monster.
Riseth used her light manipulation skills not just to turn herself invisible as she flash-banged the monster and Alistair, who yelped in surprise, covering his eyes, momentarily blinded by the attack.
"Clever girl," Alistair murmured as his eyes slowly recovered; Riseth had seemingly used the snake's discombobulated state to attack many of its weak points, like its eyes and throat, as two heads hung limply from the rest of the body, with their throats cut. Riseth turned invisible again, and he could sense her using [Blink] to get out of range of the rampaging Nyuvwira. Alistair had to do the same as a random stream of venom arced up towards him. Luckily, the snake had not spotted him, and he hid behind a big tree to continue observing the fight. Riseth had manipulated the space around falling trees to have them fall on the snake, though to little effect, as the snake was too powerful to be pinned by loose trees. However, it did distract the monster long enough for Riseth to get some more stabs in before teleporting out of range again.
This dance continued for a while longer as the Nyuvwira slowly grew weary and exhausted from its rampage and bloodless, its movements becoming slightly sluggish. Riseth's combat tactics were very efficient and deadly. The only thing she lacked was a strong finisher. To Alistair's relief, Riseth did not get overly eager and kept up her careful and meticulous assault as the Snake still had an absurd stat advantage. Alistair presumed it was more than twice theirs, though its lack of skills was crippling when dealing with enlightened individuals. Watching her fight made his fingers itch. He also wanted to challenge himself against a higher-grade monster, though he was happy to continue observing her doing her thing.
Suddenly, the Nyuvwira abandoned the fight, trying to flee through the forest hounded by Riseth; Alistair could sense her annoyance as they crashed through trees and underbrush.
"Shit." Alistair cursed internally as he started following the combat from above, ready to ward off any outside interference. The noise and smell of blood were bound to attract something sooner rather than later, and the real question was if whatever got attracted would be strong enough to take advantage of the situation. Alistair checked the map as the course of the snake struck him as strange. Noticeably, the snake steered away from the forest's center and instead headed east toward the black canyons NE2. Alistair presumed the center where the world tree sat was the territory of something that could kill it, which was worth knowing as he marked the location with a skull.
The Nyuvwira left a trail of blood venom and broken foliage, worrying Alistair as Riseth continued cutting chunks out of the seemingly unkillable creature; it had lost another head during the chase, sliced open by a flyby from Riseth. If this went on, the creature would leave the forest for semi-open terrain, which would most likely spell not only its own doom but theirs as well. He wondered if the snake was being petty in denying Riseth the kill. The Nyuvwira should still have one or two abilities to show if it had not wasted them with lesser mental faculties during its early days.
He saw Riseth quaff a potion, throwing herself back at the Nyuvwira with new vigor. Alistair's intuition told him the snake was done for unless it had a restorative ability. Though Riseth suddenly took out a large sphere with nubs on a chain that suspiciously looked like a naval mine. Riseth flew and manipulated the chain to wrap itself around the snake as the chain started to bury itself into its flesh; as it got caught under the snake, the mine started flashing with red LEDs faster and faster, and Riseth used [Blink] to gain some distance. Alistair did the same before the damn thing exploded in a large explosion, shooting metal and wooden shrapnel all around.
"Fucking naval mines?? Why do you have that? And how is it still going?" Alistair asked over the link, breaking his radio silence as the Nyuvwira just kept its path, most of its heads blown to bits and its body badly burned and pierced by shrapnel.
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"It's a space mine. I made one for practice. Sadly, it's less effective in the atmosphere." Riseth said before she continued her assault.
"Less effective?!" Alistair thought in shock; the blast was about as strong as the one he had produced when he made an unstable blast fueled by his and the frog fieldboss mana pools. Unstable blasts were the most devastating yet riskiest attack he had access to, as a mistake could kill him, so he had only practiced it within the arena and with smaller payloads or desperate situations. Alistair checked the map. They were a few hundred meters shy of the next chunk of terrain; Alistair dashed ahead as he sensed something coming from that direction, and he flew ahead to intercept it.
Suddenly, a white 5-meter-tall spiky monstrosity appeared [Identify] revealed it to be a [Black Bone Golem - lvl ?] It was a mix of bone plates and spikes with a black wyvern skull as a head; its canines as long as Alististair's whole body, it had a long spiked tail with a club at its end, its arms were thick and its claws even longer than it's teeth. This was going to be a pain in the ass as the creature clearly felt cursed.
"Oh no, you don't!" Alistair yelled as he intercepted the bone golem, trying to chomp down on the Nyuvwira, catching its jaw, stealing the momentum, and using it to throw it over the snake into the forest before going after it.
"If another monster comes, we run," Alistair announced over the link as he slammed his two-handed hammer into the claw, lashing out at him and redirecting the [Power] right back at it, slightly cracking the bones. Alistair's [Body] stat was almost twice as high as any of his other stats due to his cultivation, titles, race, and early point expenditure into it, giving him a large amount of [Qi] to work with, allowing him to duke it out with a higher grade monster without burning through his pools too fast which was of great use as he continued to push back the golem holding it in place preventing it from interfering in Riseth's fight.
The draconic skull snapped at Alistair, and he stole its momentum, using it to smack the side of the skull with his hammer, but to Alistair's shock, the skull started breathing a black mist that looked exactly like what he had seen in the Aztec Dungeon. Alistair managed to [Blink] away before getting hit by the brunt of the miasma breath attack. His Purity foundation had resisted the worst of the attack, but he felt like he had 3rd degree burns over the left side of his body. He used [Dispel Curse] while avoiding the golem's attacks, unwilling to split his focus as he had not picked the [Kinetic Grappler] skill yet, which required him to execute the skill manually.
Annoyingly, the golem caught on and redirected its attention back to the almost-dying Nyuvwira, seemingly driven to devour it, Alistair knew that monsters could grow not only by killing but also absorbing natural treasures and consuming other monsters' cores, and the damn golem clearly felt like the Nyuvwira's core would be an easy meal if they did not aim for titles this would have been a tolerable or even enviable situation but right now it complicated things.
Alistair summoned King for air support, directing the wyvern to stay at a safe range but not fly too high to draw attention. Surprisingly, King could fly and navigate the forest quite well, using trees for cover if necessary, as his specialty lay within his mobility. Alistair had almost expected it, but the second King showed himself. The Golem started shooting bone lances at King, who dodged them and blocked the rest with his new barrier skill.
"I swear, shooting sharp objects at people has to be the most common skill in the multiverse," Alistair complained over the link, eliciting a laugh from Riseth as he sensed a lot of excitement from her.
"Shooting sharp objects is one of the most common skills as it is an effective yet simple ranged attack; of course, many individuals and beasts with access to it would make use of it," Riseth confirmed, making Alistair redirect his attention to her, as she had seemingly a lot of focus to spare she was in the process of cutting out the core out of the Nyuvwira which lay unmoving on the black sand barely past the treeline.
Alistair's attention was pulled back into the fight as a bunch of black bone lances shot his way, which he blocked with his own barrier while dispelling the last of the curse from his body.
Alistair, content with the knowledge he could now focus on kicking the monster's ass, hurled two [Razor Blasts] at the golem. They started to cut into the black bone but sadly did not cut through the bones as easily as he had hoped.
"Guess that's higher-grade resilience for you," Alistair mused as he observed his [Razor Blasts] flicker out of existence.
They were still quite effective; however, Alistair benefited the most when he used his opponents [Power] combined with his own, but the [Razor Blasts], while sharp and dangerous, only made use of his own [Power], which was insufficient for the task. Alistair would need to get in close and personal while avoiding its breath attacks, hoping it wasn't smart enough to catch on.
Alistair dashed in close, baiting attacks from its long claws while using the occasional blasts and swings to encourage it from lashing out. Luckily, the monster wasn't as smart as the snake, as it took the bait every time, helping Alistair to dismantle it piece by piece with its own [Power]. It wasn't even smart enough to run as it kept flailing and lashing out at Alistair and King with little success,
It had a set of strong and dangerous abilities, but when confronted with Alistair's superior maneuverability and the golem's limited intelligence, it ultimately met its demise. Unable to adapt to Alistair's relentless onslaught or make full use of its own abilities, it died, leaving behind only a pile of blackened bones and a large black core, accompanied by the sound of multiple chimes ringing out to mark Alistair's victory.
Riseth flew over to him, stopping her harvest of the Nyuvwira's skin and hugging him excitedly.
"We did it!" She cheered before she kissed him.
Alistair smiled ear to ear, eager to check his notifications, but held off as they had to collect the materials and get out of there ASAP as they were bound to have attracted a lot of attention. After finishing their quick celebration, they both hurried to complete their tasks as Alistair stored King, then the Core, before selecting the more intact bones, claws, and skull. At the same time, Riseth was busy salvaging what she could from the camouflage skin of the Nyuvwira. The skin was cut and damaged all over, but due to the creature's sheer size, she could still salvage a good chunk of it.
They could hear roars from the distance and decided that was the signal to bail as they hurried back into the forest, heading back for the fort.