"Aaaahhhh!!!!" Silas screamed as the searing flames engulfed the closed chamber. The heat surged through the air like a tidal wave, scorching his skin in an instant. His flesh sizzled and peeled away, raw pain racing through his nerves like lightning.
But it lasted only for a moment. His body, now tempered beyond human limits, fought back. Steam hissed from his skin, and slowly, the burns began to heal before his eyes. His charred flesh regenerated at a visible pace, returning to normal within seconds. A few lingering burn marks remained on his cheek and arms, but even those were slowly vanishing.
Arsa and Zerath, the two pups who had been shielded under his frame, emerged unscathed. And now with the walls of the chamber burning with flames, the darkness wall overtaken by heat and light
And there it was... The Giant Pearl Serpent.
With its 50-meter-long body, the giant had long surrounded Silas and his pups since the moment they came here.
It was like standing in the jaws of a predator who had already closed its mouth. Its green, slit-like eyes locked onto Silas with predatory focus.
The flames from the earlier explosion danced along the serpent's scales, leaving blackened marks as the searing heat attempted to consume its body.
For a moment Silas's eyes flashed with the shine of victory, but that didn't last long as the serpent's burnt flesh peeled off like cracked stone, revealing pristine, undamaged scales beneath.
"Tssss..." the serpent hissed, its forked tongue flickering out to taste the air.
"Damn regeneration..." Silas cursed, quite annoyed, but there was just not enough time for him to be expressing his annoyance at that moment; the serpent suddenly flickered its tail, smashing in the direction of Silas.
"Tch!" He clicked his tongue and instantly leaped over the wall, and with one step over the wall, Silas's body flashed in the direction of the Serpent with the metal rod shining in his hands.
"Gruff!" Asra picked another rod on the ground and tossed it toward Silas, who picked it midair while taking a giant leap toward the Serpent.
"Why is damn Serpent acting like a lizard?!" He shouted as both the metal rods successfully stuck right through the space in the scales of the serpent, piercing the serpent's thick skin, but the serpent regenerated almost instantly, pushing out the metal rod stabbing its body by shaking its body like a wild horse.
Silas successfully landed on the ground, and with a grin, he once again rushed towards the Serpent. "I see how long you can act like this!"
He shouted, and as he was about to leap once again, the serpent smashed its huge tail right over the ground; the whole ground seemed to experience the earthquake as debris started to fall from the ceiling of the underground chamber.
"Dodge!" Silas commanded as he paused midway, barely avoiding a huge stone that fell almost right over his own head; his eyes scanned the falling large chunks of stones, and, moving accordingly, he somehow dodged them all.
The wolves also avoided them all with their instinctive defence, but the moment the stones stopped falling from the ceiling, Silas once again jumped over the Serpent's back with the metal rods in his hands, piercing right through the gap in its scales.
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"Tssss!!!"
The serpent groaned, smashing its body over which Silas was standing on, right over the walls of the chamber.
But before Silas could get squished like a jelly in the wall, he released the metal rods right there on Serpent's body and jumped away from its body.
The Serpent accidentally pierced the metal rods deeper inside his own body by smashing his huge body with the wall.
"Sssss!!!" it groaned in pain with eyes growing even more fierce and hostile towards Silas,
"That must hurt like a bitch." Silas sniggered with a cold expression on his face, "Right, bitch?" he scoffed.
The serpent didn't hesitate for a moment before turning its head towards Silas, and with wide fangs dripping with toxic poison, it rushed straight towards Silas to devour him.
The serpent was slow compared to Silas, and Silas was more than capable of dodging it, but that was if he had some space to dodge; Silas had been cornered by the serpent, with its gigantic body coiled up around Silas and its wide mouth rushing straight towards Silas to devour him alive.
"Ah?!" Silas frowned with realisation, but his frown transformed into a wide grin as he noticed two familiar figures running on one of the walls of that chamber, right above the Serpent.
"Kill!!!" Silas commanded with a big grin, and the next instant, Asra and Zerath suddenly both landed right over the serpent's head, and in a flash, before the serpent could even react, the two wolf pups carved their fangs right inside the eyes of that serpent.
"Tsssssss!!!" The rushing serpent suddenly collapsed midway, its eyes burst with blood leaking all over its face from the pupils; the wolf pups jumped down from its head, and Silas also escaped the trap made by the serpent.
"Oh my, I guess being blind is truly worse than being short-sighted." Silas chuckled, but his mocking this time truly enraged that serpent; despite the bleeding and pain, the serpent turned its head toward the direction of Silas's voice.
Silas just grinned, and along with the pups, he jumped over the wall, and taking the momentum of his superhuman speed, he somehow managed to reach the very centre of the ceiling of the chamber, where he hung himself by smashing his fist right over the ceiling.
"Here! Here!" Silas mocked and enraged, Serpent leaped straight in the direction of the centre of the ceiling, but by the time it reached the ceiling, Silas had already been moved away by two pups right beside him; they grabbed his hoodie under their mouths and jumped down with him.
Meanwhile, the serpent smashed its head right over the ceiling, with so much force that it collapsed the roof of the chamber. In an instant, the ground of radius of about 20 meters collapsed right inside the chamber, and the serpent was seen leaping out of that hole under the moonlight; his enormous body could be seen from several miles away, but it wasn't just the serpent...
"Surprise~" Silas chuckled as he himself came out of that collapsed chamber while riding the Serpent's scales; the Serpent felt his presence over his body in an instant and immediately launched its head towards Silas's direction.
But before its fangs could reach Silas, the wolf pups caught Silas, and grabbing him in their fangs, they immediately launched away from the direction of that serpent's mouth.
"Here is some treat! Fucker!!!" Silas shouted as he tossed his back towards the Serpent, which the Serpent mistakenly devoured instead of Silas himself.
"What are you going to do now, blind bitc--" Silas was about to mock again, but his steps words were paused midway as he noticed the serpent suddenly open its eyes. The monster had regenerated its eyes, which were beaming with red killing intent, focused on Silas and his companions.
"Never mind..." Silas's expressions darkened, and now with no chamber entrapping the serpent in its own poisonous breath, the serpent locked its eyes on Silas and released enormous poisonous breath straight in the direction of Silas.
The moment even a speck of it made contact with the surroundings, the vital trees instantly became dry, soil transformed to sand, and even the air itself felt cold and lifeless.
This time Silas was truly dead, truly dead if he wasn't prepared already, that is.
"Fuck you! You damn earthworm?!!" Silas shouted as he lit up his lighter and threw it straight toward the poisonous breath; the poisonous breath instantly caught the fire, transforming into flames instead of poison.
Silas grabbed the pups, and, tightly covering them, he was engulfed into the flames midair, this time with a touch of oxygen outside. His whole hoodie covering the body was instantly wiped into ashes, and with burning back, he fell down half unconscious into the woods.
But Serpent, on the other hand, the flames instantly reached inside his mouth, making their way to his inner organs, which produced that poisonous breath, but his inner heat seemed to easily suppress the heat of the flames, but to begin with his inner organs were never the target.
It was the baggage of Silas, currently devoured inside the Serpent; the moment even a little flame touched the baggage, it suddenly lit up in flames, and the next instant, an explosion powerful enough to burst the Serpent into pieces suddenly emerged inside the Serpent's body.
Its flesh was torn into pieces, bursting like a balloon everywhere as a huge pearl from inside its body fell down on the ground, rolling up to Silas lying half dead on the ground.
'Name: Pearl of Giant Pearl Serpent
Grade: Rare
Type: Consumable
Properties: Enhances vitality and regeneration capabilities, strengthens natural defence
Description: A pearl gained after hunting down the Giant Pearl Serpent, it stores all the energy of the serpent, and consumption can greatly enhance the user's energy and vitality.
"Short sighted lizard worm..."