Chapter 325: Eryndral the Palecoil
Damon’s mind raced. He quickly tried activating the teleportation skill, but it was already greyed out. Blood Gate takes about a minute to get set up. Blink and Shadowstep were useless as it would become a game of tag, which he would be on the losing end.
There was no other way. He was going to have to face whatever was coming at him. Right now.
In the distance, a powerful aura erupted. An intense shockwave spread from the tall mountain outward.
The shockwave ripped through the miasma-choked battlefield like a tidal wave, shredding the toxic fog and scattering it into thin, useless wisps. The ground beneath his feet cracked in jagged lines. The trees didn’t just fall, they exploded into splinters under the sheer weight of the force, their trunks snapping like brittle bones.
Waves and waves of corrupted beasts exploded into blood and gore. Damon’s [Miasmic Dominion] shuddered under the pressure and dissipated. Before Damon had a chance to erect a blood shield, a huge presence loomed over him.
It had only taken the beast a fraction of a second to move from there to here!
The creature’s shadow fell over him, blotting out what little light remained in the miasma-thinned sky. A stench rolled off it, thick and acrid, making the back of his throat burn as though he’d swallowed molten poison.
The miasma around it cleared, and Damon was finally able to get a good glimpse of the big creature.
A massive serpentine body coiled and uncoiled with deliberate menace, thick emerald scales refracting pale light like shards of polished jade, each one edged in a frost-white outline that made them gleam unnaturally in the gloom.
The creature’s body alone stretched far beyond what his eyes could track, serpentine loops fading into the haze, while its long, muscular neck arched forward, ending in a head crowned with white, antler-like horns.
Its eyes, a piercing mix of glacial blue and venom green, locked onto him, and in that gaze, Damon felt the weight of a predator that had ruled this place long before he’d set foot in it. How was he supposed to face a creature like this?
It might as well be the god that ruled this world!
And he was the foolish mortal who vainly thought that he could slay a god!
Damon’s entire body trembled in fear from top to bottom. Maybe if he knelt down and prostrated himself in front of the beast, he would be granted mercy? Maybe if he completely submitted to this venerable God, then it would see him as too insignificant to bother killing.
That treacherous thought slithered through his mind unbidden, a poisonous whisper urging surrender.
His knees bent slightly without him meaning to, his instincts screaming at him to submit. The sheer pressure radiating from the creature was primal, suffocating, an ancient dominance that reached into the marrow of his bones and commanded obedience.
But then, something else stirred within him. Deep. Dark. Hungry. The predator that had grown inside him since the day he’d awakened as a vampire surged up in defiance, baring its fangs at the idea of kneeling to anything.
His trembling eased, replaced by a slow, burning heat crawling through his veins. His lips peeled back into a bloodthirsty grin.
"This damn thing almost cooked me mentally!" Damon snarled under his breath.
The spark of defiance flared into a wildfire as his crimson eyes blazed brighter. His golden slit like eyes that had disappeared after the mana core was locked, faintly flickered in and out. The suffocating weight pressing on his mind cracked, not gone, but fractured enough for him to breathe.
Damon was instantly shocked. The beast standing in front of him looked very different at the moment. It was only a fraction of its previous size and looked far less menacing. More importantly, the thing was only peak C rank at most!
[Ding! Eryndral the Palecoil, lvl 150]
His will power and mental strength had stripped away the illusion, showing the thing for what it really was.
Damon did not hesitate any longer and used ShadowStep to instantly appear behind the beast. A powerful crimson lance took shape in his hand, pulsing with an overwhelming amount of mana.
Unlike the other C-rank scalefiends, this opponent was different. Just like how he was different from the other players, the very foundation of this beast was exceedingly strong. He could feel it. This was a fight he needed to win in a single shot!
Just as the lance roared to life in his hand, power rippling through it, Damon also conjured two more of his most powerful attacks from his arsenal.
[Bastion of the Condemned] and [Radiant Wellspring]
He did not hold back at all and his primordial mana core roared to life, showing its capabilities. Even in its locked state, it was able to pump out crazy amounts of mana, far more than any normal C-rank could hope to channel without tearing themselves apart.
The skills were a little conflicting and the buff he received from the poisonous miasma had reduced slightly but still huge wafts of poisonous aura seeped out of the beast which kept him topped up.
This with the added boosts from the holy skills, bumped up his damage power to a whopping 130% and Damon’s already high stats pushed his base damage power to even higher levels.
Eryndral’s slit-pupiled eyes narrowed, reading the danger in an instant. The Palecoil recoiled, coils tightening with whipcord tension before it struck, not with its head, but with a sudden burst of venom mist, so thick it blotted out the radiance from his [Radiant Wellspring].
The poison reeked like rotting corpses, heavy and cloying, trying to smother his momentum. But Damon’s blood arts drank it in greedily, siphoning the venom into his body and transmuting it into a raw, throbbing mana surge.
"Bad move," Damon growled.
He launched forward, the crimson lance erupting with enough force to tear through the damn thing’s scales, to expose the softer flesh beneath its white-edged emerald plating.