Chapter 330: Battle of the Mythic Beasts
Something had changed.
Following the archer’s sharp gaze, Marcus saw it at once. Behind the pack of One-Horned Poison Armor Snakes, the muddy black water had begun to churn, thick ripples rolling outward as though something enormous was rising from the depths.
Even the Five-Colored Green Oil Toad’s constant croaking had changed. There was unease in it now.
"The Venomous Horned Serpent is about to appear. Be careful."
The archer spoke without taking his eyes off the water. A dark shape was slowly pushing upward beneath the surface.
Croak!
The moment it sensed the movement below, the Five-Colored Green Oil Toad gave a sharp cry, a clear signal to attack first and seize the initiative.
Instantly, the lesser Green Oil Poison Toads behind it opened their mouths and spat streams of black venom toward the One-Horned Poison Armor Snakes. At the same time, their soft but razor-edged tongues snapped forward like whips.
The snakes were no easy prey.
Facing the barrage, the green horns on their heads crackled with poisonous lightning. They had been waiting for this fight for a long time. The endless croaking of the toads had driven them half mad already. Croak after croak, day and night, until murder had started to feel reasonable.
Now that their own leader was finally emerging, they no longer feared the five-colored toad. With savage hisses, the snakes lunged forward.
The battle exploded across the marsh.
At the same time, the Five-Colored Green Oil Toad made its move. It opened its huge mouth and sprayed a torrent of five-colored venom straight into the boiling water, trying to suppress whatever was rising before it could fully surface.
If the Venomous Horned Serpent had not come for the Black Crow Poison Fruit, the toad would never have started this war. The serpent appeared only rarely, and it certainly was not climbing out of the swamp for fresh air.
It wanted the fruit, which meant there was only one option.
Fight.
The five-colored toad knew it was weaker than the serpent, but once the Black Crow Poison Fruit ripened, whoever consumed it would gain a tremendous increase in power. It had to gamble everything.
Its venom splashed into the water, and the pool began to boil violently, releasing a pungent, poisonous stench. The five-colored glow twisted the surface itself, freezing sections solid, blasting others apart, splitting waves in every direction.
Its destructive force was terrifying.
For nearly three full minutes, the churning water was forced back down. The Venomous Horned Serpent could not break through.
Beside the toad, the green poisonous mist surrounding the Black Crow Poison Fruit was thinning rapidly.
The fruit was nearly ripe.
"Can the serpent really not get out?"
Even Marcus, who knew little of such creatures, could see the five-colored toad held the advantage. He glanced at the archer, beginning to doubt all that talk about Mythic Beast power.
’Maybe I should hit that toad with a Desperate Strike.’
One, because it would be satisfying. Two, because if the toad faltered, the serpent would burst free, and then he could watch the archer fight a Mythic Beast head-on.
He had already activated his recording feature. A battle like this was too rare to miss.
"Patience."
The archer gave a calm wave of his hand, utterly unconcerned.
Marcus nearly choked. It was not patience he lacked. It was restraint.
The snakes and toads below were killing each other in droves. Bodies flew through the swamp water. Monsters died every few seconds. Equipment dropped constantly, glinting as it floated through the muddy pool.
He had already counted three pieces of Golden equipment.
If he were not worried about the serpent suddenly erupting from the water, he would have activated his Pure Mist Cloud Cluster and rushed in to loot everything already.
Of course he was desperate.
He wanted the serpent to come out, wanted the archer to kill it, wanted all that equipment left ownerless in the swamp.
If necessary, he could even use the Nine-Leaf King Flower. Monsters below Divine Beast level could not attack him while it was active. True, it slowed his movement by eighty percent, but they were over a thousand yards from the battlefield. Two minutes to reach the loot at most.
Plenty of time.
"The Venomous Horned Serpent is about to emerge. That’s faster than I expected. Its strength has increased considerably."
Just as Marcus was about to act on his own, the archer murmured to himself. For the first time, his proud brow furrowed.
Marcus stared. This was fast?
The creature had been pinned under venom for three minutes. If that counted as fast, the standards for Mythic Beasts were absurd.
The archer continued quietly.
"That five-colored venom has reached Mythic Beast rank. Based on the serpent’s previous strength, it should need at least eight minutes to break through, after the venom weakened."
"But it is coming out now."
His expression turned grave. He tightened his grip on the iron bow.
"Has it evolved into a Divine Beast?"
Marcus asked immediately. The answer mattered far too much.
"Possibly."
Marcus felt cold all over. Possibly? What kind of useless answer was that?
Now he had no idea whether to act or stay hidden. He looked at the archer’s serious face and understood one thing clearly. If the serpent truly had reached Divine Beast level, even this arrogant archer was facing a brutal fight.
The gap between Mythic Beast and Divine Beast was no small matter.
Marcus hesitated, then the swamp erupted.
Hiss... ROAR!
A monstrous cry burst from the water, part serpent hiss, part dragon roar. The sound rolled across the marsh like thunder.
The Venomous Horned Serpent had had enough.
The poisoned water exploded upward as green lightning spread across the surface, driving back the five-colored venom inch by inch.
The toad refused to yield. It widened its jaws and poured out even more venom.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Countless bolts of poisonous thunder shot upward from below while the five-colored venom crashed down from above. Every collision detonated violently, like powder stores igniting one after another.
At last, two Mythic Beast-level monsters were clashing head-on.
Within three hundred yards of the Black Crow Poison Fruit, the marsh was transformed into a green hellscape of poison and shattered earth. Shockwaves rolled so far that even the tree where Marcus and the archer hid trembled beneath them.
Hiss... ROAR!
The serpent roared again as it blasted apart the last barrier of venom, then surged upward with a towering wave.
From behind the trunk, Marcus watched the smoke and poison mist clear. A dark horn rose first, long and green-black, followed by a vast serpentine body coiling through the water like a living pillar.
The Venomous Horned Serpent had finally surfaced.
If it had scales and armored claws, it would have looked almost like a true dragon.
CRACK!
A sharp sound split the air. Marcus’s eyes snapped sideways.
The serpent’s attention shifted as well, searching for the source, but it saw nothing.
Marcus, from his angle, saw everything.
The red whip that had made the sound suddenly straightened in midair, turning from a lash into a spear. It shot toward the serpent’s weak point three feet below its head.
The serpent had only just broken the surface. Its body was still unstable, its attention distracted, its vision clouded by lingering smoke.
By the time it noticed the attack, the red spear was already upon it. At the last instant, the serpent twisted violently.
It avoided the killing strike, but not completely. The spear sliced through the side of its neck, tearing open a deep gash.
HISS!
The serpent shrieked in agony and thrashed wildly before wrenching itself free.
The attacker was, of course, the Five-Colored Green Oil Toad.
It had endured the explosions, endured the pain, endured being battered in silence, all to hide this single ambush.
That red spear was its tongue.
In the past, such an attack would likely have killed the serpent outright, or at least pinned it helplessly. But the serpent had grown far stronger than before, hovering near Divine Beast rank.
The strike had taken only a tenth of its health. What it had truly done was enrage it.
CRACK! CRACK! CRACK!
The five-colored toad sensed danger immediately. Its long tongue lashed again and again like a scarlet whip, attacking without pause, refusing to give the serpent even a breath to recover.
It wanted to keep the advantage while the wound was fresh.
If it could hold on for another three to five minutes, the Black Crow Poison Fruit would ripen completely.
Then it only needed to swallow it. Victory would be decided at once.
HISS!
Hiss... hiss...
Under the furious assault, the serpent could not immediately counterattack. It twisted and coiled in midair, narrowly evading each strike.
It was not a true dragon. Though it could rise above the ground, it could only hover about three yards high, not enough to escape the toad’s reach.
But it was still close to Divine Beast level.
Two minutes later, the wound along its neck stopped bleeding. The horn on its head blazed with green lightning once more, and the serpent launched its counterattack against the toad guarding the fruit.
By then, the shockwaves had faded. The poison mist was thinning. The battlefield could be seen clearly again.
"Holy crap."
Marcus could not stop himself. He did not know whether to feel amazed or heartbroken.
The serpent and the toad were still fighting, battered but alive. But the lesser monsters caught at the center of the explosions, the One-Horned Poison Armor Snakes and Green Oil Poison Toads, had been annihilated instantly.
The muddy pool was littered with loot; at least fifty pieces of equipment floated there.
Because those monsters had died to Mythic Beast-level forces, the drops were exceptional. Besides more than a dozen Golden items, Marcus spotted two Mythic Artifacts.
His eyes nearly bled.
But the Venomous Horned Serpent was effectively Divine Beast rank now. His Nine-Leaf King Flower and Pure Mist Cloud Cluster would not save him from that.
All he could do was stare from afar and suffer.
"The serpent is out now. Shouldn’t you make your move?" Marcus turned to the archer, voice strained.
"Not yet."
Marcus almost screamed.
If he could beat this man in a fight, he would have stabbed him already. Unfortunately, if he could beat the archer, he would not need to beg him for help in the first place.
Still, he could hardly demand that someone charge into a battle between a Divine Beast and a Mythic Beast. That was basically asking him to die.
Truthfully, Marcus would wait too. Wait until both sides were exhausted.
As time dragged on, the equipment floating in the pool began to disappear one piece after another.
Marcus grew more frantic with every passing second, yet there was nothing he could do.
There were many kinds of suffering in life, but this had to be one of the worst.