The next day they moved deeper into Mistwood.
Sakura called out targets as usual, her voice light and steady. Yuki handled what she could. Victor cleaned up anything stronger. The rhythm was almost the same as the day before...
Key word almost...
Sakura kept glancing between the two of them with a wide, unrestrained smile as she wheeled along at their pace, clearly enjoying herself far too much.
Victor remained calm, responding to her calls and cutting down monsters without any change in expression, as if nothing unusual had happened.
Yuki, however, moved stiffly the entire time. Her shoulders were too straight, her grip on her sword a little too tight. Every time Sakura's smile lingered on her for too long, the tips of her ears turned red.
At one point, after finishing a Rotfang Boar, Yuki's eyes accidentally met Victor's as she looked away almost immediately.
A small smile still formed on her face before she could stop it.
She didn't regret last night. That much was obvious, even if she was too embarrassed to act normal about it.
Sakura's smile only grew wider....
....
The fog grew thicker the further they went and Sakura called out the next group before they even saw them. "Four this time. All Level 3. Spread out."
Victor moved first , the rusted sword felt familiar in his hand now, it was heavier than it looked, but perfectly balanced after the enhancements.
He cut down the closest one with two clean strikes. Tetanus debuff kicking in as the creature collapsed before it could fully turn toward him.
Yuki took the second, her movements sharper than the day before. Whatever embarrassment she still carried didn't slow her blade. She finished it quickly and stepped back, not even seeming to have tried hard enough.
The remaining two tried to press them together. Victor stepped in, blade flashing once across both. The effect triggered almost instantly and both monsters staggered, then dropped.
Silence returned, broken only by the soft sound of Sakura's wheels on the damp ground.
She looked at the corpses, then at the two of them with a smile.
"You're both moving better today," she said lightly.
Yuki's shoulders tensed as she didn't answer. Instead she wiped her sword and kept her eyes forward, being the epitome of calmness, except for the redness on her ears.
Victor glanced at her once and when their eyes met, Yuki looked away almost immediately , but the small smile that appeared on her face was harder to hide this time.
They kept walking , not slowing down since the monsters around them were starting to thin and it was talking too long to even spot one.
So they went deeper in, where the air felt heavier, the trees were larger, the roots thicker, and the silence lasting longer.
Sakura's voice came again after a few minutes, quieter than before.
"Something stronger ahead. Level 5… maybe higher. It's alone." Victor tightened his grip on the sword.
"Stay behind me."
...
The fog ahead only thickened and Sakura's voice dropped lower, the teasing lilt completely gone. "Level nine." She paused as the number hit her. "I've never seen a number that high before."
Yuki's grip tightened on her sword. "Nine?"
"Stay behind me," Victor said again, and this time neither of them argued.
The trees here had grown strange, roots thick and the torso breaking the surface of black water in twisted arches. Something shifted beneath one of the pools, a ripple spreading outward.
Then the water exploded upward.
It wasn't a snake so much as a green-black wall given the shape , it had scales like armor plating catching what little light made it through the canopy. Its head alone was the size of Victor's torso, twin fangs the length of kitchen knives glistening with something that steamed faintly where it dripped onto the mud.
'Appraisal.'
[ Mistwood Venomtail, the Bog Sovereign ]
[ Grade: Elite (Boss) ]
[ Level: 9 ]
[ HP: 14,000 ]
[ Attack: 850 ]
[ Defense: 260 ]
[ Skills: Constrict, Venomous Fangs, Scale Armor, Serpent's Fury ]
[ Description: The apex of Mistwood's depths. Full raid parties have wiped attempting this kill. Recommended level: 12+, party of 6 minimum. ]
Victor stared closely at the numbers and he was glad that he has asked Sakura and Yuki to stay back.
'That would actually hurt.' He wasn't scared though but he still needed the girls to stay as far away as possible.
"Sakura, Yuki...Back up...Thirty meters, minimum." His voice didn't rise but the command in it left no room to argue.
Yuki didn't move at first. "Victor—"
"Now."
She grabbed the handles of Sakura's chair and hauled her back through the mud without another word, and Victor didn't watch to make sure, as he was already moving forward, sword in his hand.
The Venomtail's head swayed once, tracking him. Then it struck.
It came faster than anything he'd fought so far, faster than the Alpha, faster than its size suggested it could move. Victor threw himself sideways and felt the wind of the strike pass close enough to tug at his robe, fangs burying into the mud where he'd been standing a half-second before.
'Fast.'
He didn't get a clean angle before it was already recoiling, head weaving back for another strike, and this one he didn't fully avoid. He turned into it instead of away, taking it across the shoulder rather than the throat.
[ - 112 ]
The impact rocked him back a full step, his boots skidding through the mud. Six hundred and twelve. More than his regen could undo in a single tick.
[ +500 ]
[ Thorn Skin: 15% reflected ]
[ -91 ]
The snake hissed, recoiling slightly as the reflected damage bit into it, more out of surprise than pain.
Victor's HP bar sat at 438 out of 550 for the space of one heartbeat before the regen caught up and started climbing back. He didn't have time to appreciate the number because the head was already coming around for a third strike, faster this time, and this one he actually needed to dodge.
He rolled under it, came up inside its guard, and drove the sword into the thick muscle just behind its jaw.
[ -140 ]
[ Tetanus Effect Triggered! ]
Green light flickered along the wound, and Victor immediately disengaged, putting distance between himself and the thrashing head. He didn't need to trade more hits, he just needed to let Tetanus do it's job
[ -200 ]
[ -200 ]
[ -200 ]
The snake's massive body convulsed with each tick, muscle rippling in visible waves down its length, but fourteen thousand HP was fourteen thousand HP. The true damage was chipping at a mountain.
'Necrosis is two percent of that max HP...'
[ -480 ]
[ -480 ]
[ -480 ]
The combined ticks were eating through six hundred and eighty per second, ignoring its Defense entirely, and Victor watched its health bar creep downward at a pace that would have been terrifying for anything smaller, but it was still dangerous for the monster.
The Venomtail seemed to understand it was losing something it couldn't stop, because its head snapped toward him with a fresh burst of speed, and this time its body moved too, the long trunk of it whipping around low to catch his legs.
Victor jumped, clearing the sweep, but the head was already there waiting and its jaws closed around his forearm before he could pull back.
[ Constrict Activated! ]
[ Immobilized: 4s ]
The coils weren't around his arm, they were around his entire midsection now, the rest of its body having closed the distance in the half-second he'd been airborne. Pressure crushed inward, the kind that would have shattered ribs on anyone else.
[ -203 ]
[ +500 ]
[ -203 ]
His HP dipped hard, the regen unable to fully keep pace with a hit landing every second while he couldn't move to avoid the next one.
"V-Vic! " Yuki's voice cracked out from thirty meters away, sharp with alarm, but Victor didn't look toward her as he kept his eyes on the coils.
[ Thorn Skin: 15% reflected ]
[ -105 ]
[ -303 ]
[ +500 ]
[ -406 ]
The tick timer in the corner of his vision counted down. Three seconds left. His HP had dropped to 240 out of 550 and for the first time since he'd entered Mistwood, Victor felt a genuine sense of danger....
.....