The python was the first to attack, he used his long tail as a whip to continuously assault his opponent , it was quite impatient for a snake , it used his fastest speed at the start and all its strength in each attack to quickly end the fight . On the other hand , Melanie was calm , she dodged its long tail, hit after hit , up ,down , right, left her body was life a leaf dancing between the wind current , however, dodging until the end, was not an option , in an endurance fight, she would certainly loose, thus, she must retaliate , but with the constant assaults , she can't focus on anything else but dodging .
Only some minutes passed , but it feels like an eternity for Melanie , it becomes more and more difficult for her to keep on with the python's speed , thus, it was time to take actions.
While preparing to dodge the upcoming attack , Melanie launched Ame , sending it spinning toward the snake head , in that half a second , the snake take to focus on avoiding the scythe ,its tail slightly slowed down, giving Melanie enough time to escape and ran at great speed toward one of the nearby big trees , the python quickly reacted , after dodging the scythe , it directly rushed to the tree, however, when it looked behind it , there were no one, confused , but soon it sensed something behind it back , however , just as it was going to turn to look, two sharp wind waves stuck both its eyes respectively.
Hissssss!
A loud furious roar left the pained python throat , waking up the whole forest , some curious sparkling eyes appeared in the darkness all around the battle ground .
After retrieving Ame ,then using it to blind the snake , the round didn't stop there, Melanie continued her assault , she knows that her attacks are useless against those scales , even at the close range with a direct hit , at best , it would leave a small crack on it , thus her target was its mouth , at least to create a wound deep enough to cause a heavy bleeding and that loud roar gave her an opportunity , she concentrated her full strength in her legs , to leap high above the snake head , she lifted her scythe preparing to give the final assault , however , as she got closer , she noticed that among the blood and other liquid the half open and reddened left eye was still looking straight at her with great animosity , the right one was already blind but the left eye was only injured , the snake saw her upcoming attack and without any hesitation , its tail hit Melanie who was unable to dodge at midair , sending her flying for some meters before crashing on a tree creating a hole with cracks in it , Even through , undead could regenerate their bodies at a crazy speed , they still fell the pain , they are not alive , it's their soul that maintained their bodies , so , if it got injured ,the soul will get damaged , and at that time , Melanie felt like if a big speedy train rolled over her , crashing her body into pieces, that was painful , but quickly enough her broken body started to recover, her twisted limbs slowly returned to their original angles , Seeing that , the snake ruched toward her , to launch another attack on Melanie , the latter placed her scythe before her with both hands to receive the upcoming attack and soon enough the tail landed once again on her , and pressed on her as if it wanted to bury her deeply in the tree , if it was not for the scythe , she would have already died , but after just one second , her arms started to tremble under the impact, the healed arms were broken once more, even worse the handle of the scythe , cracked like if it was going to wreck at any moment , Melanie didn't give up, she ignored the pain and calmed down , she used her skill analysis to quickly find an escape, but she knew it better than anyone , in battles she depends on her stats and scythe using the mastery skills to win the fight but in this kind of cornered situation where her movement were restricted , it's useless , even her remained skills aren't helpful .
The python used more strength to crash its prey , the scythe wasn't going to hold it anymore and Melanie with the increasing pain and the constant appearance of various injuries that exceeded the regeneration rate, felt a little dizzy , her sense started to shut down one after the other , her consciousness faded slowly, she thought that it was the end but suddenly the snake let go of another roar and somehow ,the pressure on her body lessened until it disappeared, Melanie lifted her head, an arrow was stuck in the left eye of the snake ,blinding it completely this time, it was not complicated to deduce the origin of the arrow, that robed skeleton didn't leave after all .
Melanie felt relieved and thankful , however it was too late, her strength left her body until she lost consciousness .
*******
Melanie slowly opened her eyes ,she found herself in a large deserted land, the sky was black like if the sun , moon and stars were nonexistent here , the ground was hard , cracked and slightly red ,there were nothing around , if not for the few meters around her that were lighted up , the land would be in complete darkness , there were no sound only the endless silence, however , there were a strange smell coming from the ground , the uncomfortable smell of rotten death .
Melanie turned her attention toward the hanging white lanterns in the tree , it gave her a sense of security in this darkness , the tree was old of a normal size unlike those big gigantic trees in the Thousand Beast Forest ,it has no leaf just the brownish root and branches ,seeing it in this deserted land , most logically it must be dead ,at least it gave this impression . Melanie spotted a sentence of foreign symbols carved on the tree , she had never seen them before it seemed to be a kind of language .
While she was studying the tree , a low mumble resounded in the darkness , she heard it but didn't dare to go and check what it was , then it happened again but this time from another direction , and again from the left , right , back until it resounded all over the land like if several beings gathered all around her to whisper some incoherent messages , as the time went by , the voices got louder and closer at the point where Melanie couldn't stand it anymore, her head started aching like if various people talked at the same time in her mind , it was so painful and even worst she couldn't understand what they were saying ,the number of voices also increased some immature like if it were the cries of children , other hoarse and weak from old man , and other from different men and women , all gathered in her head , however , among the chaos , Melanie heard a familiar voice , she immediately focused on it disregarding all the others , and slowly it becomes clearer , it resounded from behind her . When she turned to look , she discovered a human shaped shadow standing at the edge of the light for who knows how long .
[Who are you ?] Melanie was displeased , getting beaten up by a snake, waking up in an unknown location, stranger's voices invaded her mind causing painful headaches , she still bears with it and didn't lose her calm , but , what truly angered her was this shadow [Why do you have this voice , my voice ?]
The shadow didn't respond or move , it was only when Melanie started to get impatient that it finally replied using her own voice .
"I don't have an identity , or a form , even less a voice , I took the appearance of the person you're the most familiar with …" the shadow suddenly morphed into a sixteen years old girl clad in a white dress "….yourself"
Melanie was astonished , the girl before her was exactly what she looked like in her previous life .
"We don't have much time , the longer you stay here the harder it would be for you to leave ,thus , just answer this question" the girl paused , always with her emotionless expression she stared intently at the headless sorcerer in front of her "Do you want power ?"
A simple question but full of hidden meanings . Melanie hesitated for a moment before giving an answer [What if I do?]
"You must pay a price "
[What is it ?]
"Your freedom"
******
Meanwhile, the python who now is completely blind , was assaulted by three new enemies.
After the first blow, the archer who was hidden behind one of the trees , shot other arrows to create as many wounds as possible distracting the snake attention toward the left , while the skeleton swordsman approached from the right side ,with its full strength it bounced on the snake and tried to bury the sword just under the mouth where there is less scales , however , like an ant trying to harm an elephant , only four centimeters of the sword penetrated the skin , in fact the real goal of this attack was to make the snake lose its balance , and that what happened , the python subconsciously leaned toward the ground, and just as it was going to straighten itself , Bob leaped to stab mercilessly the left eye with his dagger ,he may be a necromancer , but his stats are those of a level 24 monster , he shouldn't be underestimated .
The impact made the python fall heavily on its back, , the swordsman didn't waste this chance and directly pierced the right eye , the snake struggled like crazy but it was useless , the two skeletons weren't going to let go , instead they used more strength to bury their weapons in the snake head .
After some time the python stopped moving , to make sure it was dead Bob used the dagger to widen the bloody wound and the snake gave no reaction, he sighed in relief and retreated with the swordsman to gather with the Archer , However, the once emotionless tail , was lifted just above their head , preparing to crash them in the next second , there were not enough time to dodge , and not enough strength to block this heavy tail thus, Bob lowered his head preparing himself to receive the impact and the pain that will follow , but , as seconds passed by , nothing happened ,he slowly lifted his head to look, a large tree root was extended to block the tail, Bob looked toward the tree and saw a figure standing there .
Melanie walked toward the snake , her body was already healed, but her soul was still damaged , she used her scythe to give another slash to the snake head ,killing it completely this time . Bob quickly rushed toward her , he was overjoyed that Melanie was able to use magic , but as he approached , he felt that something was wrong ,he stopped a few meters away from her not daring to move any closer .
" A-Are you alright ? You seem ...different from before "
Melanie just stood there for a moment , she didn't even give a single glance to Bob . Then she turned toward a certain direction , while lifting her scythe preparing for another fight .
[I need to absorb some souls , and those curious monkeys would be perfect]
The fight and loudly attacks , attracted a lot of beasts in the surrounding , they were all watching the battle from their hidden spots , waiting for it to end before attacking the exhausted winner . Among the audience there is the red horned monkeys tribe , Melanie's next target to test her newly acquired Wood affinity .