Three burning snakes made of black blood surged on me from all sides. Blood drenched the court and up to the pillars, a blaze of sick flames that offered them speed and cover. What should have boiled that beast alive now only made her three bodies stronger.
I had been waiting for this day for so long.
The human with me had already leapt away from the burning blood. I jumped in turn, gaining that sliver of time needed to cast. Concussion! Featherweight! But they did not flare until my feet hit the ground again, just as one snake's maw was about to tear me apart. Earthworks!
The magic square engraved on the drenched rock just in time to cast light! And now, merge!
All spells into one hit her in an instant. The blood tentacles that had wrapped my legs broke and splashed back down while the snake that had charged went crashing as well, wriggling past. Its body, all three bodies, devoured by a plague.
Forcing her to retreat and dispel, all the while raining down blood spears on me. All three bodies cast, all three using scales and shape alike for six spells at a time.
How misguided. There was only so much mana around, so her disparate attacks were all the weaker.
Still, I knew better than to hold. She started to slither around me and me to jump around her.
Light! Mirror! The runes behind the layer of iron of my void armor were searing, barely able to keep up. But I was casting two spells at once and now, merge!
The moon ray curved madly through her attacks, found her heart and plunged, stopped only at the last second by a shield that deviated the beam and let it tear into her body. She shrieked! Her torn body engulfed in blackened mist.
It finally dawned on her how much she had doomed herself.
I still had my trace in that blood! I could track her and hit her at will! Meanwhile she had bet on hydra, to divide herself through wounds and overwhelm me but, by lack of magic, this was pointless. Her instincts had betrayed her, for once.
So our bout was shortlived. We circled once more, trading attacks as the court slowly broke into pieces, my earthworks cracking the pillars and opening the ground to leave no space for her black blood to encroach. Her feeble attempt at a mana drain was easily swept aside.
Then she pounced. Pulled all the blood to her and lunged at me! My maul met her fangs, we clashed and both pushed back, watched each other prepare their next attack.
Her maw was already filling with fire. The flames spread far, covered me whole and turned into a death ray.
But I was wearing a void armor! That attack could not even dent me!
It didn't look like that however, and it was forcing me on the defensive. To the human it seemed I was struggling even as my earthworks was starting to calcify the snake's body. That was what she was after: a fool attacking her, thinking she was distracted.
He wasn't that stupid!
Right?
Right! The human had stayed away from the fight, biding his time. No, better, he was channeling magic. That teenager! He was reading the battle just right.
So the beast's feint failed and now she was paying the price. Her whole body was turning to sharp, jagged stone. She was struggling to maintain the ray, choked and was forced to break it to screech and shriek in agony.
Now show me! Molt! Molt already! While fighting your blood form I was already preparing for the next.
And sure enough the rock shattered, falling in blocks that had been her patches of scales. From under it stretched a titanic tail and the head rose again, covered in pink and purple blisters from which two maws opened.
Of course she would bet it all on chaos magic.
Before she could even move I had finished casting. The sky warped in four massive lead weights that surrounded the whole court and everything within it, me and the human included, got crushed.
What pillars remained just reduced to dust. The walls around blowing up into powder. And the large stone slabs that had been cracked over and over fell into a crater.
This was her peak, it was all downhill from there. So she would not get to move!
But I could. I slowly walked forth, under the heavy pressure, let earthworks craft me my maul and readied for the execution.
She was wriggling before me, trying to escape the spell that was forcing her on the ground, suffering from her own weight. And all she found to oppose me was a mana drain. But this was a ritual, there was nothing to drain and so her panic was for naught.
Then the realm lifted from under my feet.
The next moment lightning was pouring down, crashing and crackling, devouring the whole space. Two lead weights blown to the side and blasted into pieces.
It took me a second to recover from the discharge and another to realize what that had been. Her own ritual had been laying in wait even before the battle started! A cast the size of the ruins for a single strike she had likely intend against the human.
Wasted to free herself from that prison.
Her tail struck me like a ram, punctured the plates and sent me bashing down the crater. I had not stopped that three chaos spheres appeared around me and detonated. My shields shattered and the iron endured the shocks.
It was the human's turn to strike. The teenager had jumped on her, hit and nearly missed her head. Just the shockwave burst her cysts and made her hiss! Half-blind, the snake tried to snatch him, only dodge another hit that nearly cut her neck in half.
The whole head melted down while another grew at the tail and lunged.
She missed! The human had side-stepped in mid-air, hit again at a few meters of distance and still sent her crashing from the shock. He had mastered flurry, landed safely only to be surprised by a falling fog.
I intercepted her underground attack, forced her out early and nearly split her head open with my maul.
The human etched a word he was forced to abandon: the beast was on us again, forcing us to leap away in unison.
I had crafted him a javelin that he picked and weighted. Adamantite heads on both ends, iron pole.
Tentacles surged all around, pushing us back further. I cast three spells, merged and again with her mana drain! No matter, the squares had already flared, I let her retaliation crack the iron.
Chains of moonlight seized her body, went through it and started to tear her from the inside.
This was just enough time for me to cast: portals! A dozen of them to bring in as many copper tubes that burst their beams in a volley against her chaotic body. She reeled! She really squirmed as her body was torn apart.
Now, molt again! Devolve, burn your own mana to keep going! I knew you too well, you were not finished!
Right on cue, the snake beat the pain, lunged and attacked the human. His javelin caught her midway through but her scales peeled off and a new, smaller body fell on him, fangs wide open.
Only to get hammered and sent crashing at the edge of the crater.
Thirty meters of rocky snake hit the ground and shrieked! She had gone... clay? Clay plates forming rings over which circled large iron scales. The portion I had hit was already repairing itself.
Clay?!
Her yellow, crystal eyes flashed open and fixed on me with defiance. Already her earthworks were working on the ground around, immediately met by mine. She really thought she could defy a clay golem in void armor at its own game?!
Scales detached from her body and went flying at us. More accurately, invisible tendrils were holding them overhead. That could be easily broken.
But for now they blasted all they had, beams and spikes, forcing us to dodge and run as the beast slithered in turn.
So we were circling again.
The human was waiting on my cue. This was the first time I felt like I had an ally. And given her weakened state, I should have been confident about our victory, especially since I still had a last card to play.
Her weak attacks could only but keep us at bay. My merged spells wrecked her each time they hit, tearing her apart and forcing her body to slow down to repair. She was dodging most of it but against that class of spells that fiend was powerless.
Meanwhile, underground our earthworks were battling for dominance. And I was winning that exchange as well.
So she was forced to break off first, cross the distance to attack and be met with earthly spikes, followed by a gravital pull that lifted her massive body in the air just a moment.
Just that moment the human needed to strike. Ghost! His hook went through her head but he blocked his fall in mid-air to turn and hit again, two quick jabs to her body to stun her and when the ghost effect wore off, a new hit that connected.
The human went crashing on a temple afar.
What?!
She had found the perfect timing and angle to strike as well, use his potency against him and turn the attack back on him. Half her body had flaked away from the shock but she had her opening.
And just when I tried to intercept her, as her eyes crossed my badger mask I realized the patterns we had been drawing underground.
Confusion!
The both of us lost control at the same time, but she still found the strength to leap out and pursue the human. And I was left struggling with myself for those fateful two seconds. But what was absolutely wrecking my mind was that, at the same time, her scales had cast another spell.
Mana drain?! Once more!? And on herself.
Because casting an attack on yourself pretty much ensured no one could dispel it.
No. No no no no. No! We had surprised her in the middle of a hunt! We had broken through two of her shapes, she could not have planned this far ahead! The damage she took, the spells she cast, she could not have had schemed all along!
The human had not yet recovered and already the snake was on him. Myself, left behind, with no time to act but for one spell.
So I decided to show my full hand, lifted up my fingers and started to trace.
Had she not perceived it, stopped to turn and hiss, she would have been dead.
Another snake, made of moonlight, had appeared right on her, body snatching her body, head above her head, an image of her from the long past that plunged its fangs deep, missing the monster's heart by so little.
She got devoured by herself. And I knew she would molt again, to flee, but by now the human had recovered and there was nothing left for her but defeat.
So the snake peeled off once more and the realm stopped in its tracks.
She had turned into nothing but a six meters long snake, scales barely visible, all smooth and scrawny. A living poison spell that lunged and ensnared the human's torso to bite, aiming for the neck, hitting the black tan near his shoulder instead.
The whole time, the whole time she had been preparing for this second.
Doing alchemy on herself, of all things, throughout a battle.
And now the teenager was struggling, as poison filled his body, trying to pull her away but she would not let go. She would rather die!
So he calmed down instead, inhaled and seized her once more.
While the poison was making him falter, he pressed both hands on her and iron chains choked her body. The both of them struggled until the human might forced her to let go.
I had reached him. I was already casting all the spells I knew against the toxins. But this was a mana burn and she had even planned for him to expose as much magic as possible.
"Don't... hurt her..." Were his last words.