Archie leaped over the torso of the corpse of the Five-Eyed Serpent, dodging another spray of undeath flas from the reborn serpent.
I’ve heard snakes could shed their skin, Archie mused as he watched the serpent slither through the giant burnt hole it made through the Five-Eyed Serpent’s corpse. But not an entire fucking body!
The veins that previously surrounded its eyes and appeared when it spewed undeath flas were now absent. Rather, the only indication Archie got when it ca would be its black eye flickering for a mont before they spewed from its mouth.
“Better than nothing, I guess,” Archie conceded, charging towards the serpent whose black eye dimd and flas stopped.
Archie crossed the distance between the two in seconds, blasting its 25-ter fra backwards by a ter before following up with a flurry of blows, this ti Leeching Strikes of Fury actually stealing the vital energy from the serpent.
Previously, when he tried to reach the Five-Eyed Serpent’s core by ripping through its body, not a single drop of vital energy was transferred to him. Which made sense as it was all condensed into its core, not leaving behind any in the rest of its body. Also explaining how he was able to tear through its scales and flesh with far more ease compared to when he initially struck it.
Archie ignored the hissing that ca from the serpent before it arced its upper body downwards, its mouth wide open to swallow him whole. Instead of moving out of the way, he raised his right forearm above his head with Material Carapace active; both his arms gaining makeshift shields atop them, along with the rest of his body getting covered with Sentinel Platiniteshell plates.
The serpent’s maw engulfed his right arm alongside the makeshift shield atop it, just past his elbow when Archie’s index finger on his left hand pressed the trigger on his Mana Revolver, aid at the roof of the serpent’s mouth.
The Nature-Attuned manabolt tore through a couple of centiters of the roof of the serpent’s mouth, coincidentally ripping a hole through one of the poison sacs connected to its left upper fang.
The sudden pain caused the serpent to clamp down onto Archie’s right arm instead of swallowing him whole.
But as it clamped down on his arm, Archie’s makeshift shield pressed against the jaws of the serpent, holding it open as Archie sent his Mana Revolver back into his spatial storage and continued to release a barrage of blows with his free left hand. All the while ignoring the toxins that splashed across his back and corroded his armor.
His Vital tabolism was strong enough to push back against it, and with the amount of health he was leeching from the serpent with each strike, it effectively did no damage to him.
Hearing his makeshift shield crack under the pressure of the serpent’s jaw strength, Archie quickly activated Runic Amplification on both his Sentinel Platiniteshell Bracers and Chestpiece. Amplifying both the Greater Physical Resistance runic script and Self-Repair rune on both his bracers and chestpiece and the Physical Reinforcent runic script on his bracers.
The mana pathways Archie etched himself atop the respective runic scripts and runes pulsed a faint red color before the runic bases themselves glowed red, dying the mana pathways connected to them the sa color.
The cracked makeshift shield pushed back against the jaws of the Triarch Serpent with renewed strength, its cracked appearance repairing alongside the holes the toxins both corroded and seeped through.
The serpent was in disbelief; even after its rebirth, it was unable to kill the weak creature in front of it. It kept flexing its jaws in an attempt to crush whatever the human shoved in its jaws.
While it understood it had lost the majority of the strength it once had and so of the abilities it had, its current body was far more stable to handle its newly gained skills. It was an acceptable sacrifice in its eyes; no longer were its flesh and scales weakened by its influx of power gained from its new eyes.
Truly, it was sothing it planned to resolve when the Tutorial ended, and when it would arrive on the new planet, it would be staying on. But due to the urgency of its current situation, so things needed to be snipped, regardless of future gain. If anything holds you back, you cut it off, even if it’s your own tail; words it followed to its core, which it inherited from the great snake above.
His only question: Why am I still struggling to devour this human?...Why am I getting hurt by an uneducated human that can’t even speak the USL?
Angered by this realization, the serpent activated its purple eye, unseen by Archie, who was ripping through its body with his left fist, building up the kinetic energy in his left gauntlet with each blow he dealt.
The purple eye glowed a bright purple before its vertical eyelids closed it, unlike what happened in its previous body with its red eye; the purple eye simply went dormant.
And appearing behind Archie was another serpent, looking just like the Triarch Serpent; in fact, there was no difference between the two. Both had three eyes, in the sa format, with the purple one closed and the rest dulled, and its size was the exact sa, even in the sa position it was currently in.
The only difference was that it had no will of its own, fully commanded by the original as per its own design, and was weaker. After all, it would do no good for there to be two kings of the Ernigan Isle, especially when it would eventually take over its new planet when the Tutorial would end.
Archie, unaware of the second serpent behind him, kept up his barrage of blows into the serpent’s torso, jumping over and ducking under the tail swipes it sent at him while doing so.
So, it wasn’t a surprise for anyone other than himself when he was suddenly smacked in his armored side, creating spiderweb like cracks across his armor from the blow that quickly repaired due to Runic Amplification and almost launching him back into the jungle if it weren’t for his right arm still lodged in between the jaws of the Triarch Serpent.
Archie felt his shoulder snap and almost ripped off from the blow, gritting his teeth, he created a mana platform to kick off of. Twisting around his arm that was still lodged in the serpent’s mouth, Archie landed on the upper back of the Triarch Serpent in a crouch, looking at the new serpent that looked just like the serpent he was atop of.
[Triune Serpent Marionette Lv ???]
“Are you kidding ?” Archie muttered in disbelief. It was already exhausting enough to deal with one of you.
His eyes widened as the marionette’s black eye started to glow, and tufts of undeath fla escaped from the sides of its closed mouth. Seeing that he needed to get out of the way of the upcoming blast, Archie deactivated Material Carapace and quickly wrenched out his arm before the Triarch Serpent slamd its jaws shut.
Leaping to his left and breaking his fall with a roll before breaking into a sprint, Archie dodged the torrent of undeath flas that engulfed the upper body of the Triarch Serpent.
Arcing towards the marionette, Archie felt his shoulder pop back into place, and the damage inflicted on it from both the blow and his mid-air twist repaired itself. Now with full function in both arms, Archie activated Savage Charge, crashing into the marionette that still spewed undeath flas towards him.
The force of Archie’s blow knocked back the marionette, cutting off the torrent of undeath flas it spewed towards him.
Archie then quickly followed up with a flurry of blows that ripped through the scales and into the flesh of the marionette, surprising him montarily by its substantially weaker flesh compared to the Triarch Serpent.
When suddenly, its yellow eye activated, turning a bright yellow before closing, covering its body in bone-like plated armor, barbing the end of its tail with a rattlesnake-like mace, and covering its head with a similar looking helt as the Primalsaur’s.
But Archie paid no heed to the sudden plated armor on the marionette, instead focusing on doing as much damage as he could with every blow.
While Archie was tearing through the thrashing marionette, the Triarch Serpent collected itself from releasing its hold on the marionette’s body, having only used the skill for the first ti.
This needs practice, the Triarch Serpent mused to itself before activating its black eye once more and spewing a torrent of undeath flas onto Archie.
Archie felt the unfortunately familiar pain of undeath flas covering his form, lting through his runic amplified armor, and slowly lting his gauntlets. He felt his Vital tabolism work on overdrive, repairing as much muscle, flesh, and bone as it could with as much he’d consud prior.
52%
His fists were leeching as much Health as he could from the marionette in an attempt to halt his own rapidly decreasing Health.
44%
Through the torrent of undeath flas that covered him, his Vital Sight showed him now surrounded by the bodies of both of the serpents, with them now both spewing undeath flas on him.
32%
Through the barrage of blows Archie unleashed on both the serpents, Archie flooded his body with as much of his remaining stamina and mana as he could, pushing Adrenaline Rush to 50%.
Archie’s Relentless Flurry exploded with even more speed and power as it ripped through the armored scales of both serpents and tore into their flesh.
The red jeweled crystal of his Amulet of the Infernal lted into his skin, barely larger than a pebble, glowed a molten red color, having activated for the second ti during the Group Tutorial. But unlike before, Archie had activated Runic Amplification to every rune and runic script he had on his body, unintentionally activating the runic scripts inscribed on the inside of the red jeweled crystal.
An infernal shroud of molten flas exploded from the crystal, blasting both serpents away from Archie and sending them writhing from the infernal flas that consud their scaled flesh and seared their exposed flesh.
The Infernal Flas of the Minotaur shall remain as the ever-present fla against the encroaching serpents. For the wrath of the Minotaur towards the serpents is undying even through the veil of death. As per the decree of Minos, the Stalwart Guardian of the Warband.
A guttural roar erupted from Archie’s throat that resounded throughout the Isle, further blasting the two-hundred-ton serpents away, locking their forms in place. The Infernal Shroud’s rage flooded into Archie’s own rage, erupting the simring adrenaline that Archie constantly kept under control to think rationally.
Archie exploded in motion, charging towards the nearest serpent and crashing into its side, releasing a flurry of blows that tore through its flesh and revealing its crystal-like multicolored core.
With one final blow, Archie cocked back his right fist before smashing it against its core having activated Impact Dynamo at 100% just as his knuckles grazed the core.
The core was flooded with Nature-Attuned kinetic energy, dying it the color of green for a mont before shattering into thousands of pieces along with the rest of the marionette’s body.
Archie lunged forward, grabbing the lower half of the marionette’s armored body and dragging the 50-ton limb with him as he turned to charge at the still afla Triarch Serpent.
Archie charged through the torrent of undeath flas the serpent spewed at him, closing the distance between the two within seconds before raising the marionette’s armored lower half above his shoulder and at its head, smashing it to the side and stopping its spew of undeath flas.
Archie kept flooding his body with all the mana and stamina he had left, pushing Adrenaline Rush to 60%, raising the marionette’s armored lower half and smashing its rattlesnake-likerattle snake like tail onto its head.
After the tenth strike, the marionette’s tail turned to paste, making Archie lunge towards the serpent’s beaten face, unleashing a barrage of blows to its face with his broken and crushed fists until its face covered the ground around him.
Archie released one last blow before adrenaline flooded his entire being, pushing back all the rage that filled him, cleansing him of the rage of the Minotaur.
Archie released a gasp, looking around in shock, staring at the mutilated head of the Triarch Serpent below him. Last Stand, having proc’d, and flooding his body with a rush of adrenaline, untouched by the Rage of the Minotaur.
Staring at his equally mutilated arms and blood-soaked body, Archie quickly deactivated his active skills and looked at the notifications he’d ignored.
*[Triune Serpent Marionette Lv 101] has been slain – XP has been given. 2020 Tutorial Points given*
*[Triarch Serpent Lv 124] has been slain – XP has been given. 2728 Tutorial Points given*
*Your Class has reached Lv 79 – Points allocated, 4 Free Points*
***
*Your Class has reached Lv 85 – Points allocated, 4 Free Points*
*Your Race has reached Lv 77 – Points allocated, 3 Free Points*
***
*Your Race has reached Lv 81 – Points allocated, 3 Free Points*
Quest: Group Tutorial Final-Boss
You have survived the Hoarfrost Highlands, and have bested its king and have moved on to conquer the Ernigan Isle. Having killed the inhabitants of Ernigan Isle and their Queen, the Verdant Serpent, the King of the Ernigan Isle has been unleashed and greatly empowered. He is now actively searching to eliminate you all, starting with the killer of his mate. Your reward will be scaled based on your performance.
Requirents: Survive or defeat the Triarch Serpent ✔
Reward: 72nd Candidate Sigil (Unique), Tutorial Bazaar Coupon (Unique) & 1,000,000 Tutorial Points
An overwhelming rush of excitent flooded Archie, further bolstered by the adrenaline he’d gained from Last Stand.
“Fuck Yeah!”
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