207. Quetzal (I)

Snow entered with weary steps. Her sword, White Gryphon, was in her hand. She carefully searched around for any peculiarities, but they were welcomed with a giant grey wall when they entered. Confused, she glanced around. The light inside the room turned around, brightening up.

“Anything?” Mike was a step behind. His sword was out. With weary steps, they all waited cautiously for any new changes.

A heavy sound of breathing could be heard, reverberating in the room. The walls started to expand and decompress, bringing the whole room to life.

“Is that?” Mike said with curiosity.

“Shhhhh.” Red hissed. Her hand was out in front of her, ready to cast magic. She was inching closer to Mr. Rogers because she was scared.

“It’s alive.” Snow whispered, realizing that the whole walls were actually a creature, and from the looks of it, it was huge. She gaped, looking upwards.

“I don’t like where this is going.” Red had her back to Mr. Rogers. Any closer, and she would have been on top of him, shuddering like a small animal.

The ground shuddered, the walls began to move. Dark grey walls started to shift and change underneath the light, becoming a dark-colored emerald. Each time the walls moved, Snow could see the shape of scales present, rubbing against each other.

“It’s a snake.” Mr. Rogers said with interest. His eyes glowed red, staring at the monstrosity before them.

“A snake?!” Red squeaked; she covered her mouth in a hurry. “I hate snakes….”

“This must be the dungeon boss. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if this thing has the dungeon core in it,” said Mike. “So, should we atta-”

Black eyes stared down from above; everyone froze, realizing that they were spotted. It’s long red tongue flickered outwards to taste the very air. With a slither, the snake’s head headed downward. Large feather tufts were present on its side, followed by horns that jut out from its head.

“Human.” A hissing sound right after, it’s feathery head shaking like a rattle. “What are you doing here?”

A heavy aura of danger pressed down upon everyone, making it difficult to breathe. Snow had never felt such a terrifying feeling before and realized that death was only a single bite away.

Nobody moved; even Mr. Rogers didn’t seem to take up the challenge to step forward.

Snow breathed in, trying to get control of her rapid heart. It was not easy, trying to calm it down. Her magic automatically spitted out to counter the oppressive air that would have choked her to death.

“I see that you all are a bit ss-special.”

The snake rubbed against each other a bit more stronger, causing the ground to tremble even stronger.

“I have ssss-een some humansssss come into ssssssss slay me.” The snake replied, a bit more agitated than before.

The grounding sound of the body was a lot stronger than before, becoming more chaotic and angry.

“The great me, Quzel. Bothered by insignificant beings-s.” The snake Quetzal spoke, twirling around them even tighter and tighter than before.

Snow had a bad feeling. Their area that they could move around was becoming smaller. Her hand raised up, summoning a powerful light barrier around them. For a moment, Quetzal’s body was stopped by Snow’s defensive shield.

It squeezed and squeezed, but so far, the Quetzal could not break the shield.

Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.

A harsh wave of energy was being sucked out of Snow’s body every time Quetzal tried to break through the defensive barriers. She tried her best not to show anything on her face.

“Interesting,” Quetzal smirked, dryly chuckling at Snow’s effort.

“We got to move now.” Snow yelled, breaking everyone’s frozen stupor. “Holy Redemption!” One of her three powerful skills. Every one of them was blessed with many power-ups, doubling their power, magic, and body.

The once terrible oppression was washed away, allowing them to move.

Dairen was the first one to shout next, “Rise!”

Large shadows expanded outwards from underneath Dairen’s feet. Blanketing the ground with a sea of darkness. The ground cluttered, black shadows emerged from the ground. Thousands of powerful undead rose up from the darkness. Their clattering chatter of bones, armor, and weapons excitedly moved.

Seas of flying creatures looked like small wyverns, powerful humanoid bodies that resembled a human, four-legged creatures with their bones reinforced similar to a truck, and thousands of simple monsters that Snow had never seen before.

Mike’s sword lit up with lightning, coating himself in it completely. Red hand was swirling around as one hand had red fire encasing her right, while a blue fire on the other. While Mr. Rogers smirked, blood pooling out of his body, creating a scythe entirely made of his blood.

“You dare fight against me?” Quetzal hissed, moving around even tighter.

“Are you not the dungeon lord?” Snow shouted, “If so, yes.”

“Kakakakaka!” Quetzal laughed. “Puny humans, you will die here like every other human who has come to challenge me!”

Quetzal struck. Its fangs snapped onto the very barrier.

“Go!” Dairen yelled, his minions swarmed onto Quetzal. They climbed, smashed, and even tried to stab into the very skin, but they were bounced back. Unable to do anything but cause an irritation.

Quetzal let go; he smashed around at Dairen’s minion. Their bodies break and repair by the use of Dairen’s magic.

“Is this all you got?” Quetzal laughed at their pitiable strength. “This is child’s play.”

“Well, this isn’t!” Mike roared. He smashed into the side of the monster’s face as if he was batting. With a clash, Quetzal's head was smacked to the side, hiding against its own body.

Mike didn’t stop; he raised his sword, following his hit right after. He didn’t stop, smashing against Quetzal’s head over and over again.

Snow was amazed at the amount of ferocity that Mike had given off. A shock of lightning followed after, stunning Quetzal. He broke apart, Red’s firestorm magic fell from the sky. It's massive fireball pelted downward.

One after another, the fireball hailstorm bombarded Quetzal. Pounding into the very body of the monster, until finally, it quieted down. A smog of dust lingered in the air. Brunt stench of burnt flesh wafted by, making Snow’s nose wrinkle.

“Did we get him?” Rodney asked. Snow and Rodney barely didn’t even make a move.

“I don’t think so.” Snow spoke underneath her breath. A sawing sound grounded against the floor, telling everyone that Quetzal wasn’t dead.

Quetzal burst out from the smoke. His body was slightly bruised, barely any harm but a few burnt skin spots that didn’t look any different from its normal skin. They knew that they didn’t do much to Quetzal.

With a hiss, Quetzal struck again. This time it spat out an array of poison that splashed against the barrier. The poison sizzled, boring small holes into the barrier itself.

“Purge!” Snow counted, a blast of holy light erupted from her body. In seconds, the poison was wiped out, leaving behind only a puddle of gunk. At the same time, everyone inside the barrier was imbued with divine energy. Only Mr. Rogers had placed up a shield so he wouldn’t be affected by Snow’s magic.

“That’s more like it.” Mike chattered up, excited at the double blessings that he was getting from Snow. He sprung forward to attack with greater ferocity than before that the Quetzal was being thrown around a few times.

The air around Mike was a lot more dangerous than before. His electricity energy crackled around him, making his hair stand up on edge.

Dairen darkness energy spluttered in outrage at the blessing. At first, it fought to neutralize the energy between Snow’s and his. But, because he had been working with her for a very long time, both energy harmonized. His arrows were endowed with both light and dark, mixing together to make something new.

Rodney was flickering in and out, disappearing into the shadows as he attacked. It wasn’t easy to follow Rodney’s movements. Most of the time, he completely vanished like a ghost and only leaving behind a few afterimages.

Mike and Daire attacked. Mike made the first move, smashing into Quetzal's head with a swing. Right behind, Dairen’s arrows followed, smashing into the very same spot as Mike’s attack. Both cause a ripple effect that jarred Quetzal’s brain, stunning him temporarily.

“That wasn’t enough!” Mike shouted in disbelief. He landed lightly on his feet. “That thick skin of his is ridiculous!”

Quetzal shook his head, hissing in anger. “You dare?!”

“Yes, I dare!” Mike shouted back. He started to charge electricity in his sword.

Mr. Rogers was silently standing back, watching the whole fight. He didn’t move or gave his opinion. Instead, he was deep in thought.

Snow knew that she couldn’t stay in this position for a very long time; being on the defensive wasn’t something she wanted to do or be in. She would rather be on the offensive, pushing Quetzal back alongside with the others.

Giving up her defensive barrier, her magical attack swirled around her.

“Division of the sun!” Snow shouted. Suddenly the air around her started to heat up. Magic condensed around her. Small sunlight orbs appeared, pulling with it a dense amount of magic.

One would have thought that small suns were rotating around Snow. With a flash of light, each sun shoots out a powerful surge of magical energy beams. With a sickening fizzle, the skin of the snake’s body was pierced, drawing blood.

Quetzal roared in pain; he thrashed around. His eyes were destroyed by Snow’s attack. The cave shook, breaking apart all around them. He continued to hit against the very wall until finally, the ceiling walls broke free. Bright sunlight emptied into the very room, and Quetzal erupted out with an angry hiss.

“Grab on!” Snow shouted. Whatever that was left of the barrier around them dissipated. She fearlessly ran towards Quetzal, who was escaping to the surface.