Inside the fog, Leo could finally understand the pain of the chicken when he experienced firsthand how difficult it was to fly.
While he could easily control his wings, it was a whole different matter to stay in the air.
Not only did he need to make his move his wings the right way but he also needed to maintain his balance while in the air.
Those weren't things he could learn just because he wanted to. Even birds needed to practice to get them right.
Also, the difficulty only increased with the persistent middling of the snake making him unable to focus on the task.
Fortunately, one of his talents that was relatively useless till now started to shine. It was quick learner.
Thanks to the quick learner talent, he was able to quickly find his mistakes and easily correct them. He was thus able to progress quite smoothly despite the complexity of the challenge.
It only took him some minutes to go from jumping everywhere like a frog to being able to find his balance and keep himself a meter or so above the ground for several seconds.
However, he was unable to make any more progress or fly any higher than that. Each time he seemed to make a breakthrough the snake always appeared to disrupt him.
With the snake's ability to come from anywhere in the fog and his weakened senses, he was unable to dodge every time and was knocked down more than one time.
Fortunately for him, the snake inside the fog was only a clone and could barely deal any damage to him. Still, that was more than enough to stop him from leaving the fog.
'Phew, I am progressing well but I will have to deal with that guy if I want to leave here.' Leo muttered as he dodged yet another charge of the fog snake.
Once again, as soon as he missed his target, the snake disappeared in the fog, leaving no trace behind. The fog wasn't disrupted at all. It almost looked like the snake just merged with it.
However, something different happened this time. Just as the fog clone vanished, a massive tail emerged from Leo's blind spots.
'Cough. That one was different.' Leo muttered as blood ticked off his mouth. The damage dealt by this attack wasn't something he could ignore anymore.
As he saw the giant tail vanish inside the fog, Leo realized that he was truly unable to learn flying while defending against the snake’s attacks.
Luxia already advised him but he was being headstrong and determined to accomplish this by himself. But, it looked like he may be unable to.
'I guess I will go with the easy solution then.' Leo grumbled as he opened the shop.
He would have liked to learn to fly by himself but he couldn’t afford to waste more time.
The longer he stayed inside the fog the harder it was for him to fight against the poison. Also, he was wasting too much stamina with all the jumping and wings flapping.
If he continued like that he would be too weakened by the time he exited the fog and he would still be disadvantaged while fighting later.
'Gotcha… ' He smiled as he found the skill he was looking for.
[Fly: Level 1/5
Using your wings, you can break free from the constraint of the earth and soar in the sky. You can infuse your mana in your wings and increase your flying speed by 15%.
Cost: 10 SP.]
[Do you wish to learn Fly for 5 SP?]
If he had the choice, he would have liked to keep those points to get something better at a later time and not waste it on something he could learn by himself.
However, the situation didn’t give him a choice. The important thing right now was to survive. As long as he was alive he could get more skill points and get whatever skills he wanted.
[Yes.] Leo chooses to learn the skill with some reluctance in his heart.
As soon as he learned the skill he could feel that flying was almost something instinctual to him. As long as he wished for it, he could move his wings and soar into the sky.
[You made the right choice.]
'Indeed. Let's surprise this sneaky fellow, shall we?' Leo smiled. He was sure that the snake would never expect him to start to fly out of the blue.
"Let’s go." Leo said as he infused his wings with mana and instantly took off. Soaring in the air like a rocket.
Before the snake could even react, Leo already reached the top of the fog and broke out instantly.
"Hahahaha, I’m finally out." Leo laughed heartily, even though his laugh sounded more like a roar, as he flew above the fog maze.
He looked particularly glorious as he flew in the sky with moonlight cascading on his silvery fur.
Looking around, Leo could spot the snake glaring at him just outside of the fog.
'You weren't expecting this, were you?' Leo chuckled as he looked at the stunned snake.
And surprised the snake really was. One moment Leo was behaving like a distressed chicken and a moment later he was able to fly steadily and left his fog.
What kind of bullshit was that?
Since when was it so easy to learn flying? The snake felt like cursing as he glared at Leo.
He could see the mocking glint in his eyes. It was like he was saying, I wrecked your trap, what are you going to do now?
"You are really a tough one." The snake said as he continued to glare at Leo.
"Eh! You can talk!" Leo said as he looked at the snake.
"As you can sssssee."
"Oh! That’s interesting. I thought you wouldn’t be able to, just like the wolf."
"Don’t compare me with that dumb beast."
"Oh, I don’t care about what you want. I’m not interested in chatting with you either. You have fun messing with me right? Time for payback." Leo's eyes glinted with malice as he expanded his wings and dived toward the snake. He had no intention to make friends with someone that tried to kill him.
As he saw Leo falling like a meteor, the snake knew that this wasn’t going to be an easy fight and immediately put his defense.
While he was wary of Leo, he wasn’t afraid of fighting him at all. Coiling himself like a spring he fearlessly bolted toward Leo.
BOOM. A loud explosion resounded through the clearing as the two monsters clashed for the first time.
As soon as they clashed, the monsters entangled together and engaged in an intense melee. Leo pounced on the snake and unleashed a flurry of attacks upon his opponent's body. With each swipe of his claws, he broke many scales of the snake and left its body covered in injuries.
While the snake’s speed wasn’t inferior to his own, Leo was more agile. He could thus run easily around the snake and land his attacks while avoiding the snake’s one.
In a short amount of time, he had completely ruined the pristine appearance of the snake, covering it with blood and deep claw wounds.
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Meanwhile, the snake wasn’t sitting still and enduring the bullying of Leo. He was relentlessly throwing his poisonous fog at Leo in an attempt to slow him down.
Unfortunately for him, Leo's powerful physique and poison affinity allowed him to resist fairly easily.
Swoosh. With a loud hiss, the snake swiped his tail toward Leo to shake him off. Ducking quickly, Leo avoided the snake’s tail and once again pounced on the snake.
With a low roar, he sank his fangs inside the snake body, jerked his head up, and lifted the ton heavy snake as if it weighed nothing.
Afterward, Leo started turning on himself and once he gained enough momentum released the snake, throwing him as high as five meters in the air.
What kind of strength is this? How can he lift me and throw me so easily? The shocked snake thought as he suddenly found himself soaring in the air. He was left speechless by the outrageous situation he suddenly found himself in.
However, that was just the start as when he looked down he saw Leo open his giant jaw and throw dozens of shadow bullets toward him.
Helpless he could only watch as the flurry shadow bullets rained on him, each one adding to his pain and injuries.
BOOOOM. Another loud sound echoed in the clearing as the gigantic monster fell to the ground.
However, that sound was soon drowned by the ear-shaking roar of the snake who laid powerlessly on the ground, skewered on a giant shadow spike, his blood gushing like a fountain.
"Compared to the wolf, you are quite weak. Look at you, you are nothing without your tricks and your poison." Leo laughed as he looked at the snake. However, while he was mocking the snake outside, his heart wasn't so calm.
After all, he was expecting to kill the snake with this combo or at least bring him close to death's door.
Leo’s eyebrows couldn’t help but twitch as he saw that despite the beating he received, the snake still had a third of health remaining.
Even though he disliked those beasts that were coming after him, he couldn’t help but admire their vitality and resilience.
"Better end it before he pulls some weird stunt out of nowhere." Leo thought as he dashed toward the snake at full speed. He was determined to kill it before it could recover.
However, just as he reached the snake, the latter seemed to flicker and before Leo could understand what was happening, he went through the snake.
It was the snake Fog Transfiguration, a technique allowing it to temporarily turn his body into the fog and avoid physical damage.
"What the fuck? " Leo cursed as he was completely caught off guard by the snake's weird skill. Immediately, he tried to stop himself and turn back.
Unfortunately, it was too late and he could barely activate his earth armor before colliding violently with a thirty meters’ giant of a tree.
BANG. With the speed of a car, Leo collided with the tree and was stunned for a second.
"He really got me with this one…" Leo muttered as he regained his bearing and tried to move. However, he was unable to as something was binding his lower body tightly.
As he looked down, he found with horror that the snake was coiling itself around him, slowly constraining him in a deathly embrace.
As the pain of his lower body being crushed filled his mind, Leo understood that it could be his end if he didn’t get rid of the snake as soon as possible.
Without hesitation, Leo started attacking the snake with everything he had and struggled violently to get rid of him.
Unfortunately, no matter what he did, he was unable to make the snake loosen his grip. Contrarily to his wish, with each passing second, the snake was covering more of his body and making it embrace tighter.
No matter how hard he struggled he couldn’t break free from the grip of the snake. As he was starting to feel despair, he noticed that his wings were still free.
Once again putting his hope on those new limbs of his, he immediately started flying. However, it was far from being easy with the additional weight of the snake, and the pain he was feeling slowed him considerably.
Still, as if unaware of the pain, he continued to rise, slowly but steadily, going higher and higher.
After flying for what seemed to be an eternity, Leo managed to rise more than ten meters high and let himself fall.
BOOM. The peaceful night was once again disrupted by noise even louder than the previous one.
Soon after, the sound of an agonizing beast was heard too. The mournful cry filled with so much pain that even those hearing it could feel their heart tightening.
Unsurprisingly, it was the cry of the snake.
With the snake body wound around him, the former was the one to bear most of the brunt of the fall. Slowly, the death grip around Leo’s body started to loosen and he was able to free himself.
Staggering, Leo rose on his feet while the earth armor around his body slowly crumbled. Despite the snake cushioning, Leo was not left unscathed by the fall.
He was sure that he would have more than one broken bone and some internal injuries.
Anyway, he would think about those things later. It was time to kill the hateful snake.
Just as he was about to land the killing blow on the snake something unexpected happened.
A beast as dark as night suddenly jumped out of his shadow. Before he could react and put up an efficient defense the shadow beast reached him.
Fortunately, he managed to protect his vitals’ spot, and avoid a fatal strike. Still, the wound he received was nothing to scoff at.
The beast's claws landed on his side, tearing deep inside his flesh, inflicting him a bone-deep and heavily bleeding wound.
Hurriedly jumping back, Leo tried to put some distance between him and the shadow beast.
However, the shadow was like a hound, sticking close to him and continuously attacking him.
He could now understand the feeling of the snake as he begrudgingly defended himself, unable to do anything else.
As he was thinking of a way to get rid of his new foe, he heard a familiar voice coming from behind.
"Leo, duck." Celia yelled as she came running from behind Leo.
"Great fireball! GO!"
Hurriedly ducking, Leo could feel a hot and giant fireball whiz above him and impacting his foe.
Boom. The panther-like beast was sent flying by the explosion, finally giving Leo some breathing room.
"Thank." Leo said as he took a deep breath, his eyes never leaving the body of the panther.
"No need. We have to get rid of this guy fast and take care of you." You are in truly bad shape. Celia said with worry as he looked at the bruised body of Leo and the large wound on his side.
"Still, thank you. Don't worry about me, I can still fight for a while. At least for long enough to get rid of this pest." Leo said, his voice seething with wrath as he glared at the burnt Panther in front of him.
"Let’s do this then."Celia said as she focused on their foe. The sooner they could kill him, the sooner they could take care of Leo's injuries.