Strong Enough

Centered in the middle of nowhere of sand and torrid heat was a canyon. Fumes of gas waft into the air as a boiling pot of lava pools and extreme heats was in sight. The disgusting smell of sulfur filled one's nostril. This was evidently Meteor Falls.

The scorching heat was already felt by Bai Li even at the parameter of the canyon itself, it was safe to say the heat would be elevated from this point on.

One of the smallest regions of the map and the most difficult area close to the city was definitely this but mostly avoided.

'At least I can still use my Chilled Resolve.'

Circulating his internal energy, the transparent hue overcame Bai Li's eyes and cold expression.

His first step was not of the easiest ones so far, similar to ones he used when fighting a serpent.

The sense of thrill and anxiety coursed through his veins, this would be his second encounter with a Saint beast and maybe it would be stronger than the Nightmare Cobra.

He readied a javelin formed by his cloak in hand, ready to take on any ambushes from anywhere. A sash of Berat knives would also do some good, even though it wouldn't work well in actual combat; they had practical usage.

What came was just a mere two hundred steps in the Meteor Falls and Bai Li had not witnessed anything. His sense of preparation seemed at a lost.

'Where am I supposed to be headed?'

Bai Li felt everything was for naught, but suddenly.

One of the stone platforms that floated on top of the magma formed by the searing hot flames came flying at him! Leaving a trail of magma with it.

While he was able to stop most of the incoming damage of the rock, the trailing ooze did the most damage.

The moment it contacted his armor, the cloud dissipated at a rapid rate before fully being cleaned off of the armor.

'What a troublesome opponent..'

Bai Li could not see where the beast was located, but it definitely had sight of him or sense of him,

A second rock came hurling over but with the expectation of Bai Li.

The only thing he could do was watch patiently for the right time to strike, one missed step would come with gratuitous damage.

In just a mere minute, most rocks began doing its damage on him, taking a toll of his armor.

The armor could not regenerate fast enough to stop the damage from the magma dissipating his armor.

The first drop seared his flesh to unimaginable levels of temperature, the feeling crept up his entire skin and as the only thing, he felt most of the damage.

"AGHHH"

He nearly spasmed out of control, but a trail of blood came as he bit on his lips.

If he continued doing something now, he would lose more than just his will fighting this sly beast.

The options of what could be taken were slimming down the choices.

Either taking a wild guess or wait for the answer to come to him at the heat of the moment.

A rock came hurling at the same speed it always came. That was when Bai Li noticed a strange pattern, all the attacks so far were aiming behind his line of sight.

He dared to look behind and formed the armor to embody only his back of the body.

It hit him fully on point and there it was in his eyes for merely a second. But that was all he needed to witness the culprit.

A small rumble of the surface showed a sluggish movement of a beast under the platform.

A chip of the platform broke simultaneously in its path as the magma tethered along with it.

'Bingo'

Bai Li rushed at where the monster was located and erased his armor. Full offensive to take out the rat from his hiding place. Or her, he did not want to assume anything at this point.

He formed a large surface and with both of his hands in a leap of faith, brought it down to earth.

The strike shook the entire arena, revealing the space underneath where he struck as the new opening for the magma to seep through came, his face felt the full force of the sundering heat as he backed off immediately.

His attack was supposedly a wild guess along with his personal knowledge, a beast is not fully impenetrable to the elements, the deeper one goes into magma, the hotter it gets.

The beast that was supposedly from the platform leaped to the surface, or more could be said, slithered on the surface.

A red glowing blob of mush came with a rhythm, slowly causing the shift of mass to almost top over.

The mush soon formed antennae and pointed towards in the general location of Bai Li. The sluggish movement it had as it tried to do so.

The mush began to deflate, revealing a rock-like surface on its body. A rock almost growing out of its slug-like body, looking seemingly to that of a snail.

The monster was out of its hiding spot soon lashed out with all its might, Bai Li followed suit with the same manner knowing where the monster is currently.

Charging through the rock platform, he activated all his abilities that would enhance his ability.

Just like the monster's form, the attack was also quite slow to boot.

A strange mucus-like material came out of what seems to be its mouth as it started to cover the surface where Bai Li once sat.

The attack came from below, showing that maybe his entire body was still down there.

He did not care as of right now as he took a Berat knife and reinforced it with his Night Cowl to create a substance. Bai Li was of course always learning new ways to use his cloak and finding certain properties that could help him at the moment's notice. One method he found to prove a subtle difference was that he could use an item to have the dark smoke encompass, due to how the smoke itself can't compress itself to a certain point. Giving the smoke something to cling on proved to be efficient in the usage of the weapon itself, so he could provide more defense during times of need.

Bai Li's knife formed what seems to be a spear and directly impaled into the body of the slug.

it squirmed in agony as the lukewarm mucus emitted from its body, drenching his arm where most of the fluids came in contact to.

Luckily it was not poisonous but it proved to be quite difficult.

The mucus was quite adhesive and very sticky, luckily the heat from the magma allowed the adhesive to be more malleable then when cooled to become very sticky.

The impaled felt as if he stuck a pitchfork in a haystack as it showed no end to where it was impaled.

Bai Li quickly took out the spear with enough force in a downward motion to incur more damage and recover his weapon from the large body.

The slime-like creature began to lift its body and slammed in quick succession after the attack, causing the platform to wave around in the liquid-like lava present right now.

Of course, the attack was aimed at Bai Li, but he managed to dodge at the nick time with a swift roll to the side.

The attacks soon came with ease, as it only was able to slam its whole body against the rock, or spewing some of the magma through the cracks it formed below the surface.

The only advantage the Saint Beast was it was rather an ambush character and out-of-field type where it attacked conspicuously with no attempts of anyone trying to attack it.

By itself, the entire fight became simple as the monster would try to retreat back to the lava but failed as Bai Li would continually attack and stop the creature's escape. Essentially he was bullying the creature.

Sooner or later, the monster collapsed from the torture and was quick to rest.