It That Slithers

Dark mist parted from Kantan's eyes, and the final room in his run of the dungeon appeared before him. The layout of the room was like a series of small hills numbering 3 in total. At the bottom of each of the hills were dark tunnels that branched throughout the hills, allowing for the enemy of the room to dash into a hill and escape out one of the other entrances. Kantan was immediately on alert, as Veri had refused to tell him what this room was supposed to be about. She had simply said that he had to give a try for himself, stating "Its no fun if you always have the answer, plus, I have worked really hard on all of these rooms at some point. You won't appreciate the challenge if I make it easy on you."

Now that he was in the room though, he did not like his odds. If he possessed a long range weapon, it would be significantly easier to poke and prod an enemy out into the open. "How am I supposed to force out the demon if it decides to hide out in there?" At first glance, he wasn't even sure that he could fit in the holes in the first place. He hadn't seen the demon he was supposed to fight yet, but he was already dreading this fight.

"While the enemy will use the tunnels to fight, it still has to engage you. If it didn't attack, it wouldn't make for an interesting room." She seemed offended that he wasn't raving about the room, though even he couldn't make sense of how she hoped he would have reacted. Part of him was tempted to dig a bit deeper into their connection to see what would have made her happy, but he stopped himself. It would have been a breach of her privacy to sift through her deeper thoughts, as compared to the surface level thoughts they always shared.

Just as he was about to focus more on Veri a flash of movement caught his attention in one of the hills off to his left. Kantan would have gotten whiplash with how fast his head spun toward the source of the movement if he hadn't been evolved enough for his body to sustain it. It was hard to tell what he had seen with any great detail, but his gut did not like his first impression. The creature was low to the ground, and despite its fast movement it seemed to have lingered longer than a standard demon would have.

"I really hope that this isn't a demonic snake. Snakes are almost worst than spiders, almost." He had encountered many small ordinary snakes around his home since they lived out by the farms, where the small critters were common. The farm folk wouldn't chase them out since they hunted the pests that would cause actual crop damage, but something about them always set his skin on edge. Even though he hadn't gotten a great look, he had been spooked by them enough that his instincts weren't often wrong.

Kantan moved into a defensive stance and began to wander with his eyes focused on the hill that he had seen the creature enter. If the demon had to come to him, than it was smarter to bide one's time and plan for combat. By fighting outside of the hills, he could ensure that the fight would happen outside of the enemies favored terrain. While he was nearing the hill in question the hairs on the back of his neck stood up, and his instincts told him that danger was rapidly approaching. His chi sense was empty though, as if there was nothing with any chi around him. This seemed to set his instincts off even more until it eventually flared its immediacy at him.

Kantan was able to roll easily from a defensive stance, since it focused on reactionary movements. He hadn't seen or heard the enemy, but his battle senses told him enough. He began his roll, catching a glimpse of a half meter thick python with thick quills lining a brown furred back. Its head was wide with fangs almost the size of his forearms, the black and green scales along its lower body seemed to obscure its position slightly.

While he had managed to dodge the fangs with his roll, the snake managed to coil its body in the air. It landed against the outside of the hill on its side, shifting its muscles to jump off the rock like a spring board. Kantan had to immediately dodge roll yet again, this time away from the left hill and toward the wall. It was then that he knew that the snake was more than capable outside of the holes, using the terrain to move with a preternatural grace that would put the best dancers to shame. Almost no momentum was lost as it moved and coiled away from the different surfaces, making dodging effectively much harder for Kantan.

"Damnit, why won't it just stay still!" His body was fast enough to keep up with the demon, but he was consistently on his back foot. He was forced to dodge repeatedly, and was unable to find an opening without using his chi. After having dodged his way around the room, the snake returned to one of the hills. As soon as it entered the hill, the demon's chi signature vanished into thin air. "Oh that is so cheating."

Kantan was quick on the uptake this time though, knowing that all of the hills must connect underneath to allow it to come out from any of them. In order to not let it get another chance to sneak attack him, Kantan used a small burst of his chi to get to the wall of the room, putting his back against it to ensure the snake had to come at him from the front. The room was silent for a moment aside from his slightly labored breathing from the adrenaline and exerting himself.

Time went by as he waited for the snakes attack, almost too much time. Just as he was about to question Veri about the snakes behavior the nearest hill entrance blurred and the snake rocketed outwards from it. He was only slightly caught off guard, and this time instead of rolling he simply stepped a foot or two to the side. In the same motion he formed a dagger with his claws and shot his hand forward to meet the side of the snake.

The scales gave heavy resistance to his claws, but they did not allow the snake to fully withstand the blow. A medium depth slash appeared on the side of the snake, it was unable to dodge due to being in the air. Deep hissing followed the wound along with its tail whipping around to smack against Kantan's other shoulder. He bright that arm up in a block, but was still sent flying due to the sheer mass of the demon. It wasn't hard enough to break his body outright, but his arm felt numb under the impact. As he flew toward the nearest hill he tucked his body into a half flip before landing feet first on the side of the hill.

Using the snakes own tactics against him, Kantan jumped off the hill back toward the snake. The snake had hit the wall with less of its normal grace after being wounded. It had just righted itself and coiled a few times defensively when it saw Kantan flying through the air toward it. Kantan smirked at the thought of serving his revenge, but his eyes widened in fear the next moment.

The snake seemed to recognize why it got hit, and was now employing Kantan's own tactics in response. It rotated its body until its back faced out on all sides like a small dome. As it did so, the quills that lined its back flared out like a cactus that Kantan was flying right toward. Kantan was moving through the air quickly, and he had no method to change his trajectory. Knowing that what was about to happen was going to hurt, he flooded part of his body with chi to reinforce it. He chose the already numb arm and slashed out with his claws at the last second, hoping to deal mutual damage while negating some of his momentum.

Pain overtook him for a moment, multiple quills had pierced his arm and forearm. His claws had cleaved through the bone-like quills too easily, barely stopping his forward moment. He had anticipated clashing against the quills like swords would, and using that force to change their collision. When he had easily cut through them it threw everything off.

Thankfully his arm had also dug in and pierced the furred top of the snake where he had cleaved off a few quills. His attack had managed to deal some noticeable damage, but he dislike the cost. After the initial burst of pain, Kantan clamped down on his mind and forced himself to focus through it. With a quick kick off the creature he managed to gain some distance while also dislodging the quills from his arm. The pain almost knocked him out, but he flared his chi to keep himself from shock. After the energy flooded his body the bleeding slowed and power filled him. The muscles in his right arm were still too damaged to be used, but the rest of him was better than ever.

The snake was handling the pain much worse than he was though, as a fist sized hole had appeared on its back. Part of his spine had been hurt, causing only the front half of the snake to wriggle around while the back half twitched lightly instead. Seeing that he had gotten lucky with his attack, Kantan was quick to capitalize on his fortune. With a quick lunge empowered by his chi he landed at the snakes head and stabbed his good arm out like a spear. His aim was slightly off, his claws piercing into the side of its head instead of directly at the center. This achieved the same affect he was looking for, but the demon took a bit longer to succumb to its wounds. Its violent thrashing and almost tipsy movements led him to receive multiple scratches from the quills on its neck as he fought with the last of its strength.

Once the demon stilled, Kantan finally let out the breath he had been holding. "I really don't like snakes."