The snake's huge body approached the two slowly, but with its large size the distance was covered in mere seconds

It stopped once there were a few tens of meters between them as it looked upon the dashing Ellis, its tongue flicked out but it took no action against her

'It's not wary of us, which means the speed we just showed was within its reaction limit'

He looked at Ellis as well and saw her jump on one of the nearby pipes

She used it as a stepping stone to jump on another pipe, then from that she jumped into one of the larger dry pipes with the intent of doing the snakes sight

What she didn't know was that it kept track of her location as its pupil followed her figure inside the pipe as if it could see through walls

'Heat sensory, as expected'

The pipe burst out from the middle as it was slashed open, from within came the swing figure of Ellis whos intent was to cut off the tail at the base

There seemed to be a smirk in the snake's eyes as they slight narrowed, followed by its sudden release of the body where it not only avoided the attack but got behind the airborne attacker

"!!!"

Seeing the target disappear and feeling the threat from behind she instantly put full force into her aura as she guarded the top with her sword and the bottom with her knees, expecting an open maw any moment

Her preparations were for nought though as no attack came, this made her look back at the staring snake with confusion only to see its eyes narrowly looking at her with joy

The ridicule didn't bother her though as much as she was relieved of the absence of mortal danger

Fwap!

"Kugh"

That is until the air was knocked out of her lungs suddenly, sending her figure flying into a nearby pipe, denting it with the hard collision

"Haah, uugh"

She could hardly breathe as her waist cracked with pain, it wasn't enough to break them but she could tell a lot of bones were cracked

Depending on her sword for support she slowly got up, her eyes glued to the snake, wondering where that attack came from

All she could see though were those playful huge eyes that were as large as her body

Since she could discern nothing she turned her head to the side, looking at him in askance

"Pay attention"

He said calmly and it didn't take a split second for her mind to register his words making her body respond by jumping into the air hastily, alas while her mind could keep up her body could not as a shadow whipped her into another pipe with a little less momentum than the last

"Ugh"

Leaning on the sword she got up halfway while trying to ignore the blurring tears that formed due to pain

"You're not looking at the tail, you think its the tail but what you see is an illusion, the real tail is stealthy hiding as it waits for a strike"

His words rang clear in her ear as a hand helped her up

"Here is what we will do, you will pretend to be hit time and time again by that tail while you use counter on it to diffuse the momentum, to know where it coming from don't face the snake but face me instead"

She looked up through her slightly blurred vision and saw him talking while his eyes never left the beast, every one of its movements was being tracked by him

"Ready?"

He asked her without thrusting her into battle like he usually does, this prompted her to look at the beast whos giant figure was taller than a building and she honestly wanted to say no, he could probably deal with it, after all, she was confident for some reason in his ability in killing this beast with quiet ease, yet when she opened her mouth to say so she suddenly thought of her role

Was she not supposed to be fighting his battles? Would she keep leaning on him as he planned, executed, and finished all the goals he set? If she remained so weak-willed when would it be her turn to take the lead and save everyone...

In the end, she couldn't bring out a verbal answer, but a nod she still gave as she stood up with the help of his support, intent on trying her best

"Don't fall into fear again, I will get you out of its grasp if you ever fail the task"

This was the first time he comforted her like this in a battle, this gave her the slightest confidence to slowly move her body around, her back now faced the behemoth of a beast while her eyes looked into his, trusting totally in his words

Initially annoyed by the long time it took for its toy to get up the snake was further inraged by the discarding actions of the all creature who dared turn its back to it, filled with anger it slammed its shadow of a tail into it one last time, death its goal this time

The very moment the tip of its tail twitched to move YuJu's eyes turned toward the upper right, catching the movement of his eyes Ellis's ready stance moved the sword toward her top left where the attack was expected to come form

Sure enough, his words were not one to disappoint as her sword met the solid yet bendable object, the force was strong enough to break her bones this time, the stance said nay to its intentions though as it shifted the momentum downward alls while her body sidestepped the attack

This was the first time she saw the tip still within her vision, it was merely a glance but it wasn't what she expected

The tip looked somewhat aquatic as two propeller-like fins sandwiched the rugged tip, its colour faded into black as it came from the body making it look very sneaky and dangerous, somewhat fit for its stealthy attack behaviour

That was all the time she had to think of its weird appearance before the tail was withdrawn with haste followed by a threatening hiss

"HISSS"

The sound which should have been low came off as tumbling winds coming from the oversized body, irritating the ears of the two

"Don't mind it, keep going"

She nodded at his word and stared into his deep eyes once again

It really sucked one in, those eyes, while the green hue made them feel full of life the dark pupil within gave off a deep immeasurable feeling, as if-

'Lower left'

She spotted their movement and cut her thoughts off while her body moved into position, it met the low sweeping tail from a twisted angle, her rooted feet took her into the air for a split second while she avoided the sweep

Fwa!

Her sword didn't have too much strength though as the tail managed to weakly strike up from its sweeping position, aiming for a solid hit

'Yes!'

That move couldn't be more advantageous as she used her sword which was in contact with the tail as leverage to spin her body around, her half-used counter stance went to full force, stabbing into the fins cleanly, a hole now punctured in them

"SSS"

The pained snaked hastily retrieved its damaged tip, Ellis also let go of her sword, a new one extracted from in between her bosom

Whilst it's now wary eyes looked at her it swung its tail behind it, apparently trying to keep it out of her range

"The easy part is done, much faster than expected, now you won't have to worry about its tail anymore, fight it with all you've got"

"?"

That's it? Her face told, she had nearly put a small hole in the fins of the tip yet she wouldn't have to worry of its sneak attacks anymore? This didn't make any sense but what really did nowadays

Deciding to trust in her master rather than her common sense she turned around and took hold of the new sword with both hands, her body tensed up and her mind was full of chaotic thoughts, one thing in common among them though was that they all targeted the snake, her opponent this time

"Haah!"

An encouraging shout to herself came out, her body blasting toward the direction of the tail

"HIS!"

Not one to allow two scars on one part the snake lunged at her mouth agape

Since a frontal confrontation would be suicidal she dodged to the side, the mouth following along with a sharp twist to the side

'It's slow?'

She was planning on another dodge but the snakes turning speed looked too slow, losing much of its built up momentum, that is of course when compared to the speed of its tail

With its speed slowed down enough for her to react she lightly jumped allowing her body to fall into the mouth behind her, when she was barely inside her hand reached in between her twin mountains pulling out a long heavy spear

The pipe thick spear was plunged straight into the base of the mouth, puncturing the forked tongue into the base while it was at it

"Heuhhhhh"

A choked sound came from the hurt beast followed by another pained noise as she kicked the spear, shooting herself out of the mouth

With the foreign object still in its mouth the snake twisted left and right trying to spit it out, but with no hands and its tongue punctured through it couldn't do anything

This gave the opportunity for Ellis to start her counter attack, her glowing sword sliced the thrashing beast over ten times in the short span of its panicked state

Deciding that this was going nowhere the beast madly rushed at Ellis, whether it intended to swallow her with the forced open mouth or nearly crush her with its huge body was unknown, either way, she would need to dodge

At least that was what it though but until she proved it wrong, instead of trying to dodge she rushed up to the open mouth, the second she got in she latched onto the spear with her legs while swinging her sword all over the place

Thus the originally dangerous maw turned into a stage for Ellis's bloody pole dance

The beast could do nothing but flail as she tore its insides wishing to get rid of this tricky prey

That continued for tens of seconds, all until Ellis cut open a part of the snakes fang tooth roots

A blue liquid fell into the mouth cavity and started to mix with the blood, a rich smell came out enticing Ellis's mind for a second

'?!"

Her eyes watered while her body numbed down, the poison started its work without even touching her, sea serpents were known for their deadly poison to begin with so the poison of an evolved beast of that type couldn't be underestimated

She needed to get out, and fast it may take only a minute for her to be fully numbed at this rate

So while the beast flailed she used the opportunity when it lifted its head up to loose her legs around the spear, throwing her out the stuffy area

Seeing the menace come out the snake followed up instantly with much hatred only to recall that it couldn't let her go back into its mouth so it hastily averted its mouth to the side instead of trying to swallow her

Out of the poisonous cave of a mouth, Ellis could finally feel her body regaining strength fast, and she needed it as the snake rammed into her with small momentum, its hesitation had let to no damage being done to Ellis as she stepped on the snout of the beast while it rose up stopping short of the ceiling

They froze in the air for but a moment, looking each other in the eyes, one big and one small, one filled with confidence and the other being eaten by newborn fear and hesitation

That moment of which felt like minutes broke by Ellis's dash, her aura flickered just as it did during the slaughter as she pushed her self beyond her normal capabilities, this time not because of exhaustion but to put in as much power as she could into this one strike, planning to end her bout with the beast

Feeling the rising threat the snake's eyes flickered for but a mili second, but as it valued its life more than its prowess it decided to strike her with its tail knowing full well that it would be destroyed, the time it would give it though would be enough for it to escape

Whiiim

Its tail which whipped through the air toward Ellis was suddenly interrupted out of nowhere by a flying sharp object, there was no sound and there was no feeling either, its tail was sliced off cleanly without it even noticing as it started to dive back while ignoring Ellis's attack since it trusted in its ability to stop her slightly with the tail's surprise attack

It was only when the purple glowing sword was on the tip of its head that it realized its tail would never come to the rescue, abandoned by its own body it couldn't even scream its sorrow before Ellis's stroke commenced

"Haaaaaaaaaaaa!"

One long swing of a sword, going from the top of the head to the base of its body, taking all the power and energy from Ellis, still she did not carelessly enjoy the guaranteed victory, she jumped off the ground soon after her strike and landed in front of YuJu, her head kept low with eyes stuck to the body of the snake, holding the now broken sword while her legs were rooted on the ground, her hips up, the stance of a predator waiting to strike its wounded victim if it dared move again

YuJu also kept his eyes strained at the beast as he tried to avoid looking at the dangerous posture of the bloody Ellis before him, else he didn't know if his hand could hold back

The body of which the two were looking at for different reasons stilled in the air for an awkwardly long time, as if it was reluctant to let go of the life it once held, but all death is inevitable and it's own was no different, a fresh line of blood cut diagonally across the body followed by a geyser of blood pouring into the surroundings, its sweet smell filled the factory as it rained down like the flood, filling the damp place with its sticky texture