The two blood serpents crashed into the shaman with a loud bang, using all of their momentum and force to knock the shaman off balance. One of the serpents went for the shaman’s legs, using its tail to make the shaman fall flat on his back. The serpent completely wrapped around his legs and started constricting. The strange thing was that instead of crushing the armor like the serpent was supposed to, it started absorbing the black strands into its body, dissolving his armor at a visible pace. The other serpent used the chance created by the first serpent to wrap around his body and arms, both absorbing the armor and draining black strands from the shaman’s body using the few holes created by the viscous substance. When it had completely wrapped around the shaman, it used its fangs to bite into the shoulder of the shaman, excitedly gulping down both blood and black strands.

The shaman was screaming in pain, grasping at the ashen staff that lied on the ground next to him. When he realised he wouldn’t able to get do that, he bore through the pain and started chanting something to himself. The staff that was lying on the ground unravelled itself into numerous black strands, which started ominously floating around him. Using his eyes and his mind to command the black strands, the shaman looked directly down upon the blood serpent wrapped around his body. Clenching his teeth, he looked up at the strands, and all of the sudden, the strands started to vibrate. A few moments later, a few of the strands united themselves into a single long, black strand and the strand started falling down from the sky, directly towards his arms and the blood serpent.

The black strand which closely resembled a spear started gaining speed and even though Orou wanted the blood serpent to unravel itself before it could get pierced, it was the shaman that was holding the serpent in place. The spear fell onto the blood serpent, piercing it directly in the middle and immediately dispersing it. After that, the shaman’s arms were next, the black spear pierced through the armor and his flesh and bones without any resistance, burying itself deep within the ground. He screamed and yelled in pain, but very soon, the hole that was left by the spear was mended by the black strands that made up his armor. Holding out his shaking hand, the black spear flew directly his hand and, aiming at the blood serpent that held his legs, he pierced downwards.

Orou knew that the fate of the blood serpent was sealed when the shaman struck downwards, so he stopped concentrating on the serpents and started charging forwards. He passed Grizz, who had retreated and pulled out several throwing knives, getting ready to aim at the shaman and arrived directly next to the shaman. He had stood up and he was angrily glaring at Orou, but his emotions didn’t stop him from raising his spear and stabbing out at Orou. Deciding to trade blow for blow, Orou didn’t bother to try and dodge the spear and instead, used his tail to sweep out at the shaman. Following his tail were several knives, coated in all sorts of colorful venoms, aiming for the weak spot in his armor.

The shaman twisted his body to avoid the knives, though he couldn’t avoid all of them. One of them dug into his shoulder and the venom began its work. The spear that was aimed at Orou completely pierced through his scales and flesh, lodging itself deep within his body. Inside his body, he felt the spear begin to slowly dissolve, releasing several wild black strands into his body. In response to getting impaled by a spear, Orou’s tail accurately made contact with the shaman’s right side. Although the shaman still had his armor, it wouldn’t protect him from the sheer strength of Orou’s tail. The right side of the armor cracked into several pieces and the shaman went soaring through the air, flying several meters before crashing into a building. The shaman’s flight didn’t end there as he completely demolished the stone wall of the house, crashing into what Orou assumed was the furniture and the other wall.

As Grizz sprinted towards the shaman, eager to finish him off, Orou wanted to do the same, but he was stopped by the spear inside of him. He couldn’t stop the spear from dissolving into the black strands, but he did the only thing he knew that could cure him. Creating the formation of a curved line with several triangles and the formation of an eye with three dots on top of it, he created a shimmering spirit and used it to empower his healing, healing his entire body. This time, he didn’t experience the pain that came with the healing and the stab wounds were completely gone, but unfortunately, it did little to help the situation inside of him. Several beams of light dispersed some of the black strands inside of his body, but there were too many to count. His body was ravaged with pain as he started bleeding from several spots inside of his body and the only thing left to do was to rely on his blood core.

The blood waves were constantly destroying the black strands and alleviated the pain from inside of his body, but it was a slow process. After more than a minute of struggling with the wild strands, he felt the strand so something unusual. They gathered together in a ball and started violently shaking inside of his body. A few seconds later, the ball exploded inside of his body, sending wild strands in every direction, piercing through his entire body. Orou hissed in pain as he started bleeding from more than twenty spots on his body. The strands, just like arrows flying in the air started flying back towards the shaman and Orou desperately wanted to slither over towards the building, to protect Grizz from the evil sorcery of the shaman, but he was too injured to do so.

His body was doing best to get him back to his original shape, the blood waves were rapidly healing his injuries and Orou himself was starting to cast simple healing spells on himself. He knew that he was in too much pain to create both the formation and the shimmering spirit, so he decided to use the basic version of the healing spell. It exchanged long-term pain for a single burst of pain, and Orou was happy to make that trade any day of the week. He heard several strange noises from the building to the left of him where the shaman had landed and, lifting his haggard body, he started slithering towards Grizz, letting the blood waves heal the rest of his injuries.

It took Orou longer than he hoped to arrive but what he saw surprised him. Holding the same black spear in his hands as before, the shaman was duelling with Grizz. The shaman’s skin looked much paler than before and his hands and legs were shaking, but despite that, he was landing blow after blow on Grizz. In return, Grizz’s venomous short swords kept slashing at his bare skin, delivering more and more venom into the shaman’s body. Orou was surprised at how Grizz was still going, he had several holes where the black spear had pierced him and he was profusely bleeding, but despite that, he kept on fighting and fighting.

Both of them were getting weaker and the shaman decided to change his strategy. Using the blunt end of his spear, he pushed Grizz off of his feet and to the side and started backing off. He retreated, exiting the building and turning the corner, he disappeared from both of their sights. The two of them started chasing, but their conditions weren’t optimal. As they exited the building, the two of them saw that the shaman was far away, once more chanting something strange in an unknown language. Using all of the speed he could muster, Orou dashed forwards while Grizz hid behind another building, slowly and stealthily heading towards the shaman.

As Orou started dashing, he knew that he wouldn’t make it in time. The few remaining strands of armor he had and the spear in his hands dissipated into several black strands, the earth around him became pitch black and the stone turned to ash as the black strands started rising in the air, directly towards the clouds above them. The originally white clouds started to turn grey and before long, they were completely black, shrouding the entire city in darkness. With a smirk on his face, the shaman looked at Orou and brought down his hand, bringing down black lightning as well.