The mother hisses something directed to the smaller lizard on her back and it hops off, waddling over to the stair-like formations of rock to get a good view of the impending duel. It growls back in what sounds like protest to having to sit the fight out, but one look from the huge creature shuts it up.

Jed patiently watches their exchange, happy to wait for the other party to instigate the fight since every second gets him closer to being back to max mana. The overgrown reptile finally turns back to him with narrowed eyes and leaps off of the ledge. It lands at the edge of the mini forest, crushing the plants underneath it and then spins around, demolishing everything in its vicinity with its tail.

The result is a large, barren area that's devoid of any glowing asparagus and looks a lot like a mini arena. It growls a challenge at Jed, causing a few droplets of acid to splatter on the floor in front of it. The sizzling vapor rising from those spots adds to the creature's intimidation factor, which was already pretty impressive to begin with.

He steps forward onto the very edge of the ring, making sure to bring plenty of stone chunks along with him. Jed makes them float low enough to be hidden by the plants that circle the outskirts of the desolate area, stashing the rocks throughout the sea of green.

With a spine-tingling hiss, the monster before him pushes itself up to its full height and the spiky fins running along its back stand on end. Jed doesn't know what that signifies but he's pretty sure that nothing good is about to happen. Such great insight on his part is what saves him as a spray of the corrosive liquid melts the spot where he'd just stood into a puddle.

Jed had dove to his left with his pitiful excuse for acrobatic ability, luckily it was enough to get him clear of the first attack. As he's getting to his feet, another volley of acid comes flying toward him from the now extra irritated looking lizard. With the wave of what he calls his hand, a thin wall of rock bursts from the ground, absorbing the dangerous substance before quickly melting away.

When the last layer of his half-assed shield turns to mush, he's startled to see the open maw filled with teeth coming right for him. Jed flings a jagged slab of rock into the open mouth, cutting the inside of its throat which makes it instinctively close its jaw. His tiny moment of success ends as its head still comes barreling into him, flinging the small elemental across the floor and into the gathering of plants.

Coughing and heaving until the now half melted stone falls out of its mouth, the projectile cutting through the air goes completely unnoticed by the lizard until its too late. A long earth spear drills a hole in one of its hind legs, burrowing its way through the scaled hide until it partially sticks out of the other end. In rage and pain, it turns around to face the sneaky rock man with a glint of hatred in its eyes.

A cluster of pebbles smack into its face and eyes, temporarily robbing it of sight and screwing up its aim enough that the spray of acid it had cooked up especially for Jed was off its mark. He managed to weave past the majority of the spray but part of his shoulder was coated in acid.

Faced with the threat of the corrosion spreading slowly through his body, Jed disconnects his shoulder from the rest of himself, unfortunately losing his arm along with it. Not willing to lose this chance, the mourning of his loss will have to wait for later and he dashes toward the beast.

Just as the massive lizard regains its composure, a spike breaks out of the ground, piercing a hole in its underbelly and a sudden weight lets it know that the elemental is now on its back. It bucks and spins, freeing itself from the spike underneath, but not without suffering a long gash as the sharpened rock is torn out from its belly at a bad angle.

Jed shapes his one good hand into a short lance and stabs it into the back of the lizards neck, giving himself a way to hold on as he's thrown around by the frenzy. It wizened up and rolls its entire body across the hardened ground of the cavern like a crocodile, finally dislodging Jed from itself. Before he can move, a large claw crushes him down against the floor, trapping him as the lizard prepares to end him with a final blast of acid.

'Shitshitshitshit!'

In a panic, Jed calls all of the rocks he'd hidden in the glowing forest to himself. They reach him just in time to form together into a dome above him and block the blast of acid. Several droplets leak through the holes in the dome since it is comprised of many different rocks and isn't one solid object. Three or four land on him in different places but he has no time to worry about them. He knows that if his concentration falters, the dome will crumble and drench him in acid.

Activating assimilation to hopefully hold the corrosion at bay, he notices that the gravel breaking off of the ground and being sucked into his wounds is working faster than the last time he'd used it. Not by a lot, but the couple levels he'd gained in the skill had clearly increased its power enough that the tiny droplets of venom were completely halted in their tracks.

Ignoring the battle going on in the small holes that littered his torso, he jams a huge burst of mana into the dome and forces it up and away from himself at the same time. Every single one of the acid-coated stones burst into shards that swarm the giant lizard. Most of them just bounce off of its scales, but a couple of the larger bits of shrapnel dig their way into its flesh, leading to that familiar sizzling noise coming from the wounds. It seems only its outside and inside are resistant to the acid it produces, but the soft meat in between is being cooked.

Slowly rising to his feet, Jed takes a look at what he's wrought. The high pitched hissing noises that the lizard is making give him a hint and his eyes glow happily when he notices the longer shards embedded in its neck and even one sticking into its eye socket.

'I'm really tempted to say something about tasting your own medicine but I don't want to sound cheesy and I need to finish this before I run out of mana.'

Taking a moment to draw chunks out of the ground and form them into a bigger stone, Jed watches the creature warily, ready for anything. Suddenly it opens its mouth, most likely readying itself to fire off another stream of acid, but it never gets the chance. A rock the size of a volleyball slams into the spike in its eye like a hammer on a nail, angled perfectly to drive it into its brain matter with great force.

Finally, after all that effort, Jed indulges in the beautiful sight of the colossal lizard crashing to the floor, never to move again. He falls to one knee, supporting himself with his good arm to avoid crumbling to the floor from exhaustion. Finally taking a moment to examine himself, he realizes what a sorry state he's currently in.

After using so much mana to blow up the dome, he'd had to deactivate assimilation to avoid running out. The arm he'd lost was only repaired down to his elbow and there were still four craters along his chest. Luckily the corrosive effect of the acid had run out before doing any serious damage to him.

'Wait a second... the battle didn't end yet. What happened to...'

Quickly using what little strength he has left, Jed turns and sees the little blue lizard that had caused him all this trouble. It dives out from between two of the strange plants and in blind rage jumps right at him without even attempting to dodge anything. He easily catches it by the neck and holds it away from himself so that it can't bite him.

Looking into the two swirling blue lights in the elemental's head, for the first time the small reptile felt fear. It couldn't move a muscle and just hung there like a rag doll. What kind of hell did this being that killed its mother crawl out of? There was no mercy in its eyes.

Jed leaned a little bit closer and remembered something. He thought about how he'd spoken with the old man in that strange, shapeless but still humanoid form without a mouth. His eyes shown with great joy and a sound broke the deathly silence.

"Eyks...pee..."

That was the last thing the lizard heard before Jed choked the life out of it.