Clawed Deadwood Serpent

As the giant serpent slowed to a halt, the branches on its body having broken off from the struggle earlier, the group made their move.

With three twangs and the sound of whistling, three arrows were loosed by the brothers and Nine. Thirteen and Forty-five immediately dashed forward when they heard it, the former shouldering his large greatsword while the latter held both smallsword and sabre in her hands.

The first arrow to land belonged to Nine, it buried itself deep into the corner of the serpents right eye. Thirty-nine's arrow hit dead center of the same eye, while Twelve's was aimed for the other, but unfortunately, the serpent reacted quickly to the pain.

As it released its bite on the dead gorilla, its head began to thrash about in pain, causing the arrow bound for its left eye to miss.

Forty-five acted mid sprint, launching her smallsword in the direction of the serpent's head, slicing towards its eyes and distracting the beast as Thirteen made his way close to its still coiled body.

As Thirteen reached the serpent, he gripped his greatsword tightly, taking advantage of the monster's large size to do what would be considered foolish against a human, and swung his greatsword in a downwards chop.

Thirteen now was far stronger than he had been months ago, his strength attribute had grown along with his complete refinement of blood, organs, muscles, and bones. When wielding a greatsword, the force behind each swing was nothing to scoff at.

When the heavy blade made contact with the serpents dead, bark-like exterior, it splintered and crushed the shell, but was unable to sink into the flesh beneath. That bark-like exterior was in fact an incredibly tough natural armor.

Nevertheless, the pain from all incoming attacks sent the serpent into a rage as it began to flail about in a death roll, trying to use its massive frame, wider than any man, to crush its aggressors into the dirt, as it uncoiled itself from around the dead gorillas frame.

Having an idea this was going to happen in advance, Nine shouted to the group "Back up!" and with a dash backwards, Thirteen escaped the monster's immediate vicinity, only to see the incredibly fierce and hostile serpent quit thrashing and quickly lower itself.

With a burst of speed, the giant monster slithered away from their group, into the denser woods.

"Chase!" He roared and he followed his own command, kicking up dirt as he followed the incredibly long creature. 'I wont be able to keep up' he realized quickly.

Holding the greatsword in just his right hand, Thirteen reversed it and held it up high, as if it were spear, his right hand supporting it by the crossguard and base of the blade.

For just a moment, his entire body flexed and twisted as he guided his aim with an outstretched left hand. Utilizing all of his strength, he hurled the blade towards the fleeing monster!

With a loud boom, the creature's body arched, the large sword stabbing deeply through its body, as it lost all momentum, flailing about as it tumbled in a large cloud of dust and dirt, releasing an piercing shriek no mundane serpent was capable of.

The rest of the group continued on while Thirteen delayed to throw his weapon, they each soon caught up with the monster, opting for a ranged assault as they fired a barrage of arrows, each tipped with steel bodkin arrow heads for piercing through the tough armor of the creature.

When Thirteen caught up, the creature had regained control of itself, and with the greatsword still embedded in its giant body, it made to wind its way up a wide tree, using its long front claws to pull itself upwards, while its coiled body supported its weight.

Its movements were noticeably slow now, as it had been forced to exert itself longer than usual in fighting and running, and it now bled profusely from its wounds. As one long, branch-like claw began to reach up for a higher spot on the wide trees trunk, Forty-five seized expert timing with her flying smallsword, slicing a deep cut into the only claw left embedded in the tree at that moment.

Suddenly losing its upper body support, the incredibly exhausted serpent lost control of its ascent, the front most part of its body falling back to hang in the air as its lower body remained coiled around the tree.

The monster tried to fight on still, feeling incredibly cornered. It began to free more of its body from the tree as it swiped wildly with its long claws, unable to reach any of its attackers who peppered it with arrows from a distance.

Eventually however, once it had freed enough of its body from the tree that it could no longer support itself, it fell to the ground heavily, kicking up dust and dirt.

In that moment, Nine's eyes went wide as a horrible feeling flared in the back of his mind.

"Out of the way!" He called

While the groups vision was slightly obscured, the serpent lunged! Its fanged maw opened wide as the claws of its good arm flexed. It moved so quickly it blurred as it closed in on Thirty-nine.

The boy in question was shocked. He felt time compress, as if moving in slow motion, and yet he couldn't react at all, his mind was blank.

Just as the serpent would have sunk its fangs into the boy, the horrible monster felt an incredible, concentrated force breaking through the thick armor on the side of its head.

Thirteen, still in an unbalanced stance, leaning everything he had into one fully extended fist, had delivered a destructive punch to the monsters head, just beneath its good eye. The bark-like shell splintered and shattered, as the skin beneath split to reveal red blood.

For Thirty-nine who felt he'd just witnessed it all in slow motion, time suddenly sped up again. With a bang! The snake's head was sent flying to the side, its entire body recoiling from the pain.

It was only when Thirty-nine saw his younger brother Twelve drop the warbow and draw a longsword that he caught up with reality and drew his own.

Immediately, the entire group found themselves on top of the serpent, stabbing blades into the chinks of its armor. The serpent was alive, but had no more energy to spare. It could only move about slowly in an attempt to avoid those sharp blades.

The next step of this battle was not a pleasant one. The deadwood serpent, despite its name, had an incredible amount of vitality, as Thirteen had noticed when he first laid eyes on the creature. Worse still, its natural armor was very tough and hard to pierce.

It did not die easily, even though everyone there, snake included, wished it could have.

When finally it was over, the group were all, without exception exhausted. Even Thirteen had trouble calming his ragged breath as he removed his now unbearably hot cloak.

They lay there for only half a minute to catch their breaths before unanimously standing without word. They couldn't wait too long or other predators or scavengers may approach.

Each of them drew a very wide knife used for dismantling prey. While they only needed to kill the monster, they would be rewarded for well harvested body parts. You see, in creatures like this, their entire body flowed with qi even after their death. While it would surely dissipate into the surroundings with time, the world was not impatient, and humans could certainly make use of it first.

It was meat like this that the children of the Clarke Estate ate on a daily basis.

'This thing's way too large to bring back all it has to offer. We'll have to take what's worth the most and leave the rest to the wilds.' Thirteen thought as he glanced to his teammates while working on the body. 'They seem to have all gotten used to it.' he noted.

When they first began to hunt, the group was required to successfully kill, process, cook, and eat their game before returning. This was to ensure each of them was capable of it if needed. Of course, back then it had been mundane animals, so their meat was not so precious.

While the groups changed with each hunt, Nine and Forty-five had been in his group for that first hunt as well. At that time, neither could bear to cut open the rabbits they had hunted.

Thirteen had no problem with the idea. Even the sight of meat and blood merely made him think of food, so he had bravely taken on the role of dismantling the bodies.

It was only when he truly got stuck into it that he realized how wrong he was. The smell. That wretched, invasive smell that he couldn't escape from. It assaulted him until he directly threw up on the rabbit, ruining the would-be meal.

Refocusing his attention on the giant monster before him, Thirteen cut into its body in search of organs. The smell was still there, but it didn't seem as bad anymore. 'I wonder if it has anything to do with it being a reptile? Or maybe I'm just getting used to it.' he pondered.

He and his group had researched the anatomy of various serpents to reference for this part of their job, but the library did not have anything so detailed as exact monster anatomies, so they performed half-blind at this moment.

Just as they had finished gathering what they deemed worthy enough, and placed it all within a large waterproof sack that was previously folded, the sound of boots hitting foliage, and the clinking of chainmail could be heard behind them.