Chp.27: Revealing the cards

Carrion looked at the flying serpent creature in front of him, clutching the shoulder that moments before had been connected to his arm. He didn't care much that he had lost a limb (he could have easily regrow it, and with his divine power he certainly didn't risk bleeding to death), but he still looked at the creature with anger and above all concern. If that being had been able to snatch him in his arms, it meant that in less than a second he had broken all his protections; this presupposed a considerable force, even higher than that normally exerted by a legendary level. That new creature could be as dangerous as the modified wyvern controlled by Haku. But the thing that made him worry the most was that the head of the snake-like creature was identical to the one he had severed a few seconds earlier.

The monster similar to a giant flying snake continued to chew on his arm for a few moments, as if to make sure that not even a single piece remained. Then it looked at Carrion and said: "Tsk! I was aiming for the head. If I had stood still it would have been over already. Do you really want to prolong your own suffering, huh? Well, your choice. Who am I to judge the stupidity of others, after all..."

Carrion narrowed his eyes. Not so much for the monster's provocation, since he certainly wasn't someone who let himself be easily dominated by anger, but more for the fact that the creature's voice wasn't Haku's. It was different, though very similar. Haku had a very deep vocal tone and spoke very slowly, especially when he wanted to make himself understood by his opponent to intimidate him. His every word, indeed, every syllable of his was designed to frighten and intimidate. The tone of that snake-like monster, on the other hand, was much shallower and softer, and the speed with which it spoke was decidedly faster.

Suddenly another voice joined the conversation. This time it was the basilisk head that spoke that was still attached to the wyvern's body. "Damn it, Rhaegal, you had one job! How did you miss him? Can't you even aim well?"

The winged serpent raged. "This asshole moved! Try you to hit a target that can move this fast, and that is so small! Seriously, Darbi, try it! We'll talk about it later!"

Carrion ignored the childish bickering between the two creatures, concentrating instead on the important part of the situation. Something was wrong: if they spoke separately, it meant that they had two distinct personalities. This wasn't possible in a body controlled by one mind. The solution was soon clear to him; he looked at the wyvern head, which he knew was the one controlled by Haku, and said: "Those two heads aren't controlled by you, are they? The other dragons command them"

Judging by his expression, Haku was doing his best not to call the other two fools for how they were behaving. However, as soon as she heard Carrion's words, his face went impassive for a moment. Then, his lips curved into a smile. A smile that soon widened enough to show the sharp teeth underneath, and laughter began to emerge from his throat. It all happened in a matter of seconds, but to Carrion it almost seemed that Haku was moving in slow motion, becoming even more disturbing than he already was. "That's it!" he said. "This is my brothers, Rhaegal and Darbi. I hope you will become friends soon"

When Haku had created his secret weapon, that gigantic body suitable for fighting, he had thought that adding additional heads was not a bad idea. He had initially thought of using the same method as the hydra, creating heads without brains and more like arms. However, this greatly reduced the performance of the heads: Haku in fact struggled to use vision in multiple directions due to the position of each head. Also, just like the hydra, the heads had slower-than-normal impulse reception, as impulses had to travel from the tip of the snout to the brain located far elsewhere. This clearly degraded the performance of his new avatar. Therefore, Haku had decided to change tactics and rather use a compromise.

If it wasn't him, then someone else could have controlled the two extra heads. Haku had sixteen siblings: finding a pair that would help him certainly wouldn't have been a problem, on the contrary he would have been spoiled for choice. Therefore, he had created the additional heads using basilisk bodies, the same two basilisks they had previously used in the first battle against Carrion. They were only attached to the body by some tendons and muscles, so they weren't really part of it and could move independently. The main body would obviously be controlled by him, since Haku was in control of the wyvern's brain, but the two basilisk heads and their necks would be under someone else's command. This also offered a further advantage, given that if someone had managed to cut off the heads, as Carrion had done, they could have continued to move independently and therefore fight very well.

However, that characteristic also had a drawback: it assumed that at least three users were ready to use it. In case of a sudden attack, Haku would have pulled the avatar out of his dimensional bag, but if someone hadn't connected to the two basilisk heads, they would have remained helpless and useless. Sure, he could have ripped them off himself to keep them from being dead weight and getting in his way, but they were still a problem. Fortunately, the communication device that Isaac had built had solved the problem: with it the dragons could stay connected constantly, and then Haku would just have to warn the others that he was in danger and then activate his secret weapon; all the others would have heard his call for help and someone would have immediately connected to the two basilisk heads, bringing the performance of that body back to maximum efficiency.

Isaac had also been useful to him in something else: in fact, Haku had initially cut the bodies of the two basilisks to make the heads of the right length, given that it was impossible to keep the whole huge body twenty meters long attached to the shoulder of the wyvern. But after Isaac explained how the dimensional pouches worked, Haku immediately sewed the two huge snakes back together and asked the mage to use a size reduction spell on the final part of them, so as to compress their whole body into the space of a centimeter and leave only the heads at the right size; however, he had also asked him to insert the possibility of deactivating this spell and, above all, not to add the magic that allowed objects to return to normal dimensions without consequences. In practice, once the spell was deactivated, the basilisk's entire body instantly returned to its normal size, and this generated a powerful shock wave due to contact with the air or anything else it touched, so strong that even a tree would be uprooted like a twig when struck, so much so that even the basilisk itself was hurled away with extreme violence. This was exactly what had just happened: Rhaegal had in fact taken aim, then had deactivated the spell and restored the basilisk's body to its normal size, and the energy generated by this process had hurled it towards the sky; to it then Rhaegal had also added the energy contained in th basilisk's mana core, which had been further strengthened thanks to the blood of an adult dragon. The total speed Rhaegal had achieved was greater than that of sound, enough to break through all of Carrion's defenses as if they were made of glass. Normally a basilisk's body would be completely destroyed if it were thrown with such speed against the protection erected by a legendary level, but the rock-hard scales of an adult dragon had protected Rhaegal, allowing him to execute the move completely unharmed. Finally, his wings were a small addition that Haku had thought of after planning that move: they were the wings of an amphitrite with which Rhaegal could fly and therefore fight even while he was in the air. Normally it would have been difficult to get an animal with a basilisk-like body off the ground, since it wasn't aerodynamic at all, but the force generated by the transformation had been sufficient to carry it high enough to use the air currents to move.

Carrion still hadn't discovered all those details, and there was still much more he didn't know; however, there was one thing he could understand very well. "If they are here, it means they know... but if nobody came to your aid..."

Carrion knew that dragons could control amphitrites, royal basilisks, and other flying creatures that, while not as lethal as this modified wyvern, would still be useful in a battle to the death. If Haku had been able to warn Rhaegal and Darbi, then all of his other siblings must have known what was going on as well. And the fact that no one had turned up yet could only mean...

Haku's smile widened and his eyes seemed to fill with a strange light; it seemed madness, but an almost lucid madness, as if order and chaos had found a strange balance. And at that point the dragon no longer held back his laughter. "You got it right, Carrion! I've never been the victim, it's always been you!" Haku said. "This was never a trap for me. It was a trap for you!"

Carrion stiffened when he heard those words. He had done his best not to be noticed... how had Haku predicted his attack? "How is this possible? I've erased all traces..."

"Yes, you hid well, I admit it. I haven't been able to notice you for a long, long time" Haku replied, and with each of his words his smile widened. "But when you reopened the hole that led to the underground cave you made a mistake. You see, my siblings and I never kept an eye on just the path ahead of us, but also the path behind us. And the good part, is that we made sure not to let anyone notice, was that every night one of us used an invisibility rune to sneak out of the camp and back a few miles, make sure everything was okay and then come back as if nothing had happened. That's how we found out that the hole had been reopened. Once we noticed that, putting two and two together was easy. I just had to do a few more investigations to verify my hypothesis... and thanks to the fact that we had improved the rune of invisibility, you couldn't have noticed a thing!Once it was established that you were chasing us, it was easy to plan an efficient trap! After all, what is the best way to catch someone in the open and trap them, than to convince them that they are the one who is trapping you? Any predator, if the prey is exposed, doesn't hesitate to attack it... so why shouldn't the more skilled predator pretend to be prey to lure the other hunter into the open and transform it into its actual prey?"

Carrion tightened his grip on the sword. It had been played. Haku had only pretended to fall into his trap, but the truth was that he had always aimed only to lure him to him. And now Carrion was exactly where Haku wanted him to be. "Bastard... you were really smart, I'll give you that"

"It's just one of my many talents" Haku answered with a lot of arrogance. "My main concern was that you would attack the caravan, because in that case fighting would have been very risky for everyone since we could have hurt many people. Instead by luring you here far away I was able to face you without risking killing anyone else. I couldn't come here alone, otherwise you would have known something was wrong, so I brought some beastmen with me, who actually already knew what was coming and were ready to run away at my signal.It wasn't hard to figure out what your trap, since you had clearly shown me that sand worm in the previous days, so I just captured that animal using a technique whereby the hunting beastmen had to position themselves on the sides of the beast and at a great distance from each other, therefore at the point exact to escape as quickly as possible and without risking crowding. And in fact no one fell into the hole and they fled. By now they will have regrouped again and will have joined my sisters, who as you can easily imagine never met really separated from me, they just deluded you that they did. I'm actually nearby and they're offering me cover to make sure you don't escape... and to keep that pathetic spirit busy"

Carrion's eyes widened at those words. He didn't expect Haku to predict his moves so thoroughly! Before starting his plan, in fact, he had summoned a spirit to watch his back. He had factored in the possibility that Haku would be more dangerous than he expected, so he had made sure to have someone ready to help him. Since it was in a 'dormant' state, the spirit consumed no divine power and was in no danger of being expelled from the mortal world again. Carrion's plan was to wait to damage the monstrous wyvern enough and then let the spirit to intervene when it would be extremely wounded and easy to defeat, but apparently Haku had foreseen that too!

"Surprise? It wasn't hard for meto predict that move of yours... because it was the same move I would have made! Having someone ready to step in to protect you and who has your back is essential in a battle!" Haku said triumphantly, then he clicked his tongue in satisfaction. "Now that we've revealed our cards, let's get it over with! The real endgame begins now!"