Stage Four: Clear!

The main spirit they were dealing with this time was a black spot anaconda. This was a dangerous and powerful spirit that was considered a monarch of watery environments. An apex predator that was extremely difficult to deal with.

The creature was a 2-star variant, which meant that the creature was a  creature that possessed the abilities of a 3-star spirit. It had many baby anacondas at its side. One was the length of two men while their thickness was the same as that of a car tire. These were plastered all over the swap.

The flag was placed on top of a small hill made up of mud. The snake reared its head in a certain direction. A visitor was arriving.

Darius was sprinting full speed toward the flag while maintaining superb balance. Lara followed him in tow. When any snakes tried to attack, they were smoothly dispatched by Darius who could predict where they attacked from. Whether it was the mud or the waters, the snakes gave off their positions to Darius. Lara never changed direction, but Darius moved all over her surroundings dispatching the enemies.

His agility really impressed the princess. Darius' greatest attribute was not his strength but rather his ability to control it. This made him incredibly agile. Sometimes he would blast from the harder mounds of soil, while he would smoothly glide on the weaker mounds of mud.

Agile, powerful, balanced and aware of his environment. Lara could not help but marvel at her partner's skill set. If she wanted to she could become faster and more agile but she had little experience moving at high speeds in such an environment, and neither did Darius, but he took to it like a fish in water, leaving Lara to lie in a stupor!

'I must do whatever it takes to get him!'

A fire burned in Lara's eyes as she ran for the anaconda variant. She was willing to do anything to make Darius hers. Even if it meant using underhanded methods.

'He is a pervert, so I will offer him, wives, with noble positions! He has powerful noble blood that would no doubt strengthen any bloodline. No family would refuse such an offer! The only question is who, who should I offer…'

Lara had many female vassals that were heirs to powerful nobles. She was already thinking of which girl to sell to Darius. To her, this was in poor taste but she doubted her vassals would refuse such an opportunity. Anyone who became the wife of Darius would without a doubt be Lara's left hand as the right hand was no doubt, Darius.

Lara was already thinking about life as an empress when she realized that they were approaching the anaconda, but this was no dumb snake. It decided to strike first at these weaklings. It went for the less agile looking one, Lara, and this is when Darius made his move.

Darius had just killed the large powerful worm in a gruesome manner. Indomitable was rumoured to increase one's killing intent exponentially with every big kill. So be it in blood lust or cultivation, Lara was weaker. But she was behind Darius, and the snake was too prideful to go around considering its status so it decided to go straight through them, this was what the snake thought, but its hostility had actually been pulled by Darius.

Indomitable had many side effects, one of them was increasing one's threat rating, catching the attention. It was like fighting with a gun pointed at your back. Indomitable was the gun. Even if the gun was on safety it would still grab attention. Indomitable made Darius a superb tank!

Darius and Lara scouted ahead and discovered the creature guarding the flag as it was not even trying to hide. It was massive as well. Fully coiled it was the size of a 2-story house.

Lara knew quite a lot of spirits but there were simply too many different types. Some like the shrimp from before she had no clue about it, while others like this anaconda she knew well as it was a local spirit.

It was a beast with a temper, and it was straightforward in its attacks. If approached by multiple enemies who are close it will attack the one who seems weakest physically. Hence it went for Lara or rather should have. This was an anaconda, but its pounce was far from slow. A massive boom caused destruction to rage around the snake but the mound with the flag was surprisingly solid.

But what greeted the snake was an uppercut hammer strike. The snake was shocked as Darius was strong enough to send it dozens of meters up, far more than its length. The observers of the exam gasped once more at Darius' strike. He had managed to predict where the snake would attack and strike a weakness of the spirit under its chin.

At first, Lara had not believed him when he told her he could do it. Because his confidence came from intuition. 'I feel I can do it, if you won't help me I will do it myself.'

This sounded ridiculous, not to mention that they were found in a swamp, and there was no hard/flat soil to stomp on. But Darius' physical control was superb, shocking her once again.

Then Lara jumped toward Darius. The snake was dizzy from the head strike and the mid-air flight, but it could faintly make out an odd scenario. The humans were fighting each other!

Of course, this is not what had happened. Darius had used his hammer to fling Lara ahead. She landed on the ground with her feet, bent and jumped forward as she was launched, being flung dozens of meters in a second until she came a little too close to the flag for the reptile's liking.

The snake was fast and could match Lara but there was a problem. It was still in mid-air! Lara landed on the muddy hill same time as the snake landed on the ground. The snake immediately tried to bolt forward, but a shocking event occurred. The snake ripped into two!

"Woah." Said a surprised Lionel.

This was of course Darius' doing. As the snake fell, he placed himself right by the tail. The snake was too concerned about protecting the flag to notice a weight being placed on its tail. This was indeed the hammer. But it was not that simple. The tail did not land on the ground! It had landed on another hammer!

This was the ability he had gained from the second dantian, Weapon Clone!

This was a low-level skill, but for Darius it was invaluable. Its primary skill, Dual Weapons allowed Darius to clone his smiter. The second ability, Replication, allowed the smiter to be copied enchantment and all. This meant he had two hammers if he so wished! But creating the second hammer was draining if he used both the primary and secondary abilities.

Darius did not trust the soil beneath him, so he decided to give the tail a proper 'hard ground' to seal it in. The snake's ability to pounce forward quickly became its undoing. With its tail caught its body ripped in two. Every spirit had a weakness, and the main weakness of this snake was a section in the middle. Weak Spirit hunters who can't just cut it, hold the tail of the beast with a contraption and have it kill itself due to its odd physique when it tries to bolt forward.

Darius had learned about this from Lara and formulated a plan. And it had worked perfectly, down to the last tee. Lara was holding the flag while the top half of the spirit wriggled to death. Both conditions: Clear!