Chapter 17

Tiona and Tione charged forward trying to deal with the the two heads on the outside I also helped them with their engagement, shooting Flame Arrows in the Amphisbaena's direction unfortunately it only served as a distraction

As they approached almost unleashing their attack I also took the opportunity to engage on the middle head whose main focus now was helping on both sides, weaving through its Fire, Ice, and Poison that it sometimes shot from its mouth.

Almost simultaneously the three of us strike the heads of the mutated Amphisbaena resulting in a

**CLANG**

**KLINK**

**BANG**

A symphony of different sounds was made from the impacts but one thing was clear, none of us managed to harm it majorly. I was surprised, this was supposed to be easy, and then I realized a fatal mistake I made, since Tione and Tiona already started retreating I stayed there motionless. I quickly stabilized and tried moving back.

I was stopped, but this time I wasn't stopped by any one of them, all three of them were solely focused on me. It was here I noticed the gap that still exists between me and the elite. I could approach one head while it was helping the others, taking it by surprise. I heard muffled shouting

But now I have to avoid attacks from all three until my teammates can react. I looked at the attacks headed toward me, it looked like a checkmate, it seemed that anywhere I could go I would get hit by something, be it Ice, Fire or Poison.

I re-evaluated the onslaught thinking that the poison was harmless, it was only then did I started seeing a path, one thing is for sure Ice was the attack that could hurt me the most, I'm pretty resistant to fire because of my magic, Try to shoot the Ice when I can!

My planning was cut when the attacks were finally going to meet with me, instead of letting the seemingly impossible flurry of attacks hit me, I expertly weaved through them, like I was in some kind of flow state.

"SQUIRT!" Gareth yelled, I knew what kind of shout it was. It was a 'My attack is behind you' type of shout.

I instantly didn't care about my flow and forced two fire jets out of my hands to redirect myself since I was in the air. Unintentionally I slammed my back against the wall.

I saw Gareth's massive axe slicing through the air like a boomerang. It sliced off the middle head with little resistance. Immediately after, synchronization that could only come with experience occurred.

"Vas Windheim!" The final incantation of a spell was cast.

{Riveria POV}

I was surprised when our attacks didn't work, but it justified my caution with the spell I am preparing.

"Tione, Tiona, Cain retreat!" Gareth shouted, while Tione and Tiona immediately responded and started coming back, Cain still looked dazed. He's probably the most newbie veteran there is. 

I knew Cain. He was smarter than that. My thoughts were validated when he pulled himself out and started retreating on his own, but the time was already lost. They started their counter attack and he was the only one in its vision.

I couldn't get a look at his face but I could tell he breathed in and was ready to face this challenge.

"Cain!" x2

"Tch! Squirt!"

The Amazonian sisters and Gareth said. I was too busy chanting to let my complex thoughts be known. Even with Concurrent Chanting, I couldn't do much without risking the stability of the spell.

Then we saw him weaving through the onslaught with precision even when he got hit, it looked intentional to take the least amount of damage, it clicked that he was getting hit by the poisonous liquid way more often than anything else, worry arose in my heart but, I decided to trust my teammate

"Riveria, given how much longer you have, do you think the boy will be able to distract it for long enough."

I gave a small nod, careful to only do what would get the message across.

"Tione, Tiona you're on standby until Riveria is ready, get ready to save Cain if he doesn't save himself and stay out of its view, he seems to know what he is doing."

Time passed at a snail's pace as I tried to complete the spell as fast as I could while not losing quality. I gave my signal to Gareth.

"SQUIRT!" Gareth yells and he launches his axe turning it into a monster shredding machine.

Before unleashing my spell, I wait until Cain is safe and out of radius.

"Vas Windheim."

{Cain POV}

I saw Riveria's spell destroy the mutated Amphisbaena, severing the other two heads and puncturing the scales on every occasion.

When the spell was over, anyone would have said that the Amphisbaena was dead but it didn't feel right. Something was off.

I hobbled my way over to the carcass ignoring the yells of my team. I dropped to my knees and put my ear to the beast's chest, unlike what its appearance would lead you to believe I sensed a thumping on the inside, but I still had to find exactly where the source of it was.

I thought I found it, I finally looked behind me only to find my team standing behind me with weird looks in their eyes.

"Huh? What?" I questioned their looks.

"Riveria do what I did and focus and your hearing" I picked out the person who probably has the most faith in me to trust me.

She knelt near the beast and focused not long after her eyes widened.

"It's still not dead?" Riveria said. Faith in me restored!

I stole Riveria's place, where she was knelt.

"K. I'm gonna try to get to it myself." I said.

"Idiot, just let Gareth handle it." Riveria said. Gareth shook his head.

"This matter involves a man's pride. I will only involve myself if necessary" Gareth responded and we both gave thumbs up to each other.

Riveria sighed but trusted her long-time ally.

I didn't use a spell, I just heated compressed fire into an extremely small point to get into its scales. This needle was a bright white fire that was solid to my touch. With some force, I was able to have it enter through the scales.

To my surprise it met a stronger barrier than the scales, was it the heart, or was it surrounding it?

I took a deep breath, and I slowly heated and compressed the fire on the tip of the needle, I started pushing with full force only for nothing to happen, heat up, compress, push. I repeat the process for a little bit.

On the seventh try, I was able to succeed in breaking the barrier. I felt the needle stab through a softer piece of throbbing meat, relieved, I uncompressed the needle.

Unexpected things happened and the flames were released through the gaps Riveria made in the scales as it disappeared into back ash.

I fell back onto my back exhausted from the Mind usage. I also finally removed the Fire Wall stopping the water from flowing.

"Let's get out of here." I say as I try to stand up, but my body must still be recovering from smashing my back into the wall, or from my Mind usage.

My two arms were slung around the necks of two chocolate beauties. While the two level 6s only had themselves and the drops of the Amphisbaena to accompany them.

On our way back to the group, we ran into Finn.

"Captain? What are you doing here?" I asked, still hanging from amazonians. He seemed to ignore my state and asked Riveria.

"Riveria, can you give me a report?" He asked seriously.

"In short, the Amphisbaena was mutated." Riveria said first, Finn nodded to himself, and for Riveria to continue.

She gave her report on the way back to the group, sparing little to no details.

"We better hurry back so we can treat you Cain." Finn commanded us.

"Hmm? I'm fine, don't worry about me." I said reassuring them.

"Mmm. There must be at least some poison in your system, or a couple of burns to treat, right? Why else are you letting Tiona and Tione carry you?" Finn asked

"Bah, Avoiding Gareth's axe hurt more than those attacks, they started carrying me after I used too much magic at once, and started feeling fatigued, that feeling is gone now." I answered Finn.

"Sometimes you gotta let yourself get pampered." I added as I removed myself from the amazons and started walking on my own.

The sisters weren't mad that I did this; they seemed content that they had been close to me for a long time and that I was actually okay. I still got a playful slap on the back from them though.

It was a long walk back to the rest of the familia.