Chapter 133: Snake's Ability

"Uuuh... Those stuffs make my stomach feel unwell. They are creepy..." Alena shirked away, letting Ilyin march to the front and cast her icicles.

Unlike the previous floor, the boss seemed to be separated from the current horde. Unless they were all same sized. The ones that gathered around Alena were all identical without a speck of difference, and there was still room apart from where she stood right now. There was a high chance that the ones before her were just minions and that the real boss was hiding somewhere deeper inside the cave.

Ilyin's battle mode activated as the spirit froze the ones that were the closest to their current position. The snakes gathered up and made a circle around Alena, wanting to attack her simultaneously.

Ilyin responded quick, as she shot her ice element into the monsters and pulverized them into nothingness. There was now a circle surrounding Alena that was made out of complete ice, and the wall was rather tall.

Looking at the wall, which contained carcasses of monsters inside it, Alena felt rather troubled. She knew that Ilyin was strong, but there was a limit to how much she could fight. Casting magic this large of a scale, wasn't she afraid of running out of power?

"Thank you, again. How much power do  you think you have left? We have to conserve it better if we want to progress further.. I think the spells you cast just now were too much. You wasted more mana then you needed, but it's alright. As long as we finish this boss up, we can return home and let you rest," Alena advised, seeing how Ilyin was now breathing a bit heavier.

Ilyin looked disgruntled, as if she did not agree with what Alena said. However, she nodded and looked at her own hands and at the mountain of ice that she cast. Indeed, the originally cold dungeon's temperature was lowered down by a significant amount, to the point of making Alena shiver up.

In any case, this wasn't the end. There was still the boss. There were no more small snakes that showed up, so the minions must be done by now. The question was, where did the real boss lay in?

Alena walked alongside the readied Ilyin, walking down the narrow path to reach a dead end. She had a bad feeling, as her heartbeat instantly raced as if expecting for something terrible to happen.

Not long after, the ground shook, and the dead end that was in front of them began to rumble, wanting to split apart into pieces.

As the wall crumbled down, Alena and Ilyin ran away, with the Silver Slime in tow. They wanted to escape from the wall's rubbles, as well as what was hidden inside of it.

The wall disappeared into ashes as a large entity broke out of it.

There it was.

In full glory, the gigantic water snake. Its color was white, and it had a pair of bluish green eyes staring down at Alena's petite figure. Its size was at least ten times larger than Ilyin. Alena saw the snake and instantly felt intimidated, especially looking at its eyes that had the pattern of a honeycomb.

The ice spirit was instantly incited to battle, but she seemed much more aggressive than before and already began casting her ices without Alena even telling her to do anything. It seemed abnormal. Ilyin's eyes were filled with hatred, the same ones that were shown to her when the spirit got summoned before they 'made up'.

Alena was familiar with this, and knew that something was off. Compared to when she fought the ants and the smaller snakes, Ilyin was much more unstable, and the power she was going to release would be troublesome if it didn't successfully act as the final blow. Ilyin would be exhausted and out of power, whereas the snake would still be able to move.

Ilyin was preparing a oneshot ice cannon, but her enemy was a slithering gigantic snake that had a high chance of having Godly movement speed due to its nature. The Water Element was described by the System as the most flexible element, and it had specific influences to its statistics. It could perform better in agility and was able to possess dexterity that surpassed those of other elements. It was its specialty for the whole bearer of said element, although some exceptions could be made.

"Is the snake taunting her?" Alena deduced. It made sense. Ilyin was much more uncontrollable, she could feel her state as the puppeteer.

Alena knew that she had to stop whatever Ilyin was trying to cast at the snake. As such, she took the opportunity to charge forward and step in.

"Ilyin, close your eyes and calm yourself down! Don't get carried away, remember what I told you just now! If you release that cannon, we're doomed for real." Alena shouted, standing before Ilyin and blocking her sight off.

If she was correct in her guess, then the snake's taunting effect should come from its eyes. She had a negative feeling brewing inside her when her eyes first locked with the snake's. It was as if the snake was a domineering figure that instilled fear inside her heart, making her suddenly have the irresistible urge to fight it with all she had.

Like she had to deal one final blow that contained all of her power.

"The eyes. Don't look at its eyes when you aim. Just look for its weak spot.. Wait, Ilyin. Defend with the Silver Slime. The dungeons inside the Tower can't be simple, so we can't just blindly aim. I will search with my Main to pinpoint its weakness,"

After a few seconds of resistance, Ilyin finally regained her senses back and began to look dazedly at Alena's way. Even when she was under the influence of the snake's abilities, she was able to hear Alena's voice. It was just hard to snap out of her way of thinking. After snapping out, she immediately got into a defensive position and no longer relied on her eyes, but instead casted several icicles around the room.

SInce she was an elemental ice spirit, a particularly strong one at that, she had a high affinity to the ices that she herself casted. Through the icicles, she was able to feel the surroundings and have something akin to vision. Thus, she was still able to locate the snake and match its movements as it taunted her to no avail.

The Silver Slime also rushed forward, but it had no eyes, so it couldn't be affected by the snake's taunt. It was a lucky evasion on its part. The large snake began to notice that its powers weren't working and that Alena, the girl who hid behind her two puppets were starting something up as she focused and channeled her power.

The snake instantly got an instinct to target the little girl first above all and began to lash out, sending attacks in form of poisonous saliva that formed the shape of a saucer that could twist and turn. Because its element was water, even its saliva was in its control.

To this, Ilyin had a rather easy time defending. Because the saliva was still technically water  no matter how much the snake put its power into it, Ilyin's ice element overpowered it and was able to freeze the substance. The poison would naturally melt down the ice, but by the time it got out of the icicle coating, its contents were already dismissed by the cold temperature and evaporated away.

Alena had the chance to fully focus on her investigation thanks to this, and received information from her System that the snake's weakness was actually its eyes as well. This made Alena quite troubled, as they had to avoid the eyes, but needed to attack it at the same time.

However, she woke up and relayed this information to Ilyin first above anything else. From there, they began to check what they can do in order to reach the snake's beady eyes and penetrate it without having to deal with its troublesome effects. Because Alena couldn't have the authority or privilege to use the icicle's vision like Ilyin did, she only discussed the dilemma with the spirit and left the rest to her, giving commands and instructions to her movement for the best possible outcome.

Ilyin regained her senses, so she was able to masterfully bid at the snake's eyes this time. Although the snake had high mobility, Ilyin also had a great control over her icicles. Even if the snake was able to avoid one hit, what if Ilyin casted several hits at once?

Ilyin focused her power into several shots, summoning it up at the same time. This was particularly taxing for her to do, but she managed to barely cast a total of five shots that was going to be aimed at one eye at once.