Records of Rebirth

Chapter 155 - The Stampede

The monster let out a great roar, and its foul breath washed over Typhon's body, causing him to recoil.

As it stood, the once buried large body caused a great upheaval, as its tall lumbering form took shape, and the herd creatures surrounding it were frightened and took off in a great stampede. 

The large monster spotted Typhon, rearing its head to strike and he immediately retreated, barely avoiding the attack. Instead, the creature's head struck the tufts of grass on its own back, coming away with a mouthful of flowers.

It proceeded to raise its head, shaking away the flowers, but in that brief delay Typhon chose to strike. His fangs sunk into its thick leathery skin, pumping in his venom before constricting tightly around its long neck. 

The creature let out a strangled noise, waving its head from side to side to shake him off, but Typhon held on and injected it with [Poison Fang].

This caused the creature to get even more enraged. It lowered its neck to its sides, swinging out dangerously towards the stampeding creatures below before striking against the rough skin of its body.

Typhon tolerated the strikes, but the harsh vibrations of his scales scraping against tough hide made his body ring with pain. However, he knew if he let go, he would be flung into the oncoming stampede and trampled to death.

And so, resisting the impact against his body with his tough scales, before sinking his fangs into the creature's neck to secure his grip. 

Pressed tightly against the creature's tough hide, Typhon could feel the steady thump as blood flowed through its neck. He wasted no time in tracing the source, his embedded fangs pulling against the creature's skin to tear open a long gash.

Hot blood flowed freely from the wound, exposing its thick veins and the creature groaned loudly in pain as Typhon injected poison directly into them.

Aboard the creature's body, the members of Typhon's team tethered unevenly with every strike as they tried very hard not to fall off its moving body. There was nothing much to hold on to, so they coiled around the hard stems of the red flower buds that formed parts of the creature's body.

But the two mischievous snakes didn't want to wait. They wanted to help Typhon, but aside from injecting their venom into the stems of the flowers, there was nothing else they could do.

The other two members of their team were cowering with their heads down against the repeated tremors, seemingly too afraid to move.

Another tremor rocked the creature's body as Typhon slammed into its sides. But as the creature raised its head, the two snakes saw it hadn't succeeded in dislodging him, much to their relief, and now its neck was flowing with copious amounts of blood.

[We have to help him somehow!] One of the mischievous snakes said.

However, they were completely exposed with nowhere to hide. If their movements alerted the creature and its head drew closer to them to attack instead, it would undermine all of Typhon's efforts in drawing its attention.

They stared up at its bleeding neck and rows of sharp teeth. It was severely wounded, but still going strong and if Typhon could not outlast its strikes, he would surely die.

[We can't help him by staying up here.] The second snake agreed.

And then, the two snakes looked down at the stampeding boulder creatures below, an insane idea beginning to form in their heads. If they were going to help him, there was no time to waste.

[What about them?]

The two mischievous snakes stared at their two cowering team members, who were completely consumed with fear, before nudging them both to tell them of their plan. 

[We're going to jump down there to help.] One casually said. 

[You should come with us.] Another added with a cheery smile.

But their team members weren't so confident in their brilliant plan and  looked up at them with disbelief.

[You'll die if you jump down. Don't you see how big they are?]

[You'll get crushed! Don't do that. Stay here with us.]

Still, the mischievous snakes were unrelenting. [Stay here? Do you want our Captain to get injured when he's fighting hard to save us? We can't simply do nothing.]

At the mention of Typhon, the two snakes twinged with guilt.

The mischievous snakes continued. [And we just need to get on one of those creatures.]

The two looked down at the grey stone monsters below. They were moving fast but compared to the long strides of the fearsome monster whose back they were on, they seemed rather slow.

All they needed was a well-placed leap and they could secure themselves to one of the spikes on the creature's back to ride them. That is, if they didn't slip and get crushed in the stampede. .

However, when the two snakes looked back, they saw the other two had averted their eyes, seemingly too petrified of falling to their deaths. So, without another look back, they both leapt off the back of the monster into the stampeding monsters below. 

Whilst this was happening, Typhon was in the middle of dealing a lethal blow. The monsters repeated attempts to throw him off its body had only worsened its flesh wound, and the creature tried to recover its torn neck by stopping its movements to enable itself to heal.

However, once it slowed down on its attacks Typhon increased the intensity of his, refusing to allow it any recovery time. He bit its exposed veins to pull them out of its neck before gnawing the flesh off of its neck down to the bone, relishing the sounds as the creature roared in anguish. 

He wanted to kill it, but the creature was surprisingly resilient, so he settled on torturing it until it succumbed to his poison. However, the creature ignored its injuries to strike its neck against the side of its body once more, the harsh impact knocking the breath out of his body. 

Typhon felt his grip loosen as pain shot through his body, but just then he felt a second tremor run across the monster's large body as something slammed into its leg causing it to roar in pain.

Peering down, Typhon saw one of the stampeding monsters had collided with it, its large horn impaled through the thick hide of its leg. And to his surprise, there was a snake secured around the spikes of its segmented body, with its fangs deep inside the stone creature's hide.

Typhon was shocked, because he recognised one of the mischievous snakes. He saw the stone creature was bleeding from its eyes and could only conclude they had tricked the creature into fleeing this way.

It soon retracted its horns, leaving a gaping hole in the monster's leg before fleeing.

In the distance, Typhon saw another one of the stone creatures was approaching. Their paths had seemingly been deviated to speed towards the tall monster, and now it sped towards it with a deranged look on its face.

It was repeatedly bitten from behind and to a monster with low intellect, whose eyes had been injured. When it failed to see what had attacked it, it would only assume it was being pursued by a strong predator, causing it to flee. 

The second stone creature soon colluded with the monster, rupturing another one of its legs. It roared out in pain, ignoring Typhon to swing its head around to strike at the stone creatures.

By that time, the mischievous snake had jumped off the stone creatures back as sharp teeth came down to tear open the skin of its body.

The monsters fangs gripped tight, raising the creature high up in the air to fling it aside, but with all wounds inflicted on its neck, it lacked the strength to lift anything and the heavy creature slipped free, shaking off its attacker to flee for its life. 

Typhon saw the chance and immediately secured his grip on its neck, delivering a savage bite aimed at the monster's throat and its swing halted in mid air, releasing a strained sound instead of its usual roar.

The blow of the stone creatures had weakened the monster's footing and with his strike destroying the muscles of its neck, the large creature spasmed, its body staggering limply as copious amounts of blood flowed from its neck down to its tough hide. 

It was weak from blood loss, but Typhon wasn't about to relax just yet, he yearned to see it dead. And so, he constricted it with all of his strength and the creature let out a strained cry before it large body dropped down to the ground in a massive wave of blood and sand.

With the creature now motionless, Typhon released his grip from its body, a wave of sleepiness washing over him. Feeling exhausted from the battle, he collapsed on the ground beside the creature and soon his team members gathered around him. 

For some reason, he simply couldn't keep his eyes open, and fearing he was too injured to move on, he instructed his team members to hide.

Fortunately for them, the crater in the ground, the large creature had climbed out of was not far away. And so, with the effort of his team, they headed towards it to hide away until his body fully recovered.