"Damn It!" Rowan couldn't help but curse as he battled the snake.
The situation, which wasn't looking good in the first place, had become downright terrible.
His stamina wasn't anywhere near its peak, but he used mana to compensate for it and, because of the mana rich atmosphere, he didn't need to worry about slow mana recovery.
He was able to match the snake and keep it busy while the mages bombarded it with spells, effectively dealing damage, before the snake regenerated once more.
But Rowan quickly discovered something about its regeneration ability.
Just like he thought, there was a cost. No, in the first place, he didn't think something like unlimited regeneration existed, even for Grandmasters.
Whenever the snake used regeneration, two things happened.
Its body mass became smaller, and the rate at which it evolved became slower. It wasn't noticeable at first, but after dealing substantial damage, Rowan was able to figure it out.
So how exactly did the situation suddenly turn for the worst?
Well, it was when the snake showed them part of the reasons why A-rank beasts were called natural disasters.
The snake used its newest gained ability! And what would you know, it couldn't be more perfect for the current situation.
At a point where the snake had become a lot smaller after being significantly damaged, its red eyes suddenly changed color!
A part of its eyes became a shade of yellow, and that is when problems began, because...
"Ahh! Get away from me!"
One of the adventurers attacking the snake suddenly shouted, before swinging his blade with a terrified face as he beheaded the person by his side.
It happened so fast and abruptly that the nearby adventurers didn't notice, but the moment some did, mass panic spread across their ranks, disorganizing their formation.
"No, no! I'll kill you, you did this to me!"
And before they could begin to understand, the same man began screaming as he attacked the others with a terrified expression as if they were beasts.
Even Rowan paused because of the unexpected situation, and that was the worst thing he could have done. It gave the snake a window to use that ability on others.
It didn't work on all of them, but those it worked on were enough to cause chaos within the ranks of the adventurers as those affected attacked the rest.
Rowan quickly figured it out and shouted...
"It has a hypnosis ability! Don't look into its eyes!"
But a lot of damage had already been done.
What made it worse was that he couldn't even help them. He had to keep the snake in place to make sure it didn't get to the mages who were still attacking.
So the adventurers had to stop the ones rampaging by themselves, either by binding them or killing them.
In the end, the one's hypnotized were all killed, but not before killing others.
The ones that remained were less than half of the initial adventurer force.
And Rowan wasn't in his best condition either.
In a normal situation, he would have been able to ward off the snake's hypnosis on his mind.
The problem was, this was no normal situation.
He had continuously spent his mental power to monitor the situation while fighting, but now such action was biting him in the back.
When the snake activated its ability, Rowan hit even harder to break the hypnosis, which worked, but the damage had already been done.
Right now, one-sixth of the snake's body was covered in purple scales, which as Rowan had found out the hard way, was worlds apart in quality from the former white scales.
And the snake knew so too. So it began to turn the part of its body with the purple scales at Rowan's attacks. What had been fatal with its white skin was now very bearable using the purple skin.
At the moment, the snake's body was covered in burns, cuts, and blisters. The speed of its regeneration had reduced to that of a snail. Its left eye now had a vertical cut in it, effectively rendering it useless. And, because of the low regeneration, the snake was continuously bleeding out.
Across the snake's body were multiple sword marks, but the culprit responsible wasn't doing too well either.
'Damn It!'
Which was why he was so frustrated.
Unlike the snake, who had multiple cuts and blisters on his skin, Rowan's dusty figure barely had any cuts or injuries on him.
Looking from afar, most won't even know something was wrong.
But on the contrary...
'Damn It all!'
Rowan was in so much pain he felt like dying.
While Rowan attacked with the sharp edge of his great sword, the snake had utilized its body as its weapon.
It used its tail the most.
And the amount of times the snake smacked Rowan into the ground with its tail was in the tens.
Add this to the strain his mind was feeling from using mental power to ward off the snake's hypnotic illusions over and over again, and you have Rowan's current state.
He looked okay on the outside, but his insides were a mess. His bones were screaming with pain, and being smacked by the snakes had broken three of his ribs. His organs were a mess and he was also bleeding internally, though slowly.
Since the moment Rowan saw its crazy regeneration speed, he immediately understood that the battle would have to be one of attrition.
So he made a simple plan. He would hamper its regeneration and bleed it to death. And the plan worked surprisingly well at the start.
What he didn't account for, was the hypnosis ability, and that was why he was in this state.
The first time the snake used it, he got flustered and hesitated, giving the snake just the few more seconds it needed to use the ability on a wide scale.
But Rowan quickly figured it out and promptly warned his teammates.
Then, by the time he turned his focus back to the beast in front of him...
*Baam!*
The incoming tail was what greeted him, smashing him into the ground.
But the snake didn't let up. It had learned from Rowan's consecutive attacks, and so it did the same.
*Baam!*Baam!*Baam!*Baam!*
Without stopping, the tail smacked his body more than five times consecutively, dealing an awful lot of damage to Rowan, who was essentially a sandbag at the moment. With the frontliners battling amongst themselves as a result of the hypnosis, the snake could've killed him there and then.
Nevertheless, the timely aid of the mages situated at the rear as a Fireball as big as a rock and two big chunks of stone thrown by Motavu from afar landed squarely at the side of the snake's head, freed Rowan from his predicament.
After taking a couple of healing potions, Rowan's body healed to a manageable degree and he jumped into battle with the snakes once again as he had to stop the snakes from going after the mage unit.
But his strained body made it easier for the snake's illusions to penetrate his mind.
He was able to force such illusions out, but it caused his reaction speed to lag behind by a few fractions of a second.
But in a fight, those few moments gave him openings the snake was able to exploit to its advantage.
Motavu and Ilyon were wreaking havoc on the backlines, along with Motavu's guilders and half of the mages, as they battled the swarm of snakes that had begun to seem endless.
But it wasn't enough.
"Sh*t! Skewer these vermin, do not let them pass"
With Motavu and Ilyon in the front, a formation was formed.
But the snakes were only growing in number and, as time passed, it was becoming too much.
Rowan noticed this too, and he also knew...
'If they fall before we kill this thing, we'll all die'
Should the swarm of snakes decimate the rear, they would surround everyone else and they would be annihilated.
So he looked at the white snake, who was looking right back at him, as he spat blood on the floor and steadied his grip on this great sword before taking a stance.
'I need to end this'
