“Move move move!” - no matter how fast I tried slithering away, the distance was shrinking. It shouldn’t come as a surprise, even if Undercones are not land creatures, the sheer size difference is more than enough to compensate for its lack of grace. Especially when it's royally pissed!

(“We won’t be able to get away”)

(“So hiding?”)

How nice, I get to try all the options this time! But where do I hide? It will dig through any hole, water is dangerous due to the storm -and while I got tired of mentioning this, believe me the rain droplets falling from the sky still constantly batter my body… (“Am I thinking what I am thinking?!”)(“This just sounds stupid when we talk to ourselves, of course I am, I am me!”).

*** Undercone PoV ***

<Red-nose angry. RED NOSE BIG ANGRY. A SNAKE! Snake is SNACK! Snacks DO NOT BITE Undercones! UNDERCONES BITE SNACKS!>

It walked away from the stream towards the target of its ire. The inner rage it felt, stopping it from calmly assessing its current situation, which, obvious even to an Undercone, was not good. 

First- the loss of its tail. Yes, it was due to a sacrificial escape skill, which saved its life, (after all, being a decoy was one of this particular appendages main purposes), but that didn’t mean the body hasn’t been using it’s reserves trying to start regrowing it ever since! Or at least regenerate scales on the now bleeding stump. 

Yes, bleeding! The snake's bite was crude, but it did deliver its venom! Among its many functions it slowed down any regeneration, which was already weakened. And so, all of the body's regeneration was concentrating on that spot, working at less than 10% when dealing with other threats… like for example poison, now flowing through its veins.

As if that wasn’t enough- a lot of water got into its air sack during its multiple near drowning experiences, causing severe reduction in breathin effectiveness, and so reduced strength! Not to mention the ambient surge of storm mana,(especially its lightning and water components) interfering with monsters earth and darkness affinity regeneration.

Finally, the nearby stream, rain, and muddiness of earth, muffled all its senses, from most important touch and vibration, through hearing to sight (though to be fair the last one wasn’t highly developed in creatures living mostly underground)

But it was enough to find a single, inexperienced snakeling…

<Sniff sniff… yeess… somewhere here… I can smell it.. And I could sense it… It’s not underground.. So it must have went up!>

As it said so, Red-nose looked up at the tree- heavy rain covering its head. But, unlike humans, its first instinct was to cover its most precious nose! Eyes will have to do with eyelids alone, even if it means constant blinking.. 

*CRACKLE* - a thunder suddenly exploded, a few kilometers away! Its flash strong enough to blind the undercone for a second.

But then what could happen in a second! I mean, It’s barely enough time for a snakeling to drop from a branch!

When it opened it’s eye, it saw an open mouth- the last thing its black-red eye would ever see

Reisinling

A small preview of the coming fight. That’s all until Friday. I recently realised- should I add the “strong language” warning? One of the things that’s especially hard to get, when you are not a native english speaker, is the severity/nuance of “strong” words, and so i really just don’t know.