The water began to churn violently, boiling into thick plumes of vapor. Then, the lake exploded.
The surface didn't just break—it ruptured like a wound tearing open. Waves slammed against the cliffs in violent succession, spraying scalding mist into the air. The ground trembled under Quinn's boots, loose stones skittering toward the shoreline as if trying to flee. The air filled with a low, guttural vibration that pressed against the chest and made breathing feel heavier.
A massive silhouette tore through the surface, ascending into the air like a rising monument. Two curved fangs, dripping with murderous intent, eyes of polished silver that reflected the terrified faces below. Its hide was a fortress of thick, silver scales, each one carved with ancient, jagged patterns.
Water cascaded off its body in sheets, hissing as it struck the superheated air around it. The sheer mass of the creature displaced the wind itself, sending shockwaves outward that rattled armor and snapped loose branches from the cliffside trees.
As its killing intent washed over the shore, the Scavenger Faction froze. They were caught in a collective trance of terror until a sharp voice sliced through the silence.
"What are you fools looking at? Pour it on! Kill it!"
The shout broke the trance, making others to shook them off. Some staggered back into combat stances, others raised weapons with shaking hands, adrenaline forcing motion where courage had failed.
A chaotic barrage followed: earth spikes erupted from the ground, acid attacks against the silver hide, and a rain of explosive arrows hissed through the air, swallowing the beast in a black smoke.
The explosions overlapped into a single roaring thunder. Shockwaves rippled across the lake, sending ripples racing outward. Acid splashed and sizzled across the creature's scales, but most of it slid off like rain against polished metal. The smell of burning chemicals and scorched earth filled the battlefield.
"Did we get it?" someone whispered, their voice trembling.
The words barely carried over the ringing silence that followed the barrage. Smoke drifted slowly, thick and suffocating, hiding everything beyond a few meters.
Quinn stood silent as he stared at the glowing blue screen that had just manifested in his vision.
Quest: SURVIVE
Survive? Quinn's blood ran cold. Does the system think I can't win?
The single word felt heavier than anything he had ever received.
Survive...
It felt like a quiet admission of overwhelming odds.
"If the quest says 'Survive,' Quinn, it means the system indeed thinks you can't, but it doesn't exactly mean it's impossible," the voice in his head noted.
"Shit," Quinn hissed. He activated his Dragon Eyes, trying to read the flow of energy within the smoke, but he felt nothing—it was a void.
Suddenly his eyes widened.His instincts screamed danger.
"Move! Get off the cliffs!"
His voice tore from his throat with raw urgency.
It was too late. The very foundations of the cliffs began to groan and split. Quinn leapt, narrowly catching a jagged outcrop, but the others weren't so lucky. They were tossed into the air like ragdolls as the Serpent moved.
Stone cracked like brittle glass. Entire slabs of cliffside collapsed inward toward the lake. Dust clouds exploded upward, mixing with lingering smoke.
It was a blur of silver. Despite its titanic size, the creature sliced through the air with the grace of a needle. Its mouth hung wide, engulfing members of the Scavenger Faction in mid-air. The silver scales began to spasm, emitting a prismic glow that turned the beast into a living streak of light.
The glow refracted through the airborne dust, scattering colors across the battlefield like shattered glass.
"I'll kill you myself!" Grazer roared, leaping from a high ledge. Fueled by a burst of telekinesis, he brought his longblade down in a devastating arc. With a flick of its tail, the Serpent parried the strike with contemptuous ease, sending Grazer spinning.
The impact sounded like metal colliding with a moving train.
I have to do something, but it's fast for me to land a perfect strike Quinn thought.
Wait... it's a lake. It's water so it's Conductive.
"Time for some lightning," Quinn muttered.
He thrust his hands forward, channeling every ounce of mana into a jagged bolt.
The lake ignited in a blinding hue of white and purple. The current surged through the water, lashing onto the Serpent's body. For a heartbeat, the creature stiffened, seemingly stunned.
This is my chance
Quinn raised his other hand to make a giant earth spear.
But then, the scales began to vibrate at a frequency that made Quinn's teeth ache.
The vibration hummed through the air, turning the surface of the lake into a trembling mirror.
"Bad idea, Quinn," the system warned.
What is happening, Quinn yelled as his spear collapsed midway before it could form.
The prismic glow intensified tenfold. The Serpent had just absorbed the charge, its neuromuscular system drinking the electrical fuel.
The mistake was simple but fatal.
In any living creature, movement is just a series of electrical pulses traveling from the brain to the muscles. Usually, these pulses are limited by the body's own chemistry. But the Silver Serpent was different. Its nervous system was wrapped in silver-scale plating that acted as a biological conductor.
When Quinn's lightning hit the water, it didn't fry the snake's nerves—it amplified them.
The massive voltage from the lightning acted like a supercharged battery for the serpent's muscles. It flooded the "neuromuscular junctions," forcing the muscles to contract and release thousands of times faster than biological limits should allow.
By trying to shock it, Quinn had effectively bypassed the creature's internal speed-limiters.
He hadn't attacked it; instead he fueled it.
It moved so fast that it left a physical afterimage behind.
Air cracked in its wake like miniature sonic booms.
Grazer had just taken a stance from the previous attack, when the beast struck him from the rear before he could even blink, slamming the leader into the rock face with enough force to shatter the cliff's foundation.
Fragments of stone rained down around him.
The Serpent's silver gaze next snapped toward Quinn.
"This situation just turned bad from worse," Quinn growled, his heart hammering against his ribs. "I'll use Flash Step and with Hardening, I'll just deliver a hammer strike !"
The Serpent lunged forward with its snout aimed towards Quinn, in response he also had solidified his body with the hardening but the beast's speed just outpaced him. Even before he could
Blink, the impact came at a lightning speed.
Time seemed to stretch painfully slow, yet his body still lagged behind reality.
The snout hit Quinn square in the chest with the force of a falling mountain. His Hardening barely held, preventing him from being turned into a red mist, but the kinetic energy was absolute.
The impact stole all air from his lungs.
Pain exploded through his ribcage like shattering glass.
Quinn was launched backward, like a human projectile, until he was embedded deep into the solid rock of the opposite cliffside.
The rock cratered around him, spiderweb cracks racing outward from the impact point as dust and debris scattered.
Quinn coughed up blood as he struggled to breathe.
-20 HP
-100 MC