An icy-blue pillar of light, half a meter thick, tore through the air. Wherever it passed, a hard white shell of ice instantly congealed on the ground, and a bone-piercing chill permeated the air.
Facing this oncoming breath attack, Columbina did not panic. She took Coppelia and ascended vertically at high speed, putting distance between them and the ground. The deadly pillar of ice swept just a few meters beneath their feet, stirring up only a burst of freezing turbulence.
As the targets changed position, the Bathysmal Vishap twisted its thick neck, attempting to sweep the pillar of breath like a long whip to knock down the two "insects" in the air. However, no matter how it adjusted the angle, Columbina was always able to increase their vertical distance in advance or execute small lateral shifts, keeping the tip of the light pillar always a few meters away from them.
Soon, the continuous breath attack seemed to take a huge toll; the glow in the Vishap's throat dimmed, and the thick pillar of light vanished abruptly like a waterfall whose flow had been cut off.
In Coppelia's hand, several light arrows shimmering with faint radiance were already nocked on the string of Amos's Bow. But she did not aim at the Vishap. Previous probing had proven that elemental energy would be absorbed. She also dared not attack the surroundings to avoid overly provoking their opponent; half of that fellow's body was still soaking in the pool water. If it got spooked and fled directly into the deep water, things would become difficult to handle.
She had been continuously gathering Cryo elemental power at the tips of the light arrows. As long as the amount was massive enough, she could instantly freeze the surface of the deep pool beside it completely, sealing off its most convenient escape route.
Additionally, to prevent it from jumping into other pools, she had prepared more than one such light arrow. Even if it had a way to break the ice, it would at least delay it for a moment. Now, she just needed to wait for the Cryo element to accumulate sufficiently...
Just then, the Vishap by the deep pool let out a muffled roar of rage. It raised its thick, long tail covered in bone spikes high into the air, bending it over its back like a scorpion's tail. The icy energy permeating its body began to flow visibly toward the tip of the tail, gathering rapidly to form a violently spinning icy-blue sphere of light.
Chi-chi-chi—!
Countless ice shuttles, sharp at both ends and thick in the middle, shot out from the sphere of light! These ice shuttles traced intersecting parabolic trajectories, shooting toward the two in the air from all directions—up, down, left, and right. The dense barrage of ice shuttles wove a three-dimensional curtain in the air with almost no gaps, sealing off all space for evasion.
Coppelia immediately constructed a ring of Geo elemental shields around them.
However, before the shield could even serve its purpose, Columbina had already raised both arms, her palms pushing forward against the void. Solidified moonlight danced around her arms.
Under Coppelia's puzzled and astonished gaze, the ice shuttles shooting within a ten-meter radius of them abruptly lost speed, as if crashing into an invisible, viscous quagmire, eventually stagnating completely in mid-air. One, ten, a hundred... more and more ice shuttles hovered at the edge of that invisible spherical domain, forming an increasingly dense snow-white shell of ice crystals that encased the two of them.
Columbina felt the power flowing through her body and spoke.
"I have thought of a way to deal with it."
"It can absorb elemental power, but it surely cannot absorb stones." Her voice carried certainty. "We can smash it with rocks. There is plenty of rubble down below."
Stones? Coppelia immediately recalled the stone pillars shattered by the fierce attacks of the Vishaps during the earlier battle with the herd; their fragments were scattered everywhere on the ground below.
Right! Her eyes lit up. If elemental reactions didn't work, they could still use physical attacks!
"Good, let's do that," Coppelia quickly adjusted her strategy. "I'll cover you from the rear!"
"Mhm!" Columbina nodded.
She parted her hands to the sides. The dense spherical shell formed by countless stagnant ice shuttles was pushed open from the inside, instantly crumbling and scattering in all directions. Losing their support, the ice shuttles fell one after another, raining down a crackling micro-hailstorm in the underground space.
My power has increased... Finally, she didn't have to always stay behind Coppelia, only able to provide support. Now, she could also stand in front of her, defend, and even launch attacks. A sense of accomplishment rose in Columbina's heart.
However, when the scattered ice crystals had fallen away and their vision cleared again, both of them froze on the spot as they looked toward the largest deep-water pool.
The edge of the pool was empty. That Bathysmal Vishap of astonishing length was nowhere to be seen. Only the ripples that had not yet subsided and the spreading rings of waves on the water surface proved that it had just been there.
The two hovered in the air, silent for two seconds.
"...It actually ran away?!" Coppelia's voice was filled with incredulous astonishment, as well as a trace of annoyance at her plan falling through.
So it had stayed at the edge of the pool all along just to make it convenient to flee at any moment! Its earlier ice pillar breath had been easily dodged, and the dense barrage of ice shuttles had been blocked; seeing that its methods were ineffective, it had chosen to slip away without hesitation! What was even more depressing was that the ultimate move Coppelia had been charging for so long to seal the pool hadn't even been used, and the monster was gone!
Columbina was evidently even more struck by this. The sense of accomplishment and excitement that had just risen in her heart dissipated instantly.
"Don't run!" she blurted out, her body already leaning forward, about to rush toward the deep pool.
"Wait! Don't rush—" Coppelia had only shouted half her sentence.
Columbina had already taken her and dove straight down toward the gloomy deep-water pool. The icy pool water magnified rapidly in their vision.
"Whoa—!"
Coppelia's warning was drowned out by the sound of their bodies breaking the surface and the splashing water.
The moment they entered the water, a ring of soft light rippled out from Columbina's body. The light expanded rapidly, forming a stable spherical membrane that enveloped the two of them, keeping the clear water at bay and leaving only a bubble.
Underwater was a different scene entirely. The tunnel branches were numerous, extending underwater like a maze; the light was dim, and vision was restricted. But the attraction from the Moonlight Stones did not weaken due to the change in environment; instead, it became clearer as the distance closed.
Following this pull, Columbina unhesitatingly chose a direction within the complex passages and sped forward. Soon, in the gloomy blue water shadows ahead, the silhouette of that swaying, massive icy-blue tail appeared!
Coppelia had long since put away Amos's Bow. Her right hand formed a loose grip, firmly controlling the massive amount of Cryo elemental power she hadn't been able to release earlier within her palm, compressing it into an icy-blue sphere of light with restless internal energy. Her ultimate move was ready; she had to find a target to release it on, otherwise holding it back was truly uncomfortable.
The icy-blue Bathysmal Vishap ahead clearly sensed the bubble chasing relentlessly from behind. The swaying frequency of its thick tail accelerated, and its swimming speed increased abruptly. At the same time, a low, peculiar sound wave emitted from its throat, transmitting through the water body into the depths.
Coppelia couldn't hear the sound, but Columbina's perception instantly captured the anomaly.
"Below... something is coming up."
____
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