Henry shifted his strategy, falling back on the kiting tactic that had saved his life in the second hobgoblin room. He sprinted in wide arcs from left to right across the cavern, desperately trying to stretch the swarm out and isolate any stragglers.
But he quickly realized he had made a massive miscalculation.
While the cavern goblins had possessed pitiful endurance, these cobras didn't suffer from the same racial stamina limitations. Ten minutes of high-speed sprinting dragged on, and the serpents didn't slow down for a single second. They slithered after him in a tight, undulating wave of black scales, refusing to leave any exploitable gaps between them.
Worse still was the F-Rank Cobra. It was a nightmare. Not only did it constantly force Henry to abruptly alter his path by raining down predictive spit attacks, but when it actively slithered after him, it was terrifyingly fast. The monstrous snake almost matched his speed, closing the distance effortlessly.
'Fuck,' Henry thought, gritting his teeth as he jumped over another hissing patch of superheated rock. Being chased around like a frightened dog for ten minutes was pushing his frustration well past its boiling point.
As he banked hard back toward the right side of the cavern, Henry's sharp eyes caught a shift in the battlefield.
The F-Rank boss had anchored itself on the far left side of the room. It had completely stopped moving. Having spent a lot of time observing its attack patterns, Henry instantly recognized the telltale sign: whenever the F rank Cobra halted its pursuit and pulled its head back like a drawn bowstring, it was winding up for an oversized, area-of-effect spit attack.
At the exact same moment, Henry spotted an opening. Pushed slightly ahead of the main swarm on the far right were two regular cobras, isolated by just a few feet of distance.
'Fuck it,' Henry decided, his patience finally snapping.
He dug his boots into the stone, instantly reversing his momentum, and exploded directly toward the two isolated cobras. He loaded his weight and unleashed a Sinclair-style horizontal slash, sweeping from left to right this time.
Remembering his previous mistake, he aimed higher. His sword slashed through the air and cleanly severed both of their heads in a single, flawless strike.
But Henry didn't even have a second to appreciate the kill.
A deafening hiss tore through the cavern. The F-Rank cobra finally unleashed its payload. This wasn't a standard glob of venom; it was a glowing red tidal wave of volatile liquid arcing through the air, covering both Henry's current position and his immediate escape route. It was far too wide to simply step away from.
Henry abandoned his footing entirely. He launched himself into a desperate, horizontal dive, tucking his shoulder as he hit the ground and violently rolling completely out of the blast zone until his back slammed against the far right wall of the cavern.
Sizzle!
The massive payload of fire-venom hit the stone floor like a bomb.
Henry snapped his head up just in time to see the destructive aftermath. The blast radius was so large that it caught three of the regular cobras completely off guard. The volatile venom splashed violently over their black bodies. The serpents thrashed and hissed in absolute agony as the red-hot liquid clung to their scales.
The cavern floor around them instantly superheated, becoming a steaming, lethal hazard. However, as Henry watched the thrashing snakes, he noticed something crucial: while the cobras were visibly scorched and clearly in immense pain, their bodies weren't melting. They possessed some inherent racial resistance to fire-mana. Even though they hadn't reached F-Rank, they were surviving the friendly fire.
But there was no time to dwell on it.
Before the steaming stone floor could even begin to cool, the F-Rank Cobra was already moving. It slithered aggressively over the superheated rock, completely ignoring the blistering temperature as it charged directly at Henry at full, terrifying speed.
Trapped with his back completely against the cavern wall, Henry locked eyes with the glowing yellow F above the monster's head.
He was out of room to run. He had another split-second choice to make.
The F-Rank Cobra made the decision for him.
Closing the final few feet with scary speed, the massive cobra reared back and unhinged its jaw directly in front of Henry.
Deep within the monster's throat, a bright, volatile red light began to glow violently.
Henry knew instantly that if he allowed that fire-venom to detonate at point-blank range, he wouldn't just be burned, he would be incinerated.
He didn't try to dodge. He aggressively stepped into the danger zone, driving his arming sword in a one-handed upward thrust aimed directly at the soft, pale scales beneath the cobra's lower jaw, hoping to skewer the monster's brain before it could spit.
But the Cobra possessed great battle intelligence.
The open jaw had been a feint. The instant Henry committed his blade to the upward thrust, the snake smoothly snapped its head backward, weaving its neck cleanly out of the strike zone.
At the exact same moment, the creature violently whipped the entire lower half of its thick, muscular body forward.
A massive tail, covered in hardened black scales, blurred through the air, sweeping horizontally right at Henry's chest.
Henry's sword was fully extended high above his head; there was absolutely no time to bring the blade down to parry. With his back pressed completely flush against the unyielding stone wall, he had nowhere to retreat.
In a pure, desperate bid for survival, Henry threw his free left arm across his chest, bracing his forearm as a physical buffer to absorb the brunt of the blow.
It wasn't enough.
The sheer momentum and raw physical strength of the F-Rank boss completely overwhelmed Henry's Strength. The massive tail slammed into his braced arm with the force of a battering ram.
CRACK!
Henry was crushed violently against the cavern wall. The stone behind him spider-webbed from the kinetic transfer. The breath was instantly pulverized from his lungs, his vision flashing a blinding, violent white.
He slumped forward as the tail whipped away, his knees buckling as a sickening, metallic taste flooded his mouth. He gagged, violently coughing up a splatter of dark red blood onto the blistering stone floor.