There was no warning or battle cry. As soon as Liam’s figure left the circle of intricate symbols completely, the huge snake snapped its head, ramming it down.

The strike was fast, unbelievably so. It played into the magical beast’s innate strengths, its huge head condensing the air with its descent, turning it into an immobilizing pressure.

But Liam had been ready. He couldn’t have been readier. After all, he had prepared for that rematch for over a year.

Liam’s superhuman perception assaulted his consciousness, fueled by the background hiss to capture everything it could, transforming it into subconscious knowledge.

Thoughts were faster than legs, and they created an awareness Liam could follow, a guide he could abide by without needing to consider his options.

So, despite the strike being basically immediate, Liam reacted to it as soon as the fake magical beast showed the faintest sign of wanting to unleash that attack, matching it with a thunderous noise.

The reptilian head crashed onto the pale floor, sending tremors everywhere. At the same time, Liam reached the coiled body on the ground, his fingers stabbed into the scales, cutting into them as he kept advancing through his accumulated momentum.

No blood seeped out of the green scales. Yet, despite some unnatural vibe, they felt right, and the same went for what they protected. The level three magical beast might be fake, but its texture was on point.

Which was a problem for Liam, one he had subconsciously acknowledged as soon as his fingertips touched the scales. They were unbelievably tough, resisting his Qi due to their superior standing in the cultivation journey.

Even the fake flesh beneath the scales posed that innate opposition. Only half of Liam’s fingers managed to dig through, and they became stuck in it before the cut could reach half a meter.

Liam abruptly stopped himself, pulled by the hand stuck in the snake’s body. Meanwhile, a thick tail rose into the air, promptly snapping at his relative location.

Liam’s superhuman senses had once again warned him about the imminent attack as soon as it was hinting at starting, so a thunderous noise resounded in the hall, his figure disappearing alongside a fist-sized chunk of the snake’s flesh.

The tail hit the floor while the reptilian head turned in its direction, only for a cut to open on the raised part of its body. Liam had slipped under it, this time adjusting his strike to avoid remaining stuck in that tough flesh.

No dark clouds gathered on the ceiling, but a lightning storm seemed to be brewing because the thundering noises kept coming, their pace increasing, often with no time at all between them.

Liam activated the Lightning Step nonstop, circling, jumping over, and dashing under the magical beast, his fingers always piercing scales, carving shallow, short cuts, but inflicting injuries nonetheless.

The math was clear to Liam. Agility wasn’t the snake’s forte. He would have never escaped it for so long inside the ruins otherwise.

As long as Liam could move erratically, making sharp turns to use the magical beast’s huge body against it, he could retain the initiative while remaining safe. 𝓯𝓻𝒆𝙚𝒘𝓮𝙗𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝒍.𝙘𝓸𝙢

The strategy also allowed Liam to inflict damage consistently. He could opt for a death-by-a-thousand-cuts approach.

The issue was that Liam didn’t have a thousand attacks in him, not yet.

Liam didn’t think. He just knew and acted accordingly, whether toward the snake’s movements or his own limits.

The magical beast coiled on itself, stretched its huge body, and hurled everything it had whenever movement or pain claimed its attention. Still, Liam remained one step ahead, focusing on not getting cornered as it had happened in the ruins.

Then, the opportunity for a bolder move came.

Liam tore away a chunk of fake flesh when the air to his right grew dense. Something deadly was coming. The reptilian head was descending toward him, finally having caught up with his shenanigans.

A better strategist would have never ended up in that situation. Someone with greater battle intelligence would have run circles around the snake until victory arrived, but Liam didn’t even attempt to do that. He simply lacked the stamina to win like that.

So, now that the situation had shifted, Liam changed his approach.

Attacking meant exposing themselves to counterattacks, especially for magical beasts, since they lacked polished combat styles. Liam unleashed the Lightning Step again, but to slip under the descending triangular head this time.

The magical beast reacted to the sprint, forcefully bringing its head down, but Liam saw that intention even before it turned into an action, and a second Lightning Step joined the first.

The chaining of two speed bursts allowed Liam to slip under the reptilian head right before it slammed on the floor. However, the rest of the snake’s body was descending, too, risking squashing Liam to a pulp.

And another thundering noise resounded, accelerating Liam even further, but not to dodge. He propelled himself up, thrusting his rising palm at the descending scales.

Liam felt everything from his left hand to his shoulder going numb at the impact with that incredibly solid body. However, the speed built through three Lightning Steps joined the Seismic Palm to unleash a devastating blow that sent shattered scales flying everywhere.

That side of the snake’s body also stopped descending, reversing its course. It bent upward, actually halting the twisting of its head, which Liam exploited.

Something had materialized in Liam’s right hand during the exchange. The blowback from the devastating Seismic Palm demanded the entirety of the strength his legs could muster to keep him straight, but his right arm could move, so he threw the item at the snake’s equally frozen head.

A flask containing the rank 2 venom Liam had stockpiled flew through the air and landed on the scales right below the snake’s eye, its Qi-enhanced glass shattering at the impact, splashing its contents over the magical beast.

Sizzling noises immediately unfolded. That wasn’t the right way to administer the venom, but it still corroded through the scales. It was made for flesh rather than metal after all, and the fake one seemed to be included.

Moreover, that single flask had contained several batches of the alchemical ingredient. It was why Liam hadn’t used the new Cloud Pills instead. He didn’t know if the fake snake’s breathing actually translated into something he could exploit, so he had preferred to bet on quantity.

Yet, the snake recovered earlier than Liam did. Before he could unleash the Lightning Step again, the reptilian head resumed twisting, its open maw immediately closing on him, two sharp fangs already about to pierce his torso and legs.