The air was thick with venom.
It lingered, stinging and heavy, staining every breath with dread. The mana in the chamber pressed against their skin like hot wax.
And then, Medusa moved.
No scream. No threat. No warning. Just an eruption of motion that was elegant and explosive as her massive serpentine tail surged off the dais and cracked the floor beneath her.
"Scatter!" Axel's voice cut through the silence.
A black beam, thick and fast, shot across the room and smashed through the space Axel had just vacated. The stone behind him turned to brittle white and collapsed into rubble and was petrified instantly. It wasn't an attack. It was a message.
[Echo Step].
Axel's body vanished, a translucent afterimage flickering in his place, just long enough to bait the first wave of monsters pouring from the temple walls. The snakes came in floods larger than before, thicker scales, eyes glowing with borrowed sentience. Guardians. Distractions. A final defense.
Yanin didn't hesitate.
Her form leapt into the air, and she used [Obsidian Veil]. Dark armor coated her body like shadows turned solid. She spun, her spear singing through the air, and then crashed down into the skull of the lead serpent with enough force to leave the floor cracking beneath it.
Sharp, swift, ruthless.
At the rear, Mico remained still, calculating.
She whispered.
"[Flare Spiral]"
She drew her dagger at a section with hordes of serpents.
Flames erupted in a spiral arc, catching half a dozen serpents in the blast. Fire and lightning danced up the snakes' bodies, crackling in jagged rings as they screeched, curling in on themselves in pure agony. The blaze tore through the front ranks, smoke rising to the ceiling.
Axel reappeared beside one of the stunned serpents and slashed through its neck with a clean draw of Shadow. Its body convulsed, then dropped.
"She's not moving from the platform!" he shouted. "Something's there. She's guarding it!"
"I noticed," Yanin growled, already moving. Her obsidian armor crackled with heat as she charged forward, cutting a straight path through the chaos.
And Medusa responded.
She didn't slither.
She glided as if the floor bent beneath her. Her hair hissed in stereo, hundreds of snakeheads swaying in unison. Her eyes glowed, but the true pressure came from her aura; thick, gravitational, suffocating.
Yanin's spear met Medusa's bone staff in a shower of sparks. The clang echoed across the chamber, mana clashing in visible ripples. Yanin's stance buckled just slightly. Her veil fractured at the shoulder..
Then she pivoted.
One mana-coated foot drove into Medusa's abdomen, a sharp push that knocked her off balance. Before the serpent-woman could recover, Yanin spun again, this time with a side-kick directly to the waist.
The impact rang across the chamber.
Medusa's body slammed into the far wall, stone cracking under the force, and slumped for a brief second. Stunned.
Yanin didn't waste it.
"Mico!"
Already ahead of her, Mico surged forward. The two of them raced through the battlefield while Axel veered toward the chest Medusa had been guarding. It stood alone on the platform, small, dark, and strangely pristine.
The creature noticed and let out an ear piercing SCREEEE and tried to slither towards him.
But Yanin and Mico held her down, taking advantage of her frenzy to deal the finishing blow.
Yanin held the creature down, body protected by obsidian, and forcibly pried opened it's mouth wide by the fangs that couldn't hurt her. Medusa squirmed underneath her but couldn't break free. Mico shoved her dagger down her throat.
"Erupt"
She grabbed Yanin's wrist and yanked her back. Together, they dove from the body just as flames erupted from Medusa's mouth.
The fire spread instantly, racing across the scaled skin and wrapping around her entire frame. She spasmed once, twice, then screeched so loudly that it almost made them deaf.
Her snakes screamed with her.
And then, they didn't.
Medusa's form began to curl in on itself, muscles twisting in defiance of death. But her body was already giving in, blackening, flaking, turning to ash in the center of the flames.
Meanwhile, Axel opened the chest and saw that there was a small egg inside of it, about 2 inches big. Its shell was mottled with green and gold, pulsing faintly with mana. His fingers brushed past it and found something else. Tucked beside the egg, half-hidden beneath the moss, was a seed.
Without a word, Axel slipped the seed into his spatial ring before anyone could notice.
He turned his head to the commotion and saw Medusa withering away in the fire and eventually dying with one last screech.
Yanin and Mico ran up to him, covered in soot and breathing hard.
"Is that" Yanin blinked. "An egg?"
"Yeah." Axel nodded. "She was protecting it."
"I… feel kind of bad for setting her on fire now," Mico muttered, brushing soot from her sleeve.
"Too late for regrets," Axel said, casually tucking the egg into his spatial ring.
After that he looked around for loot. Unfortunately, the majority of the boss room was in ruins after their fight and the few gold coins he found were all FAKE! Stones in disguise, how unfortunate.
…
Yanin and him sold the snake skins and bodies. He got paid 20,000 G for the dozens he collected, not bad.
One awkward car ride later and they made it back to school and immediately scattered.
Axel didn't waste time. He beelined straight to his dorm, kicked off his boots, and dropped his bag like a corpse onto the floor. The snake blood on his clothes had begun to crust. He stripped off everything, walked into the shower, and stood under the steaming water longer than necessary. His muscles ached, his knuckles were bruised, and something smelled faintly like burnt hair.
After scrubbing himself raw and towel-drying with something that smelled vaguely of mint, he threw on fresh clothes and sat down at his desk.
He took out the seed and the small egg. He reckoned that he wasn't the first one to get Medusa's egg and googled it online.
He opened his laptop and typed in a few keywords. Medusa egg dungeon drop. Mythical serpent-type beast egg. A few results popped up, mostly junk, but one video thumbnail caught his attention.
He clicked.
A YouTuber with sparkly eyes and way too many sound effects screamed into the camera about "training a real-life Medusa baby" for online fame. The poor creature in the background wore makeup. Clown makeup. Its snake tail slithered around clearly scared and irritated, but couldn't do anything.
Axel closed the tab.
"Yeah... nope."
Some sick freak actually raised the egg and made it a circus clown for YouTube views.
Axel wasn't going to raise another Medusa so he threw the egg up for anonymous auction under a burner account. No reserve price. Highest bid takes it.
He looked up information on the seed but couldn't find anything on it. So he did the only thing that made sense. He shoved it into a planter by the window, covered it with soil, and poured water over it. The dirt soaked in quietly.
Finally, he laid down in bed and within minutes, he was out cold.