I held my staff up at the ready, eyes darting from side to side. There was a Monster here. At least one.
I held still, unmoving, careful not to make a sound. But I was too stiff. I might not have reacted in time if something came out at me right this instant. So I took a step back—
And a figure burst out of the bushes. A large, serpentine shape emerged from beneath the thicket of trees, whipping itself out of the blanket of darkness to bask in the silvery moonlight. The Horned Viper lashed out at me, its fangs the size of my arms, and its head the size of my body.
I reacted instantly. The ground shot up, forming a wall between myself and the gargantuan snake. The impact sent dirt flying in all directions, but it held strong. The Monster reeled back for another strike as I raised my staff, spell circle already forming, the intricate pattern nearly complete.
A blade of wind shot out, sending a visible ripple through the air as it launched forward. The Horned Viper’s slit-like pupil flickered. It saw the Wind Blade coming. And despite its large size, it nimbly slithered out of the way of the attack.
I backed up as quickly as I could; I had to put as much distance between me and the Monster as possible. I already had another spell cast: three purple orbs floated around my shoulders. The spell circle was gone yet the spell stayed— I had pre-cast it, keeping it at the ready. I was about to send it flying at the Horned Viper, when the light from my magic illuminated its features. It… didn’t have a horn? Wait, that means…
This was its second head.
I made the realization just in time to save myself. I threw all my weight to the side, dodging a larger serpentine figure as it came crashing down where I once stood.
The horned head of a snake stared at me as I just barely rolled to safety. It was nearly twice as large as the other head. And although its fangs were just as long and just as sharp, it was twice as deadly, for this pair was actually venomous. Not that it mattered much, since it would have swallowed me whole if I did not get out of the way.
I found myself standing upright as I fired off half a dozen Magic Missiles at the first head in a flurry of attacks. I was hoping to hit it with at least one of them while it was still on the ground, but once again, the Horned Viper moved at an incredibly fast speed.
The first head retreated back to the second, and the two began coiling around one another. Two heads. Two targets. Connected by one body, dozens of feet in length. It was almost unfair, but I still found myself smirking. Because I knew all I had to do to even the playing field was give it multiple targets back.
The Horned Viper lashed out at me, striking with its second, hornless, head. As per usual, it came quick. But I pointed my staff at it while raising my free hand to the side, casting two spells at once. The first was a simple defensive Force Barrier. Enough to protect myself from the brunt of an attack, even if it would probably still send me flying. The second, however, conjured multiple glowing sources of light. Sources of heat.
The Monster’s eyes flickered in confusion as its vision was covered by dozens of flaming arrows. It rained down on the second head of the Horned Viper, too many to dodge, and coming in incessant waves that never seemed to cease. The damage was negligible, but more than that, Fire Arrows were forming around me. If my guess was right, and the Horned Viper actually had infrared vision, I had to be nothing more than a blur to it at that moment.
And I was.
The second head of the Horned Viper pulled back in confusion, taking the hail of arrows, barely more than a singe on its onyx scales. The first head, however, inspected the small dots of heat coming into existence like stars covering the night sky, trying to find my figure hiding behind it. I was bigger than a small flaming arrow, after all.
The Horned Viper saw something move. A heat source, larger than the others, running quickly behind the cover of the Fire Arrows. It sent the second head sweeping in that direction, ignoring the Fire Arrows that bounced off it, while uprooting trees and crushing the earth at where it struck.
But all the Horned Viper found there was a burning intense pain. The Monster hissed, though it came out almost as a scream. The second head pulled back, its face badly burnt, the scales now charred and flaking.
It glanced back at the Flame Wall as it went sailing through the ground, in the random direction I had sent it in. The Horned Viper whipped its head around, searching for me in confusion. And it saw me, standing amidst the now dissipating Fire Arrows.
I had not moved an inch.
I took a step forward, the three glowing orbs still floating behind me, and began casting two more spells once again. On my left hand, a ball of flames came into existence. Larger than even my head, burning almost like a miniature sun. And above my head, a magic circle began to misshapen itself, taking the form of a long, pointed object.
A chill slowly crept down the tip of my staff, frost forming a thin layer over the wisened wood. A crystalline spear made of ice finished forming, leaking out luminescent wispy smoke under the moonlight.
I threw the Fireball at the Horned Viper in an arc. It saw
