My Anime Shopping Tree & My Cold Prodigy Wife!
Episode : 72

Chapter : 143

Stormwing, Captain Valerius’s bonded spirit, hadn't taken on a fully humanoid form, as some Ascension-level spirits did. Instead, it retained its majestic, terrifying avian-leonine hybrid form, a testament, perhaps, to its primal nature or Valerius’s own preference for its battlefield utility. It hovered for a fraction of a second above its master, its vast wings beating the air with thunderous downstrokes that sent leaves and debris swirling, its piercing shriek echoing through the trees, a direct challenge to the colossal serpent.

"Stormwing! Engage!" Valerius commanded, his voice hoarse but unwavering, pointing his sword directly at the obsidian serpent’s looming head. "For the Lady Faria! For the honor of the South!"

With another ear-splitting shriek that seemed to shake the very leaves from the trees, Stormwing dove. It wasn't a graceful flight; it was a terrifying, meteor-like plummet, a blur of storm-grey feathers and gleaming talons, aimed directly at the serpent’s massive, golden eyes. Its beak, sharp as a spearhead, tore at the air, and its talons, extended like grappling hooks forged from tempered steel, raked across the serpent’s obsidian scales.

For one breathtaking, almost unbelievable moment, it seemed to work.

The attack was so sudden, so unexpected, so filled with desperate, concentrated fury, that the gigantic serpent actually recoiled slightly, its massive head jerking back as Stormwing’s talons, sharp enough to shred solid oak, scored deep, screeching gouges across its seemingly impenetrable hide. Dark, viscous ichor, black as tar and smelling faintly of ozone and ancient decay, welled from the shallow wounds. The serpent let out a hiss, a sound like a thousand furnaces igniting simultaneously, a sound that wasn’t just anger, but surprise, and perhaps, a flicker of actual pain.

Stormwing shrieked again in triumph, pressing its attack, a whirlwind of tearing beak and slashing talons, its storm-grey feathers a stark contrast against the serpent’s night-black scales. It was a desperate, furious ballet of aerial assault against terrestrial might, a clash of primal powers that dwarfed anything Lloyd had witnessed before, save perhaps the Mire Monster’s own initial, horrifying emergence.

Faria gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, a flicker of desperate hope – so quickly extinguished before – daring to reignite in her terrified eyes. Her guards, witnessing their captain and his legendary spirit engage such a terrifying foe, let out a ragged, involuntary cheer. Even Lloyd, despite the crushing weight of his own despair, felt a surge of reluctant admiration. Valerius and Stormwing were magnificent, a testament to courage in the face of impossible odds.

Maybe… Lloyd’s internal monologue whispered, daring to hope against all reason. Maybe they can actually do it. Maybe they can drive it back. Or at least buy us enough time to… to… well, to do something other than become snake food!

The hope, however, was as short-lived and fragile as a butterfly in a blizzard.

The obsidian serpent, momentarily surprised, perhaps even slightly pained by Stormwing’s furious, unexpected assault, recovered with terrifying speed. Its golden eyes, which had flickered with surprise, now narrowed into malevolent, incandescent slits, blazing with a cold, ancient, utterly implacable fury. The initial shock had passed. The annoyance had solidified into lethal intent. This insignificant, fluttering pest, this bothersome gnat with sharp claws and a loud screech, had dared to draw its blood. It had dared to interfere.

With a movement so swift it was almost impossible to follow, despite its colossal size, the serpent’s massive head, which had recoiled, now lunged forward again. It wasn't an attack with fangs or venom. It was simpler. Cruder. More contemptuous.

It was a casual, almost dismissive flick. Like a giant batting away an irritating fly.

The serpent’s vast, obsidian-scaled snout, easily as wide as a carriage, slammed into Stormwing’s side with the force of a collapsing mountain.

There was a sickening crunch of bone and feather, a strangled, agonized shriek from the magnificent Griffin that was cut off mid-cry. Stormwing, moments before a whirlwind of storm-grey fury, was sent tumbling through the air like a broken, feathered toy, its powerful wings bent at unnatural angles, its body a ragdoll in the grip of irresistible force. It crashed, with a sound like a falling tree, into a dense thicket of ancient, ironwood oaks several dozen yards away, the impact shaking the very ground, sending a shower of splintered wood and torn foliage into the air.

A final, broken, screeching whimper, laced with unbearable agony, echoed from the depths of the shattered thicket. Then, silence. A terrible, profound silence.

Chapter : 144

Captain Valerius stumbled, his face ashen, his sword falling from his nerveless fingers to clatter uselessly on the mossy ground. A single, choked gasp escaped his lips. He clutched at his chest, his body spasming as the devastating backlash from his spirit’s critical injury, its near-destruction, surged through their bond. He collapsed to his knees, his eyes wide with a despair so profound it was almost physical, staring towards the spot where Stormwing had vanished. His spirit, his companion of decades, the embodiment of his strength and honor, swatted aside, broken, with a single, contemptuous gesture.

The disparity in power was absolute. Unfathomable. Crushing.

Terror, stark and undiluted, gripped the remaining members of Faria’s group. Their last, best hope, their veteran captain and his Ascension-level spirit, had been neutralized with an ease that bordered on the insulting. If Stormwing, a creature of mythic power, was nothing more than a minor irritant to this colossal serpent, what chance did they, mere mortals armed with slivers of steel and fragile courage, possibly have?

The gigantic obsidian serpent, its golden eyes now holding a chilling, almost smug satisfaction, turned its attention back to them. It loomed over the small, terrified knot of humans, its shadow falling like a death sentence, eclipsing the last vestiges of the eerie twilight. The glade, moments before a potential sanctuary, a place of desperate hope, was now confirmed, beyond any shadow of a doubt, as a deathtrap. They were trapped, with no escape, at the mercy of the forest’s true, ancient, and utterly implacable guardian. Its forked black tongue flickered out again, tasting their despair, savoring the imminent, final act.

Lloyd stared, his own carefully constructed facade of manic defiance crumbling under the sheer, overwhelming weight of this new, even more hopeless reality. He had seen power before. He had faced terrifying foes. But this… this was different. This was elemental. Primal. Unstoppable.

Okay, his internal eighty-year-old pragmatist whispered, a voice of cold, weary resignation amidst the screaming panic. So much for throwing rocks at the hurricane. Turns out, the hurricane eats rocks. And Griffins. And probably overly sarcastic reincarnated Arch Duke’s heirs for dessert. This… this is genuinely, comprehensively, checkmate.

The obsidian serpent loomed, a mountain of coiled night, its golden eyes burning with cold, possessive hunger. The Dark Vein flower, still clutched in Faria Kruts’s paralyzed hand, pulsed with its eerie, dark luminescence, a beacon drawing the creature’s inexorable attention. Captain Valerius lay broken, his spirit shattered, his hope extinguished. Faria’s remaining guards were pale statues of terror, their swords useless trinkets against this primal force. Fang, whimpering at Lloyd’s feet, was a spent shadow of his former power. Despair, absolute and suffocating, settled over the small clearing like a physical shroud. This was it. The end. A messy, probably quite painful, and utterly undignified demise in the cursed heart of Galla Forest, all for a flower and forty damned System Coins.

No.

The word was a silent scream in Lloyd’s mind, a defiant spark against the overwhelming darkness. Not like this. He was Lloyd Ferrum. He was KM Evan. He had survived death once, twice. He had faced down political assassins, corporate sharks, existential dread, and his wife’s perpetually frosty disapproval. He was not going to be eaten by a giant, flower-obsessed snake with a bad attitude and questionable interior decorating choices (the glade was, frankly, a bit gloomy).

He thought of Ken Park. The silent, stoic, terrifyingly competent bodyguard. The man whose loyalty was as unshakeable as his deadpan expression. The man whose power, Lloyd instinctively knew, far exceeded the ‘Ascension-level’ displays he’d shown so far. The System’s stipulation flashed in his mind – summon external aid, task voided, no reward. Forty System Coins. The maternal bloodline awakening. His carefully hoarded progress… gone.

His jaw tightened, a muscle spasming in his cheek. The coins, the power-up… they were vital. But survival? Survival was paramount. What good was a dormant bloodline if he was currently being digested in the belly of a mythological reptile? The eighty-year-old pragmatist, the soldier who knew when to call in overwhelming air support, made the cold, hard calculation.

"Screw the forty coins!" Lloyd snarled aloud, the words ripping from his throat, raw with desperation and a sudden, reckless surge of defiance. He didn't have time for subtle mental summons. He needed help now. "KEN! KEN PARK, YOU OVERGROWN, OVERPAID, OVERLY STOIC SHADOW! IF YOU ARE OUT THERE, AND I KNOW YOU DAMN WELL ARE, YOUR YOUNG LORD REQUIRES IMMEDIATE, CATASTROPHIC, AND POSSIBLY EXTREMELY LOUD ASSISTANCE! GET YOUR INCREDIBLY COMPETENT BUTTOCKS IN HERE BEFORE THIS OVERSIZED GARDEN SNAKE TURNS US INTO A MID-AFTERNOON SNACK! CODE RED! CODE BLACK! CODE WHATEVER-COLOR-MEANS-'GIANT-MONSTER-IS-ABOUT-TO-EAT-US'!"