Chapter 1000 Chapter 1000 Battle for the Tower of Heaven
"Go."
Upon hearing Marcus' order, the Thunderous Molten Colossus his magic had conjured took a step forward and began running towards the Tower of heaven's guardian.
Each time one of its feet touched down on the ground, a resounding crash echoed throughout the area and the earth itself shook violently.
In its wake the giant golem left cracks in the ground and large patches of burnt land. It was no exaggeration to state that the creature Marcus had brought forth was a walking calamity.
As it approached everyone that had been fighting at close range against The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent to gauge its abilities back away and allowed the titanic golem to take center stage.
When the Colossus had gotten within its range, the massive serpent uncoiled part of its tail from around the Tower of heaven and lashed out against its newest opponent.
Its tail that was as thick as a skyscraper, smashed into the Colossus and forced it back several steps.
Nevertheless, The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent was the one that took the most damage from its own attack.
The molten body of Marcus' conjured monster emitted an extraordinary amount of heat and was covered in lightning that flowed into anything that touched it.
With a swift movement that easily created a sonic boom, the Tower's guardian pulled back its tail and let out a pained screech.
At the same time the dent in the Thunderous Molten Colossus' body swelled with molten metal and the powerful golem was recovered in less than a second.
After their first clash, The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent understood that it could not hope to defeat its current challenger with physical attacks. It may have been nearly three times larger than the Colossus and physically stronger, but the gigantic golem's nature made it heavily resistant to physical attacks and dealt great damage to anything that touched it.
"Bring it down from the tower." Marcus said, relaying another order to his creation.
Currently the gargantuan serpent was wrapped around the Tower and even the lowest part of its body was around a kilometer above the ground.
Without the ability to fly, the members of the expedition squad that focused on close combat were having difficulty attacking it from the base of the tower.
Of course, the current situation also kept the Tower's guardian from effectively attacking with its head, and it had primarily been using its tail as a whip during the opening of the fight.
However, its more passive approach did not last much longer. Now that Thunderous Molten Colossus had taken center stage in the battle, The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent knew that it had to treat the miniscule challengers a bit more seriously.
For the first one of its heads did more than keep an eye on the battlefield and attacked.
The moment Marcus' enormous golem reached out tis hand to try and drag the Tower's guardian down, the head that resembled a sea snake opened its mouth and released a torrent of water.
Undoubtably, this attack would have done a great deal of damage to the Thunderous Molten Colossus, but it never reached its target.
Just as the water shot out of the sea snake's mouth, a blast of cold energy flew up and froze the water along with the head of the sea snake.
Thanks to her Dragon Eyes race ability, Mrazivy already knew about the powers at The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent's disposal and had warned Marcus over telepathy about the sea snake head's ability to launch a high-pressure jet of water its mouth.
With this information the two of them coordinated together and Mrazivy had intercepted the attack that could deal the greatest damage to Marcus' titanic golem.
After being encased in ice, the sea snake head thrashed about wildly in distress, but the other heads did not pay it much mind and simply avoided it as they prepared to intercept the threat that was still coming for them.
All of the reaming heads except for the middle one fired other attacks from their mouths, ranging from a fire breath from the horned sand viper to a spray of powerful poison from the albino spitting cobra.
Five powerful attacks impacted the Thunderous Molten Colossus, but the sturdy golem pushed forward and gripped the Serpent's tail with both its hands despite the damage it had taken.
It then pulled down with all its might and attempted to wrench the massive beast free from the Tower of Heaven as its master had commanded.
Of course, as powerful as the Colossus was, it was not going to be enough to force The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent down to the ground on its own. Luckily, it had more than enough support that had been waiting for this moment.
While the guardian of the Tower of Heaven was distracted, every member of the expedition squad unleashed the powerful attacks they had been preparing for this moment.
Spells and mana attacks imbued with offensive skills flew into the air and impacted the immobile beast and the entire Tower it was coiled around was engulfed in several massive explosions.
Following the barrage of attacks that sent several shockwaves through the area, a deafening thud caused a monstrous earthquake.
Fissures spread through the once tranquil land surrounding the Tower of Heaven and everyone had to brace themselves due to the intense shaking. Still the sudden disaster was seen as a good sign. There was little doubt that what had caused the earthquake was The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent falling from the Tower of Heaven.
'It took more damage than I was expecting.' Marcus thought with a grimace.
From atop a large tree that had stayed standing through the earthquake, Marcus looked to where his Thunderous Molten Colossus had collapsed onto the ground.
There was a large chunk missing out of the right side of its body and half of its left arm was missing. Along with these major damages, the golem was also racked with several other injuries.
Certainly, it had sustained some damage from the unfettered attacks delivered by the members of the expedition squad, but Marcus could clearly see that its missing arm and the piece missing from its sides were clearly bite marks.
When it had realized it was about to take a great deal of damage anyway from the expedition squad's attacks, The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent had stopped carrying about avoiding injuries and attacked the Colossus without care for the heads that would be severely burned and electrocuted.
With only a quick glance Marcus could see that it was the coral snake head and the boomslang that had taken bites out of his golem. Both of those heads had terrible burns and were involuntary twitching after having a great deal of electricity pass through them.
'None of the heads were even destroyed though. It is just a tough as I excepted and now that it is on the ground, things are only going to get more intense.'
Along nearly the entirety of the guardian's body were deep wounds, but the damage was truly only surface level. Even gashes that were a dozen meters deep were only scratches to a creature of its size.
Plus, its injuries were already healing at a prodigious rate thanks to the one part of its body that was unharmed. The central head that was a golden king cobra did not have a single blemish on it was in possession of a powerful healing ability that it could use to recover from virtually any attack. Not only that, but the central head was protected by a nearly indestructible barrier so long as any of the other six heads remained.
Seeing its powers in action, Marcus could understand why Mrazivy had singled out this head as the most difficult to deal with. So long as the central head remained The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent could not realistically be defeated, but in order to destroy it, the other six heads had to be dealt with first.
'Still, I've got to try don't I.'
Holding his staff up, Marcus channeled magical energy into it and cast the tier eight lightning magic spell Calamity Bolt.
A second later a powerful lightning strike with all the force of a nuclear bomb fell down on the central head.
Yet, as expected, the powerful spell that could level a town in one go bounced off harmlessly and dissipated into the air without releasing its destructive force.
Several other attacks from the expedition squad members flew towards the central head, but none of them managed to so much as put a dent in the barrier. It had become clear that their powers would not be even close enough to take out the central head without going through the others first.
'I wish we had Quillon was here. As strong as the guardian is, I doubt it could hold up to the attack from his Supreme Skill that specializes in breaking barriers.'
Unfortunately, as much as Marcus wished that his friends and beast compassion were here to back him up, he would just have to make do with the forces of the expedition squad.
Of course, he did have at least one person he could count on without any doubt.
With an attack as fast as a flash of light, Mrazivy, leapt off the ground and her sword cut straight through the already damaged coral snake head.
The large head crashed to the ground and a flood of blood poured out from where it had been decapitated.
Several of the other heads moved to retaliate but found themselves likewise under attack.
Fianna's arrows pierced into the eyes of the albino spitting cobra causing it to recoil, Evette had enveloped the black mamba head in a sphere of necrotic energy, and Cassius had stuck with his own sword and sliced through around a third of the sea snake's neck.
Along with their leaders the members of each respective party focused on one of the heads and attacked them with everything they had.
It did not take long for the battle to descend into a one-sided pummeling as the expedition squad did not let up on viciously attacking their injured and disoriented foe.
Nevertheless, their dominance did not last for long, the central head quickly activated two of its other abilities in order to turn things around.
Thousands of the scales that had fallen off of its body rose into eh area and emitted a shimmering light that reinforced them.
These scales then floated around The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent and attacked anyone that got too close while also fending off ranged strikes.
At the same time, the golden king cobra head unleashed a horrendous screech that covered the entire central area that was devoid of fog.
Many members of the expedition squad had their eardrums burst from the blaring noise and some fell to their knees with nauseous expressions on their faces.
By just using these two abilities, The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent pushed back the expedition squad and put an abrupt end to their ferocious assault.
"Looks like this is where the real fight begins." Marcus muttered under his breath as he prepared healing magic to get those in the worst conditions back on their feet.
With his and Evette's help, everyone in the expedition squad was soon back in good fighting condition, but the time they spent healing had given their opponent the opportunity to recover as well.
Other than the head that Mrazivy had taken off in one go, all of the rest of the injuries that The Celestial Seven-Headed Serpent had incurred during the battle had vanished without a trace.
Everyone who saw this felt disheartened to find out that nearly all the effort they had put into attacking the Tower of Heaven's guardian had been erased.
"Don't lose heart yet. We have already begun the battle and we are going to see it through until we win, or it becomes clear that we have no chance. Evette said, stoically. "Now prepare to attack again. Let us show this beast what the top adventurers can do."
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