Chapter 133: Premium Snake Leather (1/2)
Acht hid in his master's shadow and watched as Rino completely annihilated the snake lady with his shadow magic. His previous fear about meeting the living cave guardian vanished, and for once, he was happy to be under the powerful lich's protection even if Rino was his murderer.
He never had a decent life when he was alive. However, as strange as it sounded, Acht felt that he could appreciate the new chance at living after his death under the leadership of this magician.
Rino was merciless. He did not waste time killing the lamia. All he needed was this snake's skin for premium leather to make himself better shoes and maybe a new mantle. Who was he kidding? He wasn't going to make a new mantle. Rino was simply going to repair this to the best of his abilities. A gift from Noir should not be so easily replaced.
Without even chanting, Rino conjured a sharp shadow slicer and hacked the lamia's head off. He had no idea if lamias regenerated and grew new heads like their cousin hydras, but the lich used fire to burn the spot that he decapitated the guardian for safe measure.
The snake lady did not have time to scream or react as her body went slack.
Rino couldn't move even after the lamia boss was dead. In the distance, he could hear the panicked fluttering of gargoyle wings as the lamia died. What would happen to the ecology in this living cave now? Rino wasn't sure, but first, he had to dismantle the fresh corpse.
”Mutt,” he summoned, and the sabre tooth wolf appeared from his shadow, casting his injured master a glance of worry and a small whine.
Rino grimaced at the damage he suffered. Even with high-speed regeneration, healing so many broken bones would take a while. Not to mention the hole in his mantle where the bitch bit was still there. His shoulder joint was still melted, and Rino couldn't move an inch without assistance.
It was more accurate to say that every other bone was broken or smashed apart from his skull. He would rather deal with a severed head than a smashed body like this again. It was faster to reattach his head than piece the thousands of broken pieces all over.
It took Rino nearly ten minutes before he was fully healed. By that time, the gargoyles were busy fighting among each other, and some attacked Rino. Mutt did his job and tore them apart, but not without suffering some damage when the school of gargoyles ganged on the sabre tooth wolf.
In a confined space, Mutt could not unleash his full power, and Rino had to reward the loyal hound for putting up a good fight until the lich was ready to face them on his own.
Without warning, the gargoyles picking on Mutt crashed to the ground as Mutt braced himself for one more round of sneak attack. The gargoyles had very sharp claws that dug into his shadow body painfully, but for the sake of buying his master time, Mutt persevered. Their deaths accompanied by stab holes through their chests made the large wolf wag his tail happily.
”Master!”