183 Lizard (1/2)

Ivan sat down on the ledge while panting heavily. Even with his strong body, climbing the wall had taken out more of his power than he would ever have guessed. Hindered by his lack of technique he was often only able to proceed by using pure power, something that put extreme strain on his body.

\”Wow, this is truly a great way to work out and train.\”, he told himself. Sadly he didn't gain anything besides the experience in climbing as well as a bit of a better understanding of how to move his body and exert his strength. Especially the last point was something useful.

He then looked up and sighed. There was even more wall waiting for him to climb up. Once again he was tempted to just call Vlada to carry him up. But he was stopped by his fear of griffins. While they wouldn't attack targets at the ground in a pack, this completely changed when the target was in the air. They were extremely territorial and would hunt down anything that ventured into their skies.

Having taken a break he once again got ready to climb on.

After he had finally ascended the wall he found himself on a plateau. In the distance, the mountains continued up even further, but for now, it was relatively flat. Of course, the terrain was extremely rocky and it wasn't rare to find some ravines crossing the plateau. But it was a breeze to continue on here as compared to the wall he had just had to climb up.

While he was making his way over the plateau, suddenly a rock seemed to move towards him. Not sure if it was only his imagination it increased his wariness. Some of the monsters living here were well versed in hiding themself.

The event just a few seconds later proved his carefulness to be prudent, as the rock he had thought just moved was thrown aside as a giant lizard shot out of the hole it had covered.

The lizard had a granite colored exterior, made up of scales as large as his hands. Its mouth was adorned with large teeth, which would seemingly crush anything that would come between them.

Before Ivan could continue his observation he was forced to roll aside as the heavy body of the reptile went through the space his own one had just occupied.

Contrary to what its size could make one believe it was very fast. Not only was it fast but its tail was also extremely flexible and strong.

Ivan had just rolled aside to doge its mouth and body when the tail crashed towards him. Because of his recent hurried evasion, he didn't have a good stand and was unable to evade once again. And don't even mention blocking the tail attack. Not only was his position unsuited to do so, but the power behind the hit was also too much.

Thus the attack managed to hit him squarely on the chest. He had instinctively turned towards the attacker and thus he was now hit at such a sensible location. He had the feeling that someone had tried to smash in his chest and his body flew back. Rolling in order to absorb some of the force of the hit he hurriedly got back onto his feet, only to be greeted with the wide mouth of the lizard in front of him.

Using every ounce of available strength he threw himself backward in an attempt to dodge the closing jaws of the attacker.

He could feel the wind produced by the snapping together of the jaws on his face but he had still managed to escape the seemingly fatal attack.

\”Fu...\”, he couldn't even curse at the moment as he was once again hit by the reptile. Just that it was its snout this time. It seemed that after missing its bite it had decided to ram its face into him.

Once again he was flying to the air and once again did the foe rushed towards the spot he would land on.

This continued for, in his opinion way too long, until finally, he couldn't hold on anymore. Since it was impossible for him to get into any position that would allow him to counterattack, with all the flying around. Not to mention the heavy bruises and most likely broken bones, which also seriously hampered any chance of mounting a counterattack. Anyway, he decided to call Vlada for help.