42 Stage Four: Clear! (2/2)

But what greeted the snake was an uppercut hammer strike. The snake was shocked as Darius was strong enough to send it dozens of meters up, far more than its length. The observers of the exam gasped once more at Darius' strike. He had managed to predict where the snake would attack and strike a weakness of the spirit under its chin.

At first Lara had not believed him when he told her he could do it. Because his confidence came from intuition. 'I feel I can do it, if you won't help me I will do it myself.'

This sounded ridiculous, not to mention that they were finding in a swamp, there was no soft soil to stomp on. But Darius physical control was superb, shocking her once again.

Then Letty jumped toward Darius. The snake was dizzy from the head strike and the mid-air flight, but it could faintly make out an odd scenario. The humans were fighting each other!

Of course, this is not what had happened. Darius had used his hammer to fling Lara ahead. She landed on the hammer with her feet, bent and jumped forward as she was launched, being flung dozens of meters in a second.

The snake was fast and could match Lara but there was a problem. It was still in mid-air! Lara landed on the muddy hill same time as the snake landed on the ground. The snake immediately tried to bolt forward, but a shocking event occurred. The snake ripped into two!

”Woah.” Said a surprised Lionel.

This was of course Darius' doing. As the snake fell, he placed himself right by the tail. The snake was too concerned about protecting the flag to notice a weight being placed on its tail. This was indeed the hammer. But it was not that simple. The tail did not land on the ground! It had landed on another hammer!

This was the ability he had gained from the second dantian, Weapon Clone!

This was a low-level skill, but for Darius it was invaluable. Its primary skill, Dual Weapons allowed Darius to clone his smiter. The second ability, Replication, allowed the smiter to be copied enchantment and all. This meant he now he two hammers if he so wished! But creating the second hammer was draining if he used both the primary and secondary abilities.

Darius did not trust the soil beneath him, so he decided to give the tail a proper 'hard ground' to seal it in. The snake's ability to pounce forward quick became its undoing. With its tail caught its body ripped in two. Every spirit had a weakness, and the main weakness of this snake was a section in the middle. Weak Spirit hunters who can't just cut it, hold the tail of the beast with a contraption and have it kill itself due to its odd physique when it tries to bolt forward.

Darius had learned about this from Lara and formulated a plan. And it had worked perfectly, down to the last tee. Lara was holding the flag while the top half of the spirit wriggled to death. Both conditions: Clear!