Rowan was the first to move.

Without waiting for the others to get into position, he condensed aura onto his great sword and jumped off the ground with a bang.

Like a ghost, he appeared in front of the groggy snake and slashed down with all its might.

The snake\'s instinct kicked into overdrive as it tried to maneuver away from the incoming slash.

Alas, it was already too late.

*Slash*

The sound of flesh being cut through rang out clearly, and a moment later, a loud screech rang out louder than a city bell throughout the whole forest.

This screech was one of unbearable pain as liters of blood gushed out of a slash wound in the snake\'s left eye and onto the ground below.

And with it, the reason why A-rank monsters were called natural disasters became apparent as the snake thrashed around crazily, utterly unconcerned for anything around it, causing the devastated ground to shake once more.

The whole forest could feel it, and by now, Rowan had landed back onto the ground.

The guilders behind him were already hopeful and were beginning to think such a monster wasn\'t actually all that strong, but unlike them, Rowan knew that such a thing could never bring it down.

And as he landed, he quickly spoke before attacking once more.

"Begin the attack. Ilyon, follow my lead"

The admiral\'s determination was being showcased as Rowan leaped up once more to attack.

This time though, he was far less successful as the snake slammed him back into ground the moment he took to the air. Fortunately, that allowed Ilyon to land a clean strike on uncovered flesh, causing blood to gush out once more.

Whether this was a good thing was up in the air, because now the snake was utterly enraged.

It was in the middle of a crucial breakthrough when something shook the mountain it resided in, causing rubble to fall on top of its head.

It came out of the mountain with a little bit of effort, only to find intruders in its territory.

It couldn\'t care less about them, but the evolution had caused it to become weak. It hoped they all just ran off and left it alone for the time being.

But these insects actually dared to attack it?!

It would show them who they had messed with. It would have to put them in their place by squashing them like the insects they were!

With such reasoning, the snake moved.

"It\'s coming!" Rowan yelled out to the guardians as they came forth with their shields to halt the beast\'s advance.

Unfortunately, they had grossly underestimated its might.

"AHH!"

The line of guardians was scattered in an instant as the snake swept them off their feet with its tail, flinging them afar.

\'Damn\' Rowan bit his lip at the development as he took a look at his body.

His stamina had gone down to dangerous levels because of all the running from before.

He could take stamina potions like he had been doing till now, but even that had its limits.

Too many potions in one day could lead to very bad side effects as the impurities of said potion kept accumulating in one\'s body.

Apart from that, there was also the case of developing resistance, which could develop into an immunity after taking a particular potion too many times.

And what would you know, Rowan\'s resistance to stamina potions was already high.

Meaning that, if he drank a stamina potion, about thirty percent of it would be impurities, and the remaining seventy percent would then be cut short by his resistance. The remaining, however small, would now do its job.

You should also note that with every intake of that potion, his resistance will also increase.

By his calculation, he had to drink almost fifteen stamina potions before recovering his stamina back to its peak.

Now, he might need seventeen to get his stamina back to the peak.

But the problem was that he only had twenty more stamina potions in his spatial ring.

A dilemma for sure.

And he wasn\'t the only one.

\'If I knew this would happen I would have conserved my energy\'

Ilyon felt regretful at the development.

They had come to avenge their comrade and Fernand had told them that the culprit might flee if they weren\'t fast enough, so they ran towards this direction with all their might.

That was why they were able to arrive so fast.

Alas, that running had eaten almost half Ilyon\'s stamina reserves.

It was even worse for the guilders that had followed him, which was why the guardians couldn\'t hold like they normally would.

But there were no "what if" in life, they had to make do with what they had right now.

"Mages! Strike it with your strongest spells!" Rowan shouted.

"Are you trying to get us killed?!" a mage yelled back.

"If we don\'t act fast, we\'re going to all die either way"

Unlike guardians who defended with bodies of steely muscles, mages were as tough as pebbles.

It didn\'t take a genius to tell what would happen if the snake attacked them.

And now Rowan was telling them to call its attention?!

So you can understand why the mage\'s face turned pale at the command.

Luckily, Rowan had a good head on his shoulders.

"Ilyon and I will keep it busy so you can focus on attacking!"

The line of guardians had been scattered, but not everyone had been hit by the snake\'s massive tail.

Those lucky or skillful enough to avoid it were still putting up a fight.

A losing one, but a fight nonetheless.

Rowan was now sure that to have any chance of killing this beast, he would have to put his life on the line.

But when he figured that if the snake finished evolving he would die anyway, it didn\'t feel all that heavy anymore.

And so he began once more.

"Come here, you slithering b*stard!" he said as he jumped over the guardians and arrived in front of the snake along with Ilyon as they attacked with even more vigor.

But of course, the snake was no slouch either.

*Baam* It slammed its tail on the ground to destabilize their footing, causing Rowan to slip, and quickly followed up with a tail slam.

The snake had identified Rowan as the biggest threat and moved to eradicate him.

Rowan, sensing the incoming danger, rolled out of the way. He didn\'t have time to think about honor and whatnot as a tail slammed right beside him a second later.

\'This isn\'t going to be easy\' Rowan thought, and he never expected it to be.

But when he saw the snake\'s left eye-

\'F*ck!\'

-he couldn\'t help but curse as he was reminded of a very nasty feature of evolution.

Regeneration.