Chương 58: [B2] Chapter 16: The Quetzalcoatl (Part I)

The river looked exactly as it had days ago, clear and unhurried in the shallows, cool air rolling off the surface in a way that still, despite everything, read as inviting to anyone who hadn't already learned what waited beneath it.

"We are not going to pretend that's reassuring," Viria said, bow already in hand, quiver considerably fuller than the last time she'd stood at this bank.

"I am not asking anyone to find it reassuring," Zero said.

"I am asking everyone to hold position while I confirm what we are facing before we commit to anything." He ran Identify at the water's edge, and this time, the result did not return an error. Identify: Quetzalcoatl Level: 102 Type: Ancient Feathered Serpent Attributes: Storm Affinity, Aquatic Superiority Threat Level: Critical Note: Territorial, mated pair confirmed deceased"Level 102," Zero said.

"Not yet a weakness. Identify has improved since the last attempt, but it has not improved enough to tell us where this thing is actually vulnerable." Miho unsheathed her sword.

"We cannot run away from this a second time. Whatever this territory decides to do with us if we retreat again, I am not confident it improves our position."

The water stilled the way it had before, current bending around something vast and patient just beneath the surface, and this time, none of them would wait for it to decide the opening move.

"We cannot outrun this," said Miho.

"You two learned that once already."

"Then we need a plan," Yukito said, turning to Zero out of reflex.

"I do not have one yet," Zero said, plating already thickening along his forearms.

"So I need you to first survive what it throws at us. I will find the plan once I understand what I am working against." The water erupted before anyone could argue the order of operations.

The tail came first. It came in a scything arc that swept low across the bank in a wide, deliberate sheet, and all four of them scattered from the same direction at once, because there was no reading a strike this broad, only clearing the ground it intended to occupy. The author's narrative has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"Tail sweep," Miho called, breathless, already resetting her footing.

"Wide, low, telegraphs in the shoulder before it commits."

"Noted," Zero said, and filed the observation the way he filed everything useful, cataloguing the wind-up so the next one would cost them less. The second attack arrived without a shoulder to read at all. The creature reared, chest expanding, and the breath that followed was not water. It was an electrically charged wind given weight and direction, a compressed gale that tore through the clearing and threw Yukito into the tree line before his shadow had finished forming anything solid enough to brace against.

"Storm breath," Zero said, watching the gale dissipate into ordinary wind at its edges.

"Not aimed like the tail. Aimed like a weapon meant to reach further than its own reach otherwise allows."

"Good to know," Yukito said, hauling himself upright, "preferably before the next one."

They learned the rhythm across the exchanges that followed, the way any team learned a fight worth surviving: the tail's telegraph in the shoulder, the breath's telegraph in the chest expanding a half second before it emptied. Miho's footwork carried her clear of two consecutive sweeps. Viria's arrows found scale rather than air more often than not, though none of them did more than sting. Then, the creature stopped simply attacking and started using the water itself.

The river's surface lifted in a controlled wall and pressed toward Zero with enough force to drive him back a full body's length despite reinforced plating braced against it. A moment later, the same water reshaped into something narrower and faster; a lance that Viria only barely avoided.

"It's not just striking with water anymore," Miho said.

"It's shaping it. Directing it like a second set of limbs."

"And it hasn't needed to leave the safety of the river once to do so," Zero said, watching the wall recede back into the current it had come from.

The roar, when it finally came, arrived because nothing else had reached far enough. Yukito had put real distance between himself and the bank, using height and shadow together to stay clear of the tail's radius entirely, and the creature's head snapped skyward instead of toward him, throat working, and the sound that followed had no register a living throat should have been capable of producing. Lightning answered it.

Not falling randomly, but called, arcing down from a clear patch of sky directly onto the spot Yukito had chosen specifically because nothing on the ground could reach it. He barely cleared the strike, shadow yanking him sideways a half second before the bolt hit, and the ground where he'd stood scorched black and steaming.

"It calls the weather when nothing else has the range," Zero said, watching the scorch mark smoke.

"That is not a random decision. That is a targeted response to distance it cannot otherwise close."

"Wonderful," Viria said, breathing hard.

"So there is nowhere on this entire riverbank that's actually safe."

"Not currently," Zero agreed.

"I am working on that."

He was still working on it three exchanges later, dodging a tail sweep by inches, when the window resolved without warning, quieter than the fight around it deserved. [Skill Improved: Identify Lv. 5 → Lv. 6] Sustained observation across multiple ability types logged. Resource-consumption pattern detected: Elemental output correlates with measurable depletion in local water volume.

Zero read it once, mid-motion, and felt something settle into place the way a form settled once he'd finally watched it enough times to know what came next. He didn't stop moving. He didn't have the luxury of stopping to explain it properly, not with the creature already gathering for another pass, water rising thick around its coiled length in preparation for whatever came next.

"Hold on," he said, loud enough to carry over the rising water.

"All of you. However long it takes. I think I've found a weakness."