Chapter S-Class Monster

Unlike ordinary woods, the crises of rainforests often lurk unnoticed.

That dense canopy and those branches were the best cover for hunters; they shuttled among them, staring at their prey in silence with a pair of hunting pupils.

They waited only for the prey to let down its guard before delivering a fatal blow!

Yuri walked through the winding, twisting path, pressing forward toward the central lake based on the direction in his memory.

Aside from encountering the first wave of Deinonychus, he had encountered quite a few magical beasts one after another along this road.

Basically, they all had cursor marks on their bodies, and he did not know whether the old man had marked too many or whether these magical beasts were too aggressive.

In short, regardless of whether their levels were high or low, solitary or gregarious, they were all present.

There were not even any duplicates, which explained why people said this place was a paradise for magical beasts.

It was just that... ever since arriving near this area, Yuri had not detected any movement of magical beasts around him for quite a long time.

If he had not started having a stroke of good luck, then there was only one possibility!

Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!

Successive sounds of breaking air came from behind Yuri, and seeds like nuts larger than human heads shot over from deep within the rainforest.

He whipped around, kicking out with a volley that directly sent one seed flying, and like a struck billiard ball, it bounced toward the subsequent flying seeds in succession.

The seeds whose trajectories had been altered grazed past Yuri, yet he kicked them back with a clean set of combo movements.

A side kick, a front snap kick, a spin kick, and a bicycle kick, his movements were so practiced that he was simply like a soccer player who had not eaten sea cucumbers.

Those flying seeds flew backward from different angles at an even faster speed, bouncing among the large trees and crashing into one another before shooting one by one toward a large green snake coiled around the treetop.

The large snake felt the pain, its jagged mouth splitting open in four directions like a blooming flower.

Emerging from the middle was a woman-like upper body with two feelers growing on top of its head, and the cursor mark of Makarov was even printed on the chest position.

"Intruder, who are you?!" the woman's upper body shouted.

"Just a passing Devil Hunter."

Yuri placed his hands on his hips. "Mother of the Forest? I'm very glad to have caught your attention, otherwise I would have thought I was being treated as air."

The half-human, half-snake fellow before his eyes was the S-Class magical beast entrenched in this area, the Mother of the Forest, Echidna.

Usually when she had nothing to do, she liked to scatter her children everywhere... or rather seeds... in short, she was dedicated to filling the entire world with her offspring.

Perhaps precisely for this reason, Makarov had marked her.

"Glib-tongued," Echidna said angrily. "Just go ahead and laugh for now; very soon you will be absorbed into the forest by me and become nourishment for these children of mine."

With that, the four petals forming the mouth closed once more, and Echidna's snake-form body, which was a full twenty meters long, charged over from the treetop.

"That would be far too extravagant; I'm afraid they'd have indigestion."

Yuri leaped, dodging Echidna's tyrannical charge, and clasped one hand onto the scales of her skin, getting carried along as she traveled through the bushes.

Echidna coiled and slithered around the tree trunks among the forest, attempting to knock Yuri off by utilizing the surrounding branches.

Who would have thought that Yuri would actually stand up on her back, and even start running along that thick, long body?

Until near the head, he suddenly leaped onto the tree trunk ahead, his right hand lighting up with a cluster of azure radiance, and smashed down fiercely toward Echidna's head!

"Bang!"

The tiny iron fist enveloped under that azure radiance seemed to carry boundless force, easily slamming Echidna's massive body heavily onto the ground.

Yuri adjusted his posture in midair once more, and an intricate magic circle formed by azure radiance blossomed beneath his feet.

Accelerating a second time, he went straight for the fallen Echidna.

Yet suddenly, seeds condensed on her body once again and were shot out, crashing toward Yuri like cannonballs.

Yuri reacted instantly, raising a hand to draw the Blue Rose at his waist, its muzzle continuously spitting flames to shatter them one by one.

Following that, he immediately put away the gun to switch swords, pulling out the Red Queen on his back in an attempt to pursue his attack further.

Who would have thought that Echidna's hook-bladed tail could actually split open like her mouth.

Eight tentacles like octopus feet passed around Yuri, then gathered and wound back, immediately wrapping around his limbs and dragging him over.

Echidna slithered her body to turn her head, opening her jagged snake mouth to swallow Yuri down.

Yet Yuri did not mind the crisis before him at all; his gaze at this moment was entirely focused on the deepest part of Echidna's tail, upon a pink organ spitting disgusting mucus.

Suddenly, Yuri curved his lips slightly, revealing a demonic smile, and instantly pushed the horsepower of the Red Queen to the maximum.

With a sharp knife tip like a red-hot iron rod, he gave that anal-like part a single jab!

"Sizzle----!!!"

The sound of a teppanyaki squid being cooked rang out, and the next moment it was drowned out by a piercing shriek.

Echidna screamed in agony, and the "octopus tentacles" wrapped around Yuri hastily released him as the entire snake instantly pulled back to a distant clearing.

Then she opened her snake mouth to reveal her human torso, flusteredly spreading her snake tail apart while lowering her head to inspect her reproductive organs.

Upon seeing that her originally pink and tender parts were now scorched black, Echidna immediately let out a shrill roar.

"Ahahaha---- hateful intruder, I'm going to tear you to pieces!!!!!"

"Just you?" Yuri followed with his greatsword slung over his shoulder. Sitting on a long-collapsed stone pillar, he taunted, "Little flower snake, if you ask me, you should think about how to whiten your skin first. Otherwise, you might not even be able to have children."

"ROAR!!!!"

Echidna let out a piercing shriek. The sound waves seemed to ripple through the air, and an orange-yellow glow began to swirl around her.

Her steadily rising magical power seemed to proclaim just how furious its master was at that moment!

"Die!!!"

Echidna spread her snake tail and roared, then stuck herself into the ground like a potted plant.

Yuri rubbed his chin with interest as he watched, then joked, "How are you planning to kill me? By sitting there and sucking up dirt?"

Just then, eight tentacles suddenly emerged from the ground around them, encircling Yuri like a birdcage.

But just as Echidna had said, she wasn't trying to restrain Yuri. She wanted to tear him to pieces!

So the hook blades, their edges flashing coldly at the ends of the tentacles, began striking at Yuri from every direction.

Yuri was like a little bird trapped in a cage while someone stabbed at him with knives. He could only twist and dodge in the cramped space, evading the blades as they came at him.

Perhaps controlling eight hook blades at once was too much for her. Before long, the rhythm of Echidna's thrusts and sweeps began to falter, and a gap suddenly appeared at the top of the cage.

As the bird in the cage, Yuri leaped into the air without hesitation, spreading his wings as he tried to escape.

Just as he was about to succeed, a shadow suddenly descended.

Yuri turned around, and a huge mouth filled with jagged teeth instantly swallowed him whole.