It suddenly stopped struggling. Its entire serpentine body went still at once, abandoning its attempts to fight alone.
The Serpentine Chimera's body lashed violently. A deep rumble reverberated through its entire form, shaking out from the depths of its flesh at an extremely low frequency and piercing through the rock walls in every direction. Lu Yuan's heart sank. It was calling for its companions.
Adrian heard it too. The old Bishop shouted, "Hurry up! It's calling for reinforcements!"
The Blue Knight thrust her Rapier three times in rapid succession, each strike slamming into the roots connecting the serpent body to the Copper Pillar as she tried to strip it completely away. On the other side, the Great Ascendant smashed apart two thick roots with his alloy fists, the metal striking the woody structure with dull cracking sounds.
Driven mad by the agony of its roots being torn away, the Serpentine Chimera's entire body suddenly split apart. It divided in two from head to tail, then kept splitting—two became four, four became eight. Within seconds, the whole serpent body had shattered into seven or eight thinner snakes.
Each was as thick as an adult's arm. The instant they split, more than half of the Leike Swarm covering their surfaces was forcibly flung away. Dark brown flesh-worms sprayed through the air like rain, scattering across the gravel-strewn ground.
Leike's form condensed anew from the swarm, his expression somewhat surprised. He clearly had not expected the Chimera before them to possess such an ability.
The seven or eight thin serpent bodies danced through the air, attacking several times faster than before the split. Huge amounts of spores sprayed from the severed ends of every serpent body, and gray-green dust rapidly filled the cavern, reaching a concentration visible to the naked eye within seconds.