As soon as the potion touched its black scales, it started growing.
Eva didn’t bother waiting for it to reach full size.
“Go, my pretty,” Eva said, nudging it along with the blood. “Go and trample this forest. Find the vampire and contain him.”
With one last look towards Eva, it slithered off into the forest, still growing larger and larger.
Now the others were looking at Basila with impressed looks on their faces. Or… maybe that was fear. Anise’s lower lip was trembling and her hands were shaking.
“Th-that’s a basilisk.”
“Yep! Let’s go. Use Basila as a shield. Fight off the vampire if you can. Distract him. Whatever. The dryad is a secondary priority. I’m heading for the shrine.”
Eva blinked away.
Basila, rapidly approaching hallway size, charged through the forest without a care in the world. Vines never got a grasp on her, seeds bounced off her scales without her even noticing, and the trees were shattered at the trunk as she rammed into them. A few of the trees whacked into her with a disturbing amount of force before she could destroy them, but they had nothing like nun lightning. Her natural regeneration—or unnatural, given the ritual Eva had performed on her—helped to counteract the damage a great deal.
Eva didn’t actually need to hide behind Basila. So she didn’t. She just kept blinking straight across, leaving the others behind.
She did ensure Basila stayed well within her range, however, just in case the snake decided to coil up around one of her teammates. It did take a nudge every now and again to keep her moving in the right direction.
By the time Eva crossed enough distance to see the vampire, he had obviously noticed her as well. He angled his sprint away from the giant serpent to put them on a collision course.
Eva curled her fingers, conjuring explosive balls of flame between each one.
She tossed them out well ahead of when the vampire would have made it to her, conjuring up a second set the moment they were out of her fingers.
The vampire shifted course to avoid the series of explosions. He ran straight past Eva.
As he did so, he took the serpent with him.
Eva paused for just a moment, inspecting it with her sense of blood.
Though it was roughly a snake, it had a drastically different circulatory system when compared with Basila.
Basila was a golem. Originally, she hadn’t had a circulatory system. After the ritual, she got a single tube of blood running from nose to tail. There were no real veins or capillaries.
The serpent had all that and more. She could see organs. A heart, stomach, lungs, tongue, eyes, and anything else one might expect to see in a living creature. That didn’t really tell Eva much aside from the fact that whatever it was, it was real.
And, so long as it was focused on the vampire, Eva had an opportunity to inspect the mural.
Two more blinks through the fake forest had her at a small set of stairs leading up to the shrine.
They were as gold as the pillars and wall.
Eva jumped straight to the top, frowning slightly as her feet dug large gouges into the floor. They were sharp and gold was soft, but this whole thing couldn’t be real gold.
Not that it mattered, though if it were a prize for victory, that would slightly sweeten the deal.
At the very front of the mural was a small pedestal stretching up to her waist with the top shaped into a shallow cup. The perfect size for a marble.
Of course, dropping her marble in the slot did nothing. If it was that simple, the vampire would have won already. The marble didn’t even stay in the slot, it rolled out despite the depression where the marble should have stayed.
From afar, she had only been able to see the sun. Which was truly massive. Up close, Eva had to crane her neck just to see the top of it. Down closer to the pedestal yet still high above it were two circular moldings protruding from the wall.
Eva shuddered as she looked at them.
One was a set of concentric rings. The other had less rings, but also had lines in the shape of a hexagon.
The serpent’s eyes.
Eva turned back to the forest with grit teeth. Were they supposed to kill the serpent and take its eyes? Put them somewhere around the platform. That seemed a bit violent for live television.
Besides, there wasn’t anywhere to put them even if she did have them. Maybe if the protrusions were deep carvings instead.
Turning back to the arena, Eva quickly surveyed the area. If the trees were gone, everything would be much easier. She could clearly see the trail that Basila was carving through the forest. Even more devastating than a hallway-sized snake plowing through everything were black orbs eating and consuming all the plant life around the area.
Which, if they were made up of magic, made sense.
Eva couldn’t see the dryad anywhere around. Given how well she blended in with the trees—both visually and through her nearly impossible to see blood—Eva doubted she would be able to spot her without her being obvious about it.
The vampire still had the serpent after him. He dashed between the trees, using them as cover and platforms to spring from.
Which had Eva narrowing her eyes.
She was up at the gold shrine. Why hadn’t it switched to her?
Had he stolen something from up here? Had he provoked it?
Despite the white lightning that occasionally fired off in the vampire’s direction and missed, none of her teammates had hit, or even attacked, the serpent. Though maybe someone had while her back had been turned, but she doubted it.
Flying through the air, the vampire reached out. His hand dug into one of the thick branches as if he had Eva’s claws. Doing so stopped him short of a bolt of lightning, but allowed the serpent to close distance.
Something he had apparently planned on.
The tree swung its branch backwards, flinging the vampire on a collision course with the serpent. Both of his hands spread out, intent on gripping onto the serpent.
Or maybe clawing into it.
Not willing to let itself be attacked, the serpent spun around. Its tail whipped into him, sending him flying across the room straight towards the golden shrine.
And, consequently, straight towards Eva.
He twisted in the middle of the air, angling to properly attack her.
Eva ignited every part of her body that wasn’t covered in clothes. Flames dripped from her hands like globs of burning tar, spreading across the platform. They wouldn’t last long, but she only needed them to last long enough to ward off the vampire.
His eyes went wide as Eva’s smile widened.
Even if he could hop around without getting hurt, he couldn’t fly. Physics still carried him straight to her waiting arms.
Her burning arms.
Eva’s fist connected with his stomach. Flames from her arm launched forwards when her arm found itself unable to continue, coating the vampire’s shirt in the sticky flames.
He jumped away before Eva could follow up. His shirt flew off his body as he grasped one of the pillars, keeping high and out of Eva’s immediate range.
“Will you desist,” he snapped at her, not really asking a question.
Eva didn’t bother answering. The vampire was already leaping towards her.
More, the serpent was on a collision course with the mural. The mural she just happened to be standing in front of.
Eva jumped, letting the vampire take the blow. She landed just between its horns, grabbing onto one as she extinguished her flames.
Amazingly enough, she didn’t go flying into the wall when the serpent hit it.
In fact, the serpent didn’t hit it at all.
The vampire caught the serpent, one hand on each of the person-sized fangs. Normally, such a thing would have had Eva staring. Even for a vampire, that was an impressive display of strength. The serpent was at least twice the size of a hallway-sized Basila. Probably bigger.