Sorcerer… Cyborg???

Chapter 96: Phantom Lizard

For a moment, Tam was stunned. In the space where he had expected to see an enormous beast or at the very least some kind of threatening creature, there was nothing. He was at a loss, he could feel the dense mana growing closer to him, so there must be a threat.

Then, the shifting light and odd space where the trees appeared almost identical to those around them made complete sense, the beast had a reflective hide, and was mostly invisible amongst the irregular vegetation.

Tam was taking no chances, and immediately cast his Hawk Aura, the dense blue aura shrouding him in a powerful urge of enemy, and the pair of huge blue hawk's wings extending from his back.

With a few powerful flaps, Tam flew into the air, hovering above the narrow track that he and his soldiers had been traversing. Awaiting the beast.

It roared with rage, an aerial opponent was not a favorable matchup for it, but nonetheless, it had felt Tam's power and knew that it needed to defeat the threat.

Tam suddenly dove to the left, he felt the surging of mana that hinted at an attack, and dodged preemptively. Only a moment later and he would have been completely engulfed by the high pressure jet of water that shot through the air, and even at his level, it would have done some serious damage.

During the entire attack, Tam had kept a close eye on the odd creature, and had observed its shroud falling during the few moments it had required to quickly charge up and fire the attack. Evidently, it could not maintain its camouflage and fire off its water pressure at the same time.

It was a reptilian creature, obviously favoring Water Magic, and constantly kept up a shroud of shimmering reflective water over its scaled body to hide it from potential enemies.

The scales behind the shroud were large and circular, and were a dull green color, with hints of black, perfect for blending with the depths of the swamps of Kalun.

A long narrow crocodilian head with tiny glowing orange eyes, ran into a long serpentine neck, it had a relatively small body, and stood on two powerful hind legs, standing half upright, with its forelegs still close to the ground.

Its rear legs led to powerful webbed feet, and a broad tail shaped like a paddle extended far behind it, which it also used to balance while it was firing the jet of water at Tam.

The creature's forelimbs however ended in sharp curved claws, attached to remarkably dexterous hands, that clenched and unclenched as it stared viciously at Tam.

Then, it was gone again, hidden by the veil of shimmering water. 

Tam had heard of such a beast, the invisible terror of the swamps, known by the locals as the Phantom Lizard, it was notorious for slipping into the more remote villages in the dead of night, and carrying away an entire water buffalo. From its, those stories were likely true, the massive lizard could easily hold a full grown buffalo in its jaws.

To keep the creature at bay, and to stave off further water jets, Tam slashed out attack after attack, carving up the ground around the creature, not too focused on attacking the beast itself, but still buying time so that his soldiers would have a good chance to get to a safe distance.

The creature, forced on the defensive, snarled and growled angrily, as a few slashes broke through its shimmering veil and revealed it, leaving small nicks on its body that dripped dark purple blood.

The Phantom Lizard was clearly outclassed, and it let out a defiant snarl at Tam before turning to flee back into the depths of the forest, but Tam wasn't going to let it leave so easily.

The pair of hawk wings at his back folded in, and Tam dove down, just like a hawk diving to catch its prey, aiming straight for the creature.

He landed just behind the Phantom lizard, and the shimmering camouflage fell away, revealing its scaly hide. 

Noticing Tam, the lizard snarled, and attempted to turn toward him, but instead, its head fell from its neck, falling to the ground with a thud. A spout of blood sprayed high into the air, as Tam neatly walked away from the falling body, the confused eyes of the Phantom Lizard wildly swiveling in every direction.

As the light faded from its beady orange eyes, the Phantom Lizard only registered one emotion in its mind, confusion.

While Tam easily dispatched a reptilian threat to him and his men, the beginnings of Kothar's ship and fabrication facility were taking shape.

He had been hard  at work, and the once empty enormous hollow within the trunk of the willow was filled with metal contraptions and rudimentary machines, so much so that Kothar had needed to expand his new home.

There was now an entire series of rooms dedicated to storing raw materials, they were stacked high with ores, wood, and reagents he might need.

Another large room was filled with failed creations that he might be able to repurpose, even with his experience and with Silane's assistance, creating the precise equipment required for his ship wasn't simple.

But now that the groundwork was in place, he could begin experimenting on the Imperium, since it was to be the power source for his ship.

Kothar had created a separate room purely for experimenting on the Imperium, far from the main cavern and his storage rooms, since he didn't know what might happen in the process of trying to harness its power.

It was high up in the tree, connected to his main cavern by a narrow staircase that he had painstakingly carved with his Plasma Blade.

Within, the Imperium lay in a cradle of Titanite, the alloy that had given the weapons of the Alliance their renowned strength and durability.

Kothar summoned a portal next to where he stood, so he could easily escape in case anything unforeseen happened.

He reached out his finger and summoned a small spark, sending it at the glowing orange rock. 

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