The Fourth Secret: A Fantasy LitRPG Adventure (Divine Apostasy Book 4) by A. Kay (best short books to read .TXT) 📕

a weapon. The Elder Viper spit venom again, but he reacted in time and dodged the stream. Unlike a human opponent, the Elder Viper only had one vulnerable area, its head. The rest of its body was just one large muscle.

The wound on Ruwen’s side burned, and three seconds later, a wave of pain pulsed through his body and his minute counter dropped by ten. The Elder Viper had poisoned him, and it caused ten damage every three seconds. At that rate, he’d be out of minutes in just over forty-five seconds.

Ruwen immediately thought of the venom that had splashed on his eyes and body. Viper blood had cured that. He jumped away from the Elder Viper to give himself some space and kneeled as another wave of pain made his skin prickle. Only one hundred forty-three minutes remained.

The blood on the ground had dried. Ruwen grabbed a wad of the bloody grass and stuck it in the wound, but he didn’t feel any different, and a moment later, he felt the flash of pain and his counter dropped another ten minutes.

Ruwen stood, impressed with the Elder Viper’s strategy. By killing all the small snakes, Ruwen had removed his easy access to the antidote. He could run back into the bamboo, but it was likely the Elder Viper had forced all the snakes away. In fact, that would explain why the temple no longer had any snakes on it.

Another pulse of pain, and Ruwen dropped to one hundred twenty-two minutes. That left only one source for the blood he needed, the Elder Viper.

And the Elder Viper knew it. It had already burrowed itself halfway into the ground. Ruwen leaped forward, grabbed the large snake’s tail, and wrapped it around his arm. Pain from the venom made him stagger.

The Elder Viper pulled Ruwen downward, smashing him into the ground. The snake waved the end of its tail around, trying to slash Ruwen with its sharp edges. A wave of pain made him convulse, but he kept his grip. One hundred two minutes left.

Ruwen’s right arm was pinned against the ground as the Elder Viper tried to escape. The sharp tail gave him an idea, and he grabbed its base with his left hand. Again, the venom shook his body, bringing him under a hundred minutes.

Twisting the tail around, Ruwen sawed at the Elder Viper’s scales. The sharp tail scratched the snake’s scales, giving him hope, and he put all his strength into breaking through and getting the viper’s blood.

Another surge of pain from the venom, followed almost immediately by an almost unbearable pain in his back as the Elder Viper sank its fangs deep into Ruwen’s body.

Without Last Breath to buffer the pain, Ruwen almost let go of the tail. The vicious bite had taken twenty minutes and, coupled with the venom, brought him to just sixty-two-minutes left.

Ruwen hissed like a snake himself, and slammed the tip of the tail into the Elder Viper’s body. It penetrated the scales and Ruwen ripped it across the snake’s body, creating a large wound.

Pain exploded through Ruwen’s body as he pushed himself to his knees and pressed the bleeding snake against the wound on his side. The pain in his back increased as the Elder Viper twisted, but the pulsing pain that had come every three seconds had stopped. The blood had worked.

And Ruwen realized the Elder Viper, in its frantic attempt to stop him, had bitten too deeply, and remained stuck in Ruwen’s back. Reaching down, he grabbed the body of the Elder Viper where it exited the ground, and with a tight grip still on the tail pulled upward with all his strength, yanking the snake from the soft ground. He walked to the temple as the Elder Viper thrashed, but he had a good hold on the snake’s tail, and its stuck head gave it no leverage.

Ruwen stopped at the closest pillar. His left palm read fifty-two minutes. Turning his back to the pillar, he slammed himself against it. The building shook, and he paused to make sure it wouldn’t collapse. When it didn’t, he smashed the Elder Viper against the pillar again. Over and over he repeated this until minutes later, the snake went limp. Fifty minutes appeared on his palm, which now read one hundred even.

Unwrapping the Elder Viper’s body from his arm, Ruwen threw it over a crossbeam. Turning around, he pulled down on the tail, which pulled upward on the viper’s head. With a wet sucking sound, the Elder Viper’s fangs finally pulled loose from his back.

Ruwen knew that the smell of some animals deterred others, and he really didn’t want to fight another snake. Using the Elder Viper’s tail, he cut the body open and let the blood cover him, hoping that would keep the other snakes away. The hardest part for him to protect had been the back of his neck, and he reasoned it would only take a minute to make a quick helmet.

Using the tail, he cut the Elder Viper’s head off, leaving two feet of body attached. It took him another minute to scrape the muscle away and stuff the skull full of grass. Then he pulled the Elder Viper’s head over his like a helmet, the fangs protecting the sides of his face. He used the snake’s tail to cut it free of the viper, giving Ruwen an excellent blade.

The entire process had taken five minutes, but the armor and weapon made him feel better. He sprinted to where Pine had died and retrieved the four red sorrow fruit, bringing his count to six.

Ruwen thought about talking to the five meditating people in the temple, but decided against it. Even if they’d seen Pine’s grandson, too much time had passed for it to remain accurate information. Not only that, but if Pine was part of an escort mission and a piece of the Founder’s test, when Pine died, the grandson probably disappeared as well.

Ruwen knew he shouldn’t be helping people. He