The giant serpent was much faster than he thought, not really something he was used to thinking in the first place. Apparently, it"d been using it"s cruising speed the whole time while it was advancing on the kingdom. Once it saw the explosion Zhao Wei had released it covered the several tens of kilometers distance in less than a minute.Luckily Zhao Wei didn"t wait for it to arrive, getting his own head start in as it was turning. Even with the board, Zhao Wei was sure he couldn"t outrun that thing. A bug might be fast for it"s size, but put it in a sprint against a large animal, it was sure to get left behind. That"s how Zhao Wei felt right now.
The distance between them was 2 kilometers, but even with that Zhao Wei could feel the sand being blown away under its ma.s.sive gait, each grain stinging his skin as it rained on him like needles.
Every two seconds, it would close another hundred meter distance between them both. And as it got closer, the more difficult it was to control the board as the sand under it rippled violently with its movement. If he fell it wouldn"t just end with him being washed away in it, he"d be blended by the millions of microscopic edges those grains held, breaking him down cell layer by cell layer.
300 meters, 6 seconds before he was in the belly of the beast. Each wave was like that of a small tsunami, but he couldn"t couldn"t turn yet, if he did it now then it"d just turn with him, he needed it to get closer so that he could take an angle it wouldn"t be able to follow.
But with the great turbulence caused by the waves on the sand he was a lot slower, it was 2 seconds faster than he"d planned to meet it, it"s teeth suddenly just 20 meters away from him and closing in fast.
Lucky for Zhao Wei, it wasn"t as accurate as it was fast, instead of biting Zhao Wei, it had b.u.mped him with it"s gargantuan teeth. In that moment Zhao Wei braced his foot to push off with the force of it"s movement. But he didn"t take into account how heavy a load it was going to be.
Sure he was launched pretty far and high, but his foot instantly fractured with several loud snaps! as it took the force of the blow. Judging by the pain, he was definitely looking at a lot of internal bleeding and a lot of torn muscle from the exploding bone fragments in his leg, from his foot all the way to his hip. Holding his sail horizontally he used it as a glider to twist his direction to the left of the Jormugandr, cutting behind it at a steep angle.
Seeing it"s prey slipping so close to it, the Serpent tried to twist it"s head around to snap up Zhao Wei. But at this angle it was as good as it putting the brakes on it"s rapidly moving body causing it to drift a little before the rest of it tipped over. Just as it"s teeth were supposed to close on Zhao Wei, the inertia from the rest of it"s body pulled it"s head back as it tumbled away.
It"s body colliding against the ground several times caused several shockwaves and earthquakes that even Zhao Wei who was in the air could feel. The ground ruptured all around it, leaving what could only be called a newly formed valley in it"s wake. Unfortunately, the ground probably looked worse than the beast itself felt as it shook it"s head a little before locking on Zhao Wei to resume it"s chase.
This was way out of Zhao Wei"s calculations, maybe due to it"s rapidly growing body, it hadn"t gotten used to the whole weight of it. But even if it succeeded this time, he didn"t want to try it again, that was way too close a call for comfort. And if he had to use his limbs as sacrifice each time, there wouldn"t be anything left by the fourth try. And by now, he"d only stalled it for less than a minute, if he continued doing this he"d at most last 4 more minutes. It would receive a little damage but it would still be in a good enough mood to gobble up everyone else.
Like before, it"d caught up to him in less than a minute, even after it took some time to find it"s bearings after that fall.
Zhao Wei had done a lot of calculations, the damage he would take, how long he could last, what contingencies he would place. But all those margins which were supposed to last him 20 hours in his head, were being depleted very quickly in less than 10 minutes. By now, he wasn"t even sure he was going to last the hour much less the next 19.
The second time it came around, Zhao Wei had taken the last mistake into account, twisting his direction early before the turbulence slowed him down. This time he succeeded, but the learning cost was already far too great far too early for a single success, and seeing it"s eyes that were locked on him, he wasn"t really sure if he could do it again.