There was some gray moss growing on the ground and walls, while the air seemed to be heavy with moisture, forming a faint white fog.
Nasira looked around cautiously but did not find anything unusual.
“Be careful, if this is really Anil’s Garden, it will definitely be a troublesome place.”
“Let me do it,” Manasi the magic knight walked forward and his full body of armor started making sounds. He knelt down on one knee and rested his arms on the ground.
“Fire of Clarity.”
A purple circular pattern lit up around his arms, and the purple snake-like pattern drilled into the ground.
Shoom…
A cluster of yellow flame ignited spontaneously on the ground and turned into a fiery snake, moving around as though it was a living thing.
“Keep up with it, it will bring us to the deepest core of this area,” Manasi warned and got up.
The rest of them did not say much, but followed behind the snake tightly and moved forward rapidly. Soon, they entered a crude tunnel, and as the distance they traveled increased, the white fog around them got thicker and the air became moister.
The bright fire snake that was leading the way started to gradually become dim, as though it was being restricted.
Manasi had to take out a few weird looking things like a snake’s gallbladder and throw it into the flame to barely sustain the flame of the fire snake.
Hooo…
“What’s that sound?” Nasira suddenly stopped, “Did you both hear that?”
At that time, the three of them were already deep into the crude looking tunnel, and they were surrounded by cold, hard rock walls.
“Sound? What sound?” the thousand-legged serpent frowned and looked around.
Hooo!
Suddenly, a group of distortions passed by behind him, and two of them exclaimed and instantly attacked.
Bang bang!!
Two groups of black fog hit the stone wall behind the thousand-legged serpent, the impact causing quite a number of black stones to fall off the wall.
The thousand-legged serpent reacted to it by growing a large amount of hair all over his skin, of which the texture was that of a living creature. His hair started popping out in all directions frenziedly, like needles popping out under high pressure, and most of the spiked hair hit the stone wall and made a crisp clinking sounds.
“Watch out, above you!” Nasira shouted.
The thousand-legged serpent hurriedly looked up, just in time to see a group of transparent distortions lunging towards his head.
******************
Boom!!
Garen punched the walls of the stone wall tunnel. A large number of rocks were smashed into powered form, scattering onto the ground and creating a deep rumble.
A several meters deep large pit appeared on the stone wall, and numerous dense cracks spreading around it.
“Ah?” He unclenched his fist and looked at the stone wall.
‘This should be an independent underground passage, so there won’t be any connected tunnels around, you should just give up.’ Black Sethe said briefly.
“This is indeed a little troublesome,” Garen nodded. “If only I could fly, just like in the previous world, I could just fly straight up, and not even this place could trap me.”
‘If I’m not wrong, even if you could fly, if you don’t figure out the tricks and methods to leaving, you will probably not be able to leave.’ Black Sethe said in a low voice, ‘There seems to be some sort of spatial distortion here. No matter where you go, space will eventually be twisted and you will be directed into a downwards direction. Moreover, if you go downwards, unless you break through this entire planet, you will never be able to leave.’
“Can you find a way?” Garen continued to move forward. The surroundings of the passage changed from a bright yellow tunnel into a rough stone wall tunnel.
‘I need time, how can I think of something all of a sudden? Just keep moving forward, so I can get to know more of the spatial rules here.’
“Ok then.”
Garen speeded up and continued walking deeper into the tunnel.
*****************
“Ah!!” the thousand-legged serpent shouted. Her whole body lit up in a purplish-red glow and a purple flame started burning in her eyes. She opened her tiny mouth wide and shot out a shivering, distorted purple light, which looked like a transparent twisted tip of a knife.
However, a strange phenomenon appeared, the purple laser went straight through the distortion and did not have any effect on it.
Poof!!
The thousand-legged serpent froze with a shocked expression before she was directly covered by that group of distortions. She was being wrapped in it and it looked as though she was being stuck in a huge lump of sticky glue.
She struggled for breath, but she could not get out of the distorted slime.
Nasira and the Manasi tried various methods to cut open the group of transparent distortions, but they were all futile. All they could do was watch as the thousand-legged serpent got smaller and smaller inside the distortion.
Her body began to melt like a candle.
Her face began to decay and melted into lumps of dripping light yellow fluid. Her eyes were the first one start melting, as well as her breasts, nose, and other protruded parts. Before the melted fluid could slide down any further, it would rapidly merge into the group of transparent distortion.
“Damn it!!” Nasira attempted to use her hands to rip open the distorted slime, but it was to no avail. Her energy-absorbing physique did not work, and all she could do was watch the thousand-legged serpent struggle inside the distortion.
Sweat started dripping down her forehead.
“Damn it! What the hell is going on in this place?” Nasira felt pain in her hands, so she immediately took her hands out, and when she glanced at her palms, they were already a little corroded.
“Let’s go!!” Manasi grabbed her from behind and started running backward, and after a few steps, they notice that they were just running on the spot, then they turned around and continued running forward.
Both of them were still in shock, and the thousand-legged serpent’s twisted and hopeless face gradually disappeared behind them, consumed by the darkness. They continued moving forward by following the Fire of Clarity, and soon they put everything behind.
“The thousand-legged serpent is an upper ranked person! Don’t worry, she will not die that easily….” Manasi comforted. However, the both of them were aware that the thousand-legged serpent was AG’s subordinate instead of a member of the Witch’s Association, and as they were not that close, it was unlikely for them to pay a huge price to save her.
Being an upper-level person did not only represent their strength, it represented life and vitality. It also represented the same for upper-class blood breeds.
The upper blood breeds could isolate part of their core and preserve it while their main body could still maintain its peak state, just that their endurance would be weaker. By doing so, when they need to execute an extremely dangerous mission and they were sacrificed during the process, they could extract the essence from the preserved core and quickly create a new body. Of course, reviving would cause that person to be weak for a long time, at least a year or two, but it would be better than dying directly in a fight.
Similarly, the upper-level witches had similar tricks; they could make use a large number of secret techniques to strengthen their own body, and also the Broken Lizard Tail method, which sacrifices a part of their body when they are in a life-threatening danger. The most common way was to use their alliance.
The alliance was the witches’ supernatural companions that belonged only to them. The alliance itself did not have high intelligence, but they were an incomprehensible illusory being that only witches could summon.
Ah!!!!
Suddenly, they heard a piercing scream coming from behind.
Is was the thousand-legged serpent!
She sounded like she was in extreme pain, the instant that they heard her piercing screams, Nasira and Manasi felt chills all over their body and they involuntarily speeded up.
“Quick!”
Nasira was almost sprinting.
Before they got too far, she suddenly stopped, stood still in the tunnel and dared not move forward. Manasi who was behind her almost knocked into her.
“What happened?”
Nasira slightly took a step back and stared at the dark passage in front of them alertly. She did not speak and all she did was point in that direction.
Manasi looked towards where she was pointing and saw a bald man dressed in black standing in front of the channel, blocking their way.
The most prominent feature of that man was his shiny bald head, but strangely, there were various sized eyes covering the top of his bald head. Those were all human eyes with a sharp contrast between black and white, the eyes kept blinking, and it looked oddly creepy.
The man stood with his back facing them, though there were dozens of eyes at the back of his head, and he was motionless. It seemed like he was not a living person, but a sculpture.
Both Manasi and Nasira felt an inexplicable wariness of the man.
“Let’s do it!!”
Nasira suddenly rushed forward and made a sideway kick. Along with a terrifying roar, she took out a few transparent air bombs and threw them directly at the man.
The air bombs were comet-shaped, and they lined out in a straight line on the back of the bald man.
Boom!
The air bombs exploded but the bald man was undamaged.
Hooo!!
Right at that moment, a huge force rushed out violently behind Nasira and hit her from behind.
Bang!
Nasira staggered forward, seemed to have tripped on something, lost her balance and fell forwardly onto the floor. But she immediately felt something entangling around her waist.
She caught a glimpse of a number of black tentacles behind her, each as thick as a water bucket. The moment the tentacles entangled around her waist, they became transparent and started secreting a large amount of transparent fluid.
Heee!!
She immediately made a weird shrieking sound. Then, her left arm broke off and her whole body became blurry. As though she’d teleported, she disappeared on the spot and appeared in front of the tunnel, which was more than ten meters away.
It seemed like Manasi used the Broken Lizard Tail method, and they ran into a forked road which suddenly appeared in front of them.
“We’ll go separate ways!” Nasira shouted and ran straight ahead without turning back. The tentacles were so powerful that they were much stronger than an upper-level blood breed. Each tentacle was extremely sticky, and it was impossible to break free from it.
At this moment, she felt the burning pain on her waist; even the Broken Lizard Tail could not even get rid of the fluid, and while this thought made her gasp in shock, she involuntarily increased her pace.
Along the way, she dropped a few dark red disks, which automatically set off a cracking sound once they were thrown, and drilled into the ground like a tiny octopus.
They were strengthened time bombs that she’d made specially. They were attached to extremely powerful alliance forces, in other words, the power of witches.