“Tweeeet...”
The sound was almost inaudible, but Angor still managed to hear it, and he knew it was Toby’s voice.
The strange thing was, he failed to understand the call when he was usually able to tell what Toby was saying. It was as if Toby was mumbling nonsense in a dream.
Also, the voice sounded rather weak. Weak, and even miserable.
Angor felt his heart beating faster.
He quickly followed the direction of Toby’s voice while bearing with the intensifying stench in the air. He could almost feel the evil will of something crawling on his skin. If a deadly monster was here waiting for him, it wasn’t far.
“Tweet...” Toby called again.
Angor kept moving while readying every safety measure he could think of.
Ssssss—
He had been wondering why he had not run into a single snake in the cave when there were so many crawling trails and reptile feces all over the place. That was until now—the path ahead was overrun by countless snakes of different colors and sizes, who completely blocked the route like a wriggling wall of flesh.
All the snakes jerked their heads and looked at Angor as one. Their sharp, hissing noise echoed between the cave walls, causing Angor to shudder uncontrollably.
Slowly, the snakes closest to Angor arched their bodies higher, clearly to warn Angor not to disturb their territory.
These things did look creepy, but the energy signatures shown from their bodies did not feel much different from that of those flying fish. A mortal could easily kill one or two if they knew how to handle a blade. This meant Angor had no reason to back off.
He simply moved forward while using the save mist illusion, only to find that the old trick did not work well against the snakes because these beasts relied upon their other senses rather than their eyes. It seemed the snakes could freely sense his body heat, his smell, or the vibration of his movement. It was too difficult to create an illusion that blocked all these elements.
If so...
“Field of Fire!”
A giant wall of flame enveloped the snake swarm.
At the same time, Angor unleashed a Nightmare Fear cantrip to amplify their sense of terror, forcing the snakes to run for their lives.
Most of the creatures tried diving into the river nearby. But this wouldn’t help them escape from the magic fire that could keep burning underwater.
Without minding the dying snakes, Angor ran forward to keep looking for Toby.
Blinding fire and the smell of roasted snakes weren’t anything pleasant, though Angor was glad that they helped him escape from the wet stink for at least a while.
A stone wall marked the end of the path.
Angor was sure Toby’s voice came from this way. He checked the surroundings and looked at the water stream, which seemed to continue into the wall.
He activated the Purification Field and jumped into the dark water without a second thought.
After pushing against the water flow for a few meters, he emerged from the water and entered another cave. This one looked pretty empty and boring at first. But his instinct told him otherwise.
The strange mental pressure was still there. He temporarily forgot about it when dealing with the snakes, but now that he had time to assess the situation again, he realized that the evil intent around him remained as strong, if not worse than before.
He did not feel physically hurt. But the pressure was slowly affecting his peace of mind.
As carefully as he could, he moved along the wall until he saw a pile of colorful snakes huddled together not far from him.
Since they weren’t blocking his way this time, he concealed his breaths and body heat, then moved around them.
He saw more “snake piles” on his way and felt the evil aura gnawing at his heart harder and harder. But he knew he had to keep moving because Toby was so near.
The path ended at the edge of a cliff. When he reached the dead end, he finally found Toby up ahead, on the opposite cliff over a dark chasm.
Toby did not look very well. Using the light provided by several luminous stones in the cave, Angor noticed several snakes aggressively hissing at Toby, whereas Toby had his eyes half-closed as if he really wanted to sleep.
A flickering gray barrier was preventing the snakes from biting Toby, which was probably the work of gravity energy. But the energy was clearly on the brink of exhaustion.
Angor immediately jumped into the air to rescue Toby. However, he stopped moving when he sensed danger waiting below.
Quietly, he landed back on the ground and waited.
He widened his eyes as the rustling noise from under the chasm revealed a giant snake almost equal in size as Akeso. The creature was crawling along the cliff wall where Toby was placed, with most of its body still hidden in the dark. Even so, Angor was sure of its immensity just by looking at its triangular head that suggested its viciousness.
He couldn’t ascertain the power level of the snake. But his instinct was telling him to avoid it at all costs. This thing was the source of the unease that had been bugging him.
It was probably the natural aura of a monster. When Angor was so close to the snake, he felt every nerve and sinew in his body urging him to run.
“I—I should go back and find my professor—”
That wasn’t his decision. His fear forced him to come up with the idea.
His inner sanity told him that choosing to retreat now meant giving up Toby’s life. There was no time to lose.
He chased his impulse away and tried his best to calm down.
The snake wasn’t openly expanding its aura yet. But it was safe to assume that it would do so immediately after seeing an enemy.
To prepare for the worst, Angor assumed that the snake was at the wizard level. It wasn’t hard to escape from the pressure of a wizard-level monster with the help of the sequence of gravity. But he only had one shot at this. He must use his full speed to reach Toby and escape before the snake knew what happened.
Now the question was, would the snake’s passive aura slow him down? That thing was pretty close to Toby’s position. Maybe it had some kind of defense mechanism to trouble intruders who went near.
That would explain why Toby did not escape by himself. The snake must have ways to stop its prey from running.
Nevertheless, he had to get Toby out one way or another. It might be a bit risky, but he did have a plan.