Considering the burdened feeling still lingering in his mind, Angor believed that the snake monster was naturally capable of controlling emotions. If so, he might know how to deal with the problem.
“Toby’s in danger. Can’t back out now.”
Slowly, he prepared a cantrip but without casting it. Thanks to Infinite Reticence, the snake had not noticed him yet. He wanted to move at the exact correct moment to make his attempt count.
The snake casually crawled along the wall and scouted around. It then wrapped its body around a stone pillar. As soon as Angor saw the snake’s head hidden behind the pillar, he chanted Spirit Mantra, ejected his soul, and dashed at the opposite cliff at full speed.
The snake immediately detected something approaching. When it wasn’t sure what sort of enemy was coming, it carefully looked back from its position while increasing the aura pressure it released.
Again, Angor felt something heavy pressed against his chest, stopping his breath. Meanwhile, he felt his head dizzy with overwhelming despair and sadness.
He was glad to know that he took a correct guess, that the aura around the snake was indeed meant to mentally catch prey off guard.
He quickly activated Soul Link, a spell permanently printed in his soul, and unleashed the cantrip he channeled while still in his body. The cantrip was a basic illusion intended to cover things up. In this case, he used it to hide himself.
“You’re not the only one who knows emotion control.”
By using his special nightmare energy to “overwrite” his own emotions, he successfully reached Toby’s position without being bothered by the snake’s aura.
As someone who perfectly knew how to wield the sequence of gravity, he simply reached a hand through Toby’s gray barrier, caught the bird, and ran away without looking back.
Everything was done within a few seconds. When the snake realized that the unnatural foodstuff it captured had disappeared, Angor had already reached the other cliff and was getting farther.
“Ssssah!”
The depressing aura turned into pure energy of rage and began reaching every corner of the cave. As Angor expected, it was the aura of a wizard-level monster.
By taking Toby in one hand and his unconscious body in the other, Angor headed to the original route from which he came as fast as he could. The aura needed time to expand. As long as he moved fast enough, he could outrun it.
With this in mind, he maximized his gravity power and dived straight into the river.
It took him several seconds to move past the short distance underwater. As soon as he came back out, the water was frozen solid.
Following the loud sound of an explosion, the snake tackled through the stone wall and came at him.
The snake wasn’t expecting the seemingly pathetic human to run as fast as a wizard. When it realized that it was slowly falling behind, it opened its giant mouth and shot out a tornado of freezing air at Angor’s back.
Angor felt the deadly attack but kept moving without looking back. He was confident that, if he was faster than the snake’s natural aura effect, he could evade any other kind of assault.
The exit was almost in reach. He only had to move through a narrow path that was guarded by the flying fish earlier.
He reached the path only to notice that the floor was unexpectedly empty.
A giant crab appeared at the end of the path, which was likely the culprit who ate all the dead fish for dinner. The creature looked exactly the same as the “hermit crab” Toby killed. Though this one was a lot bigger, and alive.
Behind its thick orange shell, an equally big anemone was casually swaying its tentacle-like body parts around.
Angor was terrified to sense more wizard-level energy coming from the feasting crab. The crab’s body fully blocked off the end of the path, so he couldn’t run that way. To make it worse, the creature was suspiciously looking his way right now.
Angor immediately turned and dived into the underground river again. This part was not affected by the snake’s freezing attack yet.
He followed the water current and kept moving. Hopefully, he could find another way out.
Fearing that he could bump into another monster in complete darkness, he cast a Light cantrip through the Soul Link.
The light source revealed a giant shadow right below his position. It looked like a humanoid creature with really thick arms and legs. And strangely, it was quietly floating in the water as if it was dead.
“A troll… Here? Hope it doesn’t wake up—”
He saw the troll’s football-sized eyes opening up and sending yet another suppressive aura his way by gazing at him.
“Sh*t. Me and my big mouth!”
He desperately picked another direction and bolted. Following him, the troll unleashed several whirlpools and went after him.
“Faster… Faster!” Angor kept pumping more of his soul energy into the gravity force.
He saw more waterborne monsters on his way, all hostile. Though none of them could catch up with him.
The turbulent water behind his back told him that the troll did not give up yet, which meant he had more reasons NOT to slow down.
He felt his confidence failing after moving in circles in the dark water for quite a while. In order not to completely lose his way, he dared not get too far from his diving point. However, he could not keep this up forever when more and more monsters were joining the race.
Besides, he couldn’t stay out of his body for too long.
As he wondered how to get out of the situation, the troll suddenly appeared out of nowhere and punched at him from afar. A deadly water beam came from its fist and was aimed at him like a swimming serpent.
Angor barely evaded the attack in the last second. The horror of almost losing his life instantly convinced him to run farther as much as he could, which was definitely better than staying around the same spot.
Again, he moved along the water flow at top speed, no longer worrying about forgetting the way. Getting lost was better than being caught by the monsters anyway.
Another of the troll’s attacks hit a wall nearby, and Angor saw bubbles of air appearing from the crack.
By some miracle, the new exit flushed Angor straight into the first cave full of steam, from where he could see the “tree trunk entrance”.
He finally managed to get to the surface, though he was not away from danger yet. As soon as he took his first chilly yet refreshing breath outside, the ground beneath shook madly and collapsed, causing the cave entrance to get buried under snow and debris.
A giant head of the snake effortlessly punched a hole through the ground and reached outside as well.
