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Toby kept trying to say something by using body language.

“You sensed something terrifying?” Angor read Toby’s meaning and frowned. He reached out with his spirit feelers.

Nothing.

When he nodded to the bird, Toby quickly dived into the murky water. Toby closed his eyes and remained there for two seconds before he dashed back into the Purification Field.

Angor threw a Cleanse and Purify at the bird.

Toby waved his wings around again and took out a new outfit from Snowy Feather so that Angor could help him get changed.

“... Bikinis,” Angor murmured as he looked at the lace-brim, breast-support undergarment in his hand. With a disgusted expression, he proceeded to tie it around Toby’s body. “I don’t really need to remind you that you’re a male bird, right?”

Toby didn’t know anything about a human’s perspective. He only enjoyed his new clothes while he kept flapping and tweeting.

“You smelled something different in the water?” Angor read Toby’s posture. Without a special nose, he couldn’t sense different smells out of the pure stink. “You mean a powerful monster is living here? But, nothing like that showed up when I completely messed up the lake,” Angor considered.

“We don’t have another way anyway. We’re going, even if a monster awaits ahead. The monster probably isn’t that strong since it didn’t attack us already. Or... maybe there’s something else.”

Being cautious didn’t mean acting cowardice. Since Toby told him, he really believed that there was a monster. Though he wasn’t going to run away before facing it.

“I have a magic scroll I got from Devildare. A powerful monster won’t be really deadly to us,” Angor said as he took out the Aster Barrier scroll from his bracelet. This powerful magic array could deflect wizard-level attacks.

They felt somewhat safer with the magic scroll in hand. Wizard-level monsters were always rare since every part on its body meant valuable treasure. A wild wizard-level monster wandering outside would quickly get overwhelmed by hunters.

They kept swimming deeper inside the cave.

The tunnel first went downward, before it tilted up slightly. Now Angor found them moving upward instead, at a very mild angle.

He felt good about it too. A way up meant this path was very likely to take him outside.

The flame of hope returned to his mind.

After swimming for about a minute, the tunnel grew wider and the sides around him moved almost ten meters apart.

Before he could draw a map in his mind and figure out their possible position, they reached the surface of the water, unexpectedly.

He didn’t see light though.

So the path didn’t lead toward the outside world?

He cast another Light and noticed that he was now looking at a small cave. Another path was ahead of him, and it was leading toward the dark distance.

Angor climbed out of the water and canceled the Purification Field.

And he immediately smelled the stench in the air, as well as breathable oxygen. This meant the cave wasn’t sealed, and there had to be another way out.

He maintained Light and carefully walked down the path.

He noticed something strange soon. The air in the cave was moist, but the ground was still too wet.

He walked to the cave wall and rubbed a finger against it, collecting something wet on his hand.

A whiff suggested that the wall didn’t smell bad at all.

Next, he tried against the water on the ground, and he didn’t need to move his finger close to sense the encroaching stench.

So the water on the walls and on the ground is different...

Angor poked at Toby, who had been very alarmed until now.

“You’re right. A monster is here, and it’s watching us.”

The watermark on the ground was proof.

It led to another question though. The tunnel had to have been made by this unknown monster. Why? To draw them in?

No one knew. One thing remained the same, that they had to act really carefully now.

They proceeded slowly, and Angor kept observing the surroundings. He went over possible encounter scenarios in his mind so that he could act quickly enough to take the upper hand.

The cave path was large. There were hanging stalactites above his head, dripping water. Stones of different sizes and shapes collected on the walls on the sides. There were many corners he couldn’t see from his position around the obstacles, so he kept his spirit feelers out, just in case.

After walking for about half a kilometer, Angor saw a corpse at an open ground.

The corpse already rotted all the way to bones, along with most of the corpse’s clothes. A shoulder strap still remained, which was connected to a small iron chest.

Angor recognized the chest because he had just obtained one from the lake bed not long ago.

“Another medical box?” He opened it out of curiosity.

The content of it was exactly the same. Healer tools.

He only inspected the first box by using his spirit feelers. Now that he could look into one, his attention was attracted by the strange marking again.

A snake covered in glossy black scales swirled around a silver, pointy rod.

A clan emblem? Not likely. Angor didn’t believe that any family would draw their emblem on needles too. The mark seemed to be in perfect condition. The snake looked very lively after all these years.

He put down the box and looked at the corpse.

The bones were still intact, which shouldn’t be the case if a monster killed this person.

He kept walking for about another ten minutes and saw about 20 more corpses along the way, along with six more medical boxes with the same design.

“These people came from the village too. How did they die here though? And... why are there so many doctors?” Angor was getting more and more confused. Was the village actually an academy of medicine or something?

There were different types of academies and schools in the mortal world, such as cloisters, art schools, medical schools, musicals... Each place might or might not major in a certain field. If Angor didn’t enter the world of wizards, he would have attended the Burgeon Knight Academy in Goldspink Empire, a comprehensive institute.

Their designs were very different too. Some appeared like castles, palaces, while some preferred to present themselves as small villages. A village-like academy in remote underground space was totally acceptable.

Soon, he reached the end of the path.

He thought he would run into this hidden monster in the end, which did not happen. The path ended at another deep pool with dark green water.

The surface was only five or six meters wide. However, he couldn’t see the bottom of it.

He took a sniff and didn’t sense the stench this time.

“The monster may be down here. And it could be our way out too,” Angor mumbled.

Either way, he had to go down and check to embrace danger or hope.

He nodded to Toby and jumped down.

He felt his heart beating with joy after swimming downward for several meters. The pool was really connected to a lake outside!

He already saw an underground cave ahead, across which was vast, clean running water.

He smiled brightly and dashed through the short cave swiftly.

While inside the brighter water, he carefully sensed the direction of the water flow so that he could follow it.

Toby suddenly called out beside his ears, loudly. Following the bird’s direction, he slowly turned around.

Somehow, a giant serpent was waiting right behind him.

The creature was so large that Angor immediately felt like a newborn child in front of an elephant.

A round head, golden eyes, white belly, and black scales. The animal was three or four meters in width, and... Angor had not seen its tail yet, since the end of the creature stretched all the way into the darkness beyond.

He felt his heart trembling under the serpent’s terrible gaze.

Out of instinct, he took out his revolver and shot at the monster. The bullet enchanted with Armor-Piercing rune connected with the serpent’s belly and bounced away, without even causing a scratch on the scale it hit.

Even after considering the fact that the bullet was weakened by water, the creature’s defense was still scary.

When he attacked, Toby also kicked at the snake. The bird unleashed power similar to a level-3 cantrip which caused a visible sonic boom underwater.

It had no effect!

“Stop it! Run, Toby!” Angor’s eyes widened in fear. “A wizard-level monster, here? Go! Now!!”

He simply used Hand of Spell to pull Toby closer, and he then triggered Aster Barrier without a second thought. A stream of starlight emerged from the magic scroll and engulfed him and Toby within.

Under the protection of the spell, he dashed along with the water flow madly.

Something that could resist Toby’s attacks wasn’t necessarily a wizard-level monster. However, its defense property definitely was.

And of course, such a monster was fast.

Angor was planning to escape back into the abandoned village and let the rainbow dragonflies defend him. He didn’t get very far before the serpent moved in his way, somewhat casually.

He was never a fast swimmer. The serpent’s swift moves quickly injected desperation into his mind.

He tried to change directions, and every time, the giant monstrosity would block his way while staring at him with those trunk-sized golden slits.

“Are you toying with me?!”

Upon realizing the total hopelessness, Angor simply gave up on running.

The serpent did not attack him yet. It only prevented him from leaving. Those golden slit eyes looked creepy, though he didn’t really sense hostility in them.

He panted heavily and looked at the creature. Then he yelled out, “What is it that you want?!”

He already felt this was the case; otherwise, the serpent would have already disposed of him after Angor shot it with his revolver.

The serpent remained still for a long time. It seemed this wizard-level monster couldn’t speak or release emotions.

It gave Angor one final meaningful glance before it turned away...