Calm before the Storm

Soon after the order, Medusa kneels on the mysterious being's leg, begging for mercy. It steps on top of Medusa's head, looking down at him with disgust.

Five giant snakes appeared out of nowhere and dragged him away. Ayesha stared at the ground, closing her eyes, accepting her fate. 'No matter what I do, I'll suffer the same fate.'

As another group of giant snakes appeared, they began to tie her with chains, preparing to drag her away.

The mysterious being raised its hands, signaling them to stop.

It slowly approached Ayesha and lifted her chin. "I'll give you one last chance. Bring me those humans back, dead or alive. If you fail, consider yourself dead."

With tears welling up in her eyes, Ayesha knelt down. "I won't disappoint you, Master!"

_____

There were three main points across the northern Flores, each with a large concentration of weak monsters in great numbers. The red cross marks across the map indicated areas where large monsters typically resided. Audrey pointed to the last corner, where it was filled with trees and grass.

'This is where we are now!'

'"In order to get out of the black zone, we have to avoid all these signs on the map," Audrey said, staring at the depressed crew while holding the map.

She soon looked down, feeling empty, as everything seemed meaningless in the current moment, with raw emotions all over the place.

But then she turned her face toward the unconscious Katie, whose face was extremely pale and almost purple in color.

Everyone knew they had to keep going, for both the fallen and the sick. Carter and Aprille each carried Alex and Katie, walking on with worn legs.

Throughout the thick forest, they walked for the next two hours. Sweat covered their faces, their legs barely holding up, and they were almost out of breath.

They came across a small open space in the middle of a bush. Audrey raised her hand, and following her signal, they quietly moved to hide inside the bush.

Carter gently placed Alex on the ground and stepped out of the bush. "I'll go find something to eat," he said.

"Ferases Enzi Nor Paragus."

At Aprille's words, light green mana began to emit from her hands, it was Healing Magic.

She carefully placed her hands on Katie's head and started channeling mana. Although it didn't do much at first, after 15 minutes, they noticed a slight change. Katie's pale face regained a bit of color.

But the price was heavy, Aprille had lost a quarter of her mana just to cast the heal.

Audrey, holding the map in her hands, stared at how quickly Aprille's mana was drained.

In this world, anyone could use magic, but there were 7 main principles to it, and the main principle being the level of affinity.

Level of affinity: Everyone has a certain level of affinity for at least one type of magic. In this case, Aprille had an affinity for healing, which allowed her to use this type of magic. However, her affinity for healing was low, which meant her mana couldn't be fully harnessed, causing a significant portion of it to leak out uncontrollably.

Soon, Carter emerges with a wild deer, that was about as large as a huge bear, and tosses it onto the ground. Afterward, he quietly sits in the corner.

The entire place falls into an awkward silence. Noticing the heavy atmosphere, Audrey quickly tries to lighten the mood.

"Let's get dinner ready, guys."

A few minutes later, Aprille channeled her mana into the ground, creating a campfire, while Audrey and Carter fried the meat on large sticks.

After finishing their meal, they rested for a while. Audrey could be seen sketching a map of the cave they had previously visited, Aprille meditated silently, and Carter simply took a nap.

It seemed like the tense atmosphere had started to ease. But all of a sudden, the entire forest went unnervingly quiet. The birds stopped chirping, and small creatures like frogs, beetles, spiders, butterflies, and rabbits vanished, hiding from the sudden shift in the environment.

Audrey's instincts quickly kicked in, screaming at her to run away from the place as fast as possible. Overwhelmed by the sudden emotions, she crawled on the ground in fear. "What is this feeling?" she whispered.

Both Carter and Aprille got up from their places, rushing toward her in confusion and anxiousness.

"We....we need to leave. Now.!" Her tone was shaky, almost breaking with each word.

Carter and Aprille knew instantly what she meant. Both nodded and quickly lifted the two unconscious.

"We're ready." They both got to their feet, their faces now serious as they looked at Audrey.

With dark spiral eyes, a face full of excitement, and an uncontrollable smile that creepily grew, a weird-looking snake with legs, large spiked hands with blade-like edges, along with purple hair on its head, was running across the forest, from tree to tree, at an unprecedented speed.

"Master has already given me the permission. Now I can freely use my true form. I'm gonna make them pay."

All the adventurers walked faster than usual. They still hadn't properly recovered from the long journey earlier, but despite their tired faces, they pushed on. Especially Carter and Aprille, who had never seen Audrey so terrified.

Suddenly, a huge tree trunk came flying from the sky like a spear, landing right in the path the adventurers were heading toward.

The impact was so strong it sent a shockwave across a kilometer radius. With dust filled all over the air, the adventurers quickly got into a defensive stance.

Before Aprille could summon a fire barrier, Ayesha appeared out of nowhere and kicked her in the stomach. Spitting saliva, Aprille immediately fell unconscious. Ayesha then turned her gaze toward Carter and whipped her tail straight at his face, sending him flying several meters into the air.

Ayesha jumped high into the air and swung her tail toward Audrey, using all her strength, determined to end Audrey with one strike.

Boom.

A huge hole was created from the attack, and dust exploded everywhere like a nuclear blast.

"Audreyyy!!" Carter shouted, his voice cracking with the intensity of his scream

Aprille, barely awake with her vision blurry, weakly raised her hands toward Audrey in concern.

Standing tall blocking with bare hands, a young boy with blood spilling from his mouth, took all the damage from Ayesha.

"Is this all you've got? Coward, backstabbing interferer!" Alex spat.