Skyler sat down next to him. He had thought the past two years of his life were bad, but he never imagined someone could suffer so much their entire life.
"What were you planning to do afterward?"
"No idea. I didn’t have a storage ring, so I couldn’t obtain anything valuable from the preliminary test. I..."
Charles’s expression hardened, and he looked at Skyler to make sure he noted everything the latter felt upon hearing him.
"...killed a few people who tried to kill me, but their storage rings were linked to them and self-destructed. So, I have nothing. Maybe I will become a rogue Light with no direction."
He was surprised when Skyler’s eyes remained calm even after knowing he had killed. Instead, he fell deep into thought.
Skyler glanced at him a minute later.
"Do you want to join me? I will be leaving for Starlight Academy soon since they gave me a special pass. If they had invited you in the past, they would accept you. No need to go back home. Well, if you want to go back to confront your family, then you can."
Charles’s raised a brow at his words.
"Are you hiring me as your employee?"
"Yep, the pay will be good. So, agree."
Charle broke into an amused chuckle. They remained silent for a while, listening to the sounds of the battle raging behind them.
Then suddenly, the boss monster let out a loud cry. They glanced back, only to see the spider slain, with Scar and Dread reaching to shatter the glowing core in the silk web.
Skyler helped him stand up, and when the villains were close to shattering the core, they both rushed out of their hiding place.
Charles increased his speed with the wind element, and Skyler with the light element.
They had to jump into the exit portal! They were quite far from the core, but they knew they would be able to leap into the portal due to the surprise of their appearance!
However, they froze in their tracks when both Scar and Dread stopped just as they were about to break the dimension core and staggered back with horrified faces.
The two villains were gravely injured. So, when a giant white snake with red eyes and three red gems embedded on either side of its head slithered out from behind the silk web, they knew they were done for.
Scar trembled like a leaf. Her injured body lost all remaining strength it had because she couldn’t even sense the snake’s aura!
"How—"
Her words were cut short when the snake hissed angrily, and its lengthy tail emerged from the darkness, sending her body flying. Her eyes rolled back as she crashed into the chamber wall and spat out blood.
Dread tried to escape, but who was he kidding? The snake was just too fast, and just like Scar, his body was flung away. The two villains who had survived for so long lost consciousness from a single attack, and the boss chamber began to tremble.
The snake’s full form came into view.
It had white scales with a hint of red on some of the scales. Its head reached the ceiling of the huge chamber, and its body occupied a large amount of space.
The snake’s glowing eyes locked onto Charles’s distant figure, who gasped at the towering creature. A pair of fangs emerged from its mouth as it hissed. It was furious for being disturbed again by these pests.
Nineteen years. That was the time it had taken for the snake to finally form a body for itself after wandering formless.
Another long year was spent searching for a place to live after traveling from one place to another, yet they were invading its home and constantly killing its spider friends!
This time, the snake had decided to kill these people instead of just injuring them. That way, no more pests would ever come to kill its friends and invade its territory!
Before it could attack Charles, a dazed voice echoed in the chamber.
"So... beautiful..."
Charles’ mouth dropped open when he noticed Skyler staring at the snake with a mesmerized look and even reaching out to touch it as if he wanted to commit suicide.
The snake’s crimson eyes blinked in utter confusion as a spark of electricity surged through its body upon hearing the dazed voice, and it finally turned its head to the other youth standing in the chamber.
It froze when it met the pair of blue eyes staring at it with such intensity that it felt overwhelming. Its heart skipped a beat and it couldn’t understand why. The pest in front of it was so small and weak just like others, but why didn’t it want to kill it?
Skyler’s eyes locked with the red ones. His mind wasn’t working anymore. That’s why he yelped when Charles slapped his head and started dragging him away, shouting.
"Run! You idiot! Or we both die!"
By the time he came to his senses, he was being pushed into the tunnel from which they had entered the boss chamber.
Skyler blinked and climbed back up the hole, still dazed by what had happened. He wanted to go back and touch the snake, but he was met with Charles’s glaring eyes, so he discarded the thought, feeling sad.
Charles followed behind him with gritted teeth as his severe shoulder injury, which hadn’t healed at all, bled more.
His heart pounded with dread as he recalled the massive white snake.
Before long, they emerged from the boss chamber, once again surrounded by many spiders. The previously orange sky above the forest had turned completely dark, with tiny stars dotting the horizon.
Yet, from Charles’s point of view, it was better than facing that massive snake. To their astonishment, no spiders in the area attacked them; instead, they all moved aside to give them a path to leave.
Skyler glanced at the spiders.
"What’s happening...?"
Charles grabbed his shoulder when he saw how the ash-brown-haired boy was looking back at the boss chamber entrance as if he wanted to go back.
"Think about that later! We need to leave this place before the snake comes out!"
He ran. Skyler followed him, but his blue eyes kept darting back again and again.
Charles only stopped when they were far from the boss chamber, his face pale and breathing shallow as he slumped down.
"Fuck... are we going to die here?"
Skyler bent down next to him. He took out more Light elemental stones from his ring and placed them on his shoulder wound, causing him to hiss with clenched fists.
"No, we won’t. We will get out of here alive. Don’t move. You are badly injured."
Skyler glanced at the elemental stones, surprised at how easily he had taken them out to give them away. He was aware of his obsession with gems and sparkling things.
However, now that he had seen something more beautiful than these stones, just like the red-eyed winged woman he saw in the preliminary test, they felt insignificant.
’If only I could get that pretty snake...’