"For hell's sake, Jessica has been staring at me with that same twisted expression ever since I finished that 'meal.' I suppose a high-born knight simply cannot comprehend how anyone could swallow stringy, bitter Naga flesh without so much as flinching."
But she didn't understand. To her, it was a stomach-turning act of desperation. To me, it was a necessity—and a goldmine of information. The Naga's memories were fragmented, like shards of a broken mirror cutting into my mind, but they held secrets that were worth every nauseating bite.
I learned, for instance, that the horde of Orks we had barely survived belonged to the Defilement Clan. They hadn't been hunting us; they were refugees, fleeing in terror from that very Naga bastard. It was a chilling realization. If a hundred Orks were terrified of one wounded Naga, what else was lurking in the deeper shadows?
As I delved further into the dead creature's psyche, I saw the fight from his perspective. He wasn't just being poetic when he mentioned my aura. In his mind, I didn't look like a human boy; I radiated the predatory, suffocating pressure of a Shadow Snake Alpha. It was a dark, oily energy that even made him, a master of illusions, feel like prey.
But the truly terrifying part was the scale of his world. This Naga hadn't been a king; he was a subordinate, one of hundreds. I caught a glimpse of his Alpha—a titan of scales and malice that had slaughtered nearly the entire original brood. I was trying to push deeper into those memories, trying to map out the dangers ahead, when Jessica's voice cut through the fog like a cold blade.
"Hey, arsehole," she snapped, her silver armor clanking as she shifted her weight. "What's the move? Do we attempt the climb back up, or do we bet everything on going deeper into the abyss?"
It was the million-crown question. My mind raced through the possibilities, and none of them were good. If we climbed, we risked a fall that would turn us into jam. Even worse, the small ledges where we'd have to rest were likely the nesting grounds for airborne predators—things that would pick us off like ripe fruit while we were pinned to the cliffside.
But going deeper? That meant walking into the territory of the Naga Alpha, or things that made the Nagas look like garden worms.
"We go down," Jessica said, her voice firm.
She was fully healed now, her "Holy" regeneration having knit her bones back together while I was busy eating monsters. In a straight fight, I didn't stand a chance against her. She was faster, stronger, and far more rested. I had no choice but to follow.
I thought I'd at least have some travel rations for the journey, but the abyss had other plans. The Naga meat I'd painstakingly carved and saved had rotted with supernatural speed. Within an hour, it was a grey, stinking mass of mold. Great. No food, no sleep, and we were marching straight into the jaws of certain death.
We chose the southern path, descending further into the gullet of the island.
At first, the progress was steady. We moved through tunnels of slick obsidian until we could no longer see the speck of grey light from where we had fallen. The silence was absolute, broken only by the sound of our breathing and the occasional drip of moisture from the ceiling.
Then, we saw them.
Piles of bones. Thousands of them. They weren't just old; they were picked clean. Human ribcages, elven skulls with the ears missing, and the broad, thick femurs of dwarves. It was a graveyard of civilizations. Whatever lived down here didn't just kill; it harvested. The sheer volume of remains made my blood run cold. I didn't want to meet the thing that required this much meat to stay fed.
We pushed on until we reached a structure that looked like a staircase, only much steeper and carved directly into a sheer drop. It felt like walking down the spine of a dead god.
"Going back isn't an option," I whispered, glancing at the darkness behind us. I didn't want to run back into the "harvester" of those bones.
So, we descended. It was the worst mistake of the day—and that's saying something, considering I'd eaten a Naga.
About a quarter of the way down the stairs, the path widened into a massive, flat stone platform that jutted out over a seemingly bottomless void. And there, right in the center, was the stuff of nightmares.
A camp. But not a small scouting party. It was a full-scale war camp of Abyss Ogres.
Flying above the central bonfire was a tattered, blood-stained banner: the Clan of Cannibalism.
My heart hammered against my ribs. In the Naga's memories, I saw a flash of this place. The Naga had stumbled upon them once and barely escaped with his life. If the Defilement Clan of Orks was the bottom of the food chain, these Ogres were the elite.
The platform offered absolutely nowhere to hide. No pillars, no crates, just open stone. The Abyss Ogres—monstrous, grey-skinned hulks standing ten feet tall with tusks like scimitars—noticed us almost instantly.
I counted them quickly. Fifty... sixty... maybe more.
In terms of raw power, sixty Abyss Ogres were equivalent to thirty entire hordes of Orks. It wasn't just a fight; it was a death sentence. In our last encounter with Orks, we had the advantage of surprise and a bit of mana. Now? We were out in the open, exhausted, and facing creatures that ate Orks for breakfast.
Jessica reached for her sword hilt, her knuckles turning white. I felt the familiar itch of the "Shadow Snake" aura beginning to flare up in my veins, fueled by my terror.
"Well, cockroach," Jessica whispered, her eyes locked on the approaching giants. "I hope you have another miracle in that pathetic body of yours."
"Haha... I was about to ask you the same thing, you old witch," I rasped, my hand drifting toward the hilt of my broken sword.
The Ogres let out a synchronized roar that shook the very foundation of the staircase. They didn't just want to kill us. They were hungry.
Until next time.