Pragna is steadily advancing through the realm. Here and there he came across some beasts. But none of them are a threat to him. Yigg process of absorbing the plants here is going smoothly. Right now, yigg reached level 34. It is learned a technique strangle and bark shot. Strangle is basically a technique in which it uses its roots to choke them to death.
Bark shot on other hand is unique. Recently Yigg absorbed an anesthetic plant. It creates bark on its body, applies anesthetic to the bark. Then the bark is splintered and shot through the air towards its enemies. Though it took time to describe the process, it only takes yigg less than a half second to do this.
On other hand Pragna level finally raised to 24. Though to reach it he had to kill more than 50 creatures in the process. All the creature he met looked weak. They looked like runt that has been exiled to the dead end of the group. Whenever he tried to check their name he only got one title for all of them, Chimera.
He checked the information and found that chimera is artificially created being by combining more than two different species. Some had scaly reptilian skin, but had heads that looked like birds. Some looked like a bad crossover between a giraffe and a hippopotamus.
It seems someone tried to combine best of all species and create a strong chimera. But one cannot always get the best combination, it can also go other way round. The beast had a bulging head placed on a thin neck. It could barely raise its head above the ground. It attacked by running straight at its target with its mouth open. He met many weird oddly shaped creatures. So far, he has not met any resistance.
But there is one thing that has been bothering him. After his initial clash with trolls, he did not meet any of them anymore. It’s not just that, he has this nagging feeling that someone is watching him. He used radar ability to check around and he could find none.
Pragna thought maybe the trolls he met were lost group. Probably he will find the rest as he goes to the center. Just like the in 12 fire island, they are probably near the mountain.
Pragna did not enjoy unnecessary massacre. He thought he can negotiate with trolls like he did with the stone gorillas.
Even when absorbing the trees here, he told yigg not to absorb a tree if she already absorbed that sample before. Yigg thoroughly disagreed. But Pragna forced. Yigg inherited his hunger, so in way Pragna felt responsible for her avarice.
After absorbing the plants and tree they want, Pragna started moving towards the mountain again.
After he left, a hundred meters away from him, air started vibrating and a spherical screen appeared in that spot. The entire the sphere rippled and collapsed. In its place stood a naga female and a troll.
Both are at immortal stage. The troll looked much thinner than the usual ones. After Pragna left they started sending information about how he fought and what are his status. It’s not just this two. Over the past few days there were many groups that hid from Pragna. They recorded everything he did.
Despite all this tracking Pragna could find none of them.
POV CHANGE
In the cave the black pond did not churn anymore. At the bottom of the lake there is amphora. Top part of it is closed. In fact, there is no opening. But on the walls of it, there are seven openings. These openings constantly leaked the black pond. Occasionally the black liquid near the amphora tried to condense into a humanoid shape. If they ever seen this person, they will recognize it is Samba!
But before it could completely coalesce, the small plant on top of this plant would wave as though there is a breeze of air in the cave and the entire humanoid shape would dissolve again.
But the liquid did not stop its attempt. Rather than forming a body it slowly started drilling the bottom of the pond. Drop by drop it leaked and whenever the quantity black liquid decreased the amphora would produce more of it.
In this way, the black liquid has formed its own hidden black liquid paths under the realm where ever it could. Then it became dormant, waiting for a chance.
After thousands of years Pragna came to this realm. With his arrival, the black liquid passages under the ground became active again.
POV CHANGE
Owner and Agarthala are watching what is happening in the green man’s realm on screen. While Agarthala watching it seriously, Owner is watching the screen while eating popcorn.
As Pragna left, they watched Naga and trolls appearing after dissolving their invisibility spells.
Owner laughed while seeing this, “No matter how much theory you have, it can rarely beat practical experience. Our little Pragna till now only met weak enemies. Enemies who could only use amateur methods. But now finally he is facing professionals.”
Agarthala has a serious expression on his face. He said, “Till now we have only idea about one schism. We only have bare minimum idea about his other schisms. Do you think we are going too fast?”
The Owner who is chewing popcorn said, “Too fast? Agarthala he infected you when he is in half-immortal stage only. Granted you suppressed your strength, but still he infected you. If we wait anymore we don’t know what would happen.”
The Owner who is eating grinned, “Of course, the uncontrolled situation may lead to an interesting scenario. But If let this go anymore she will involve.”
Agarthala looked surprised, ” She? I thought she would involve only at the end.”
The Owner said while smiling, “Not per the current memos she is sending me. She just told me that if I delay this anymore, she will directly unlock the hidden memories of Pragna.”
Agarthala who heard this did not say anything for few minutes.
Agarthala then said with a sly smile, “So rather than taking out her annoyance at you, she helped Biazib and Harima level up so fast.”
When the Owner heard this, he looked annoyed. The owner’s face considerably big even on such short stature. Agarthala’s words seemed to have brought up some buried memories. His looked flushed with anger, that his head looked a red tomato.
He harrumphed and said “Messing with my precious samples. She thinks she has better understanding of fate. I will show her who understands the intangible better.”
POV CHANGE
Pragna travelled for few more days. Yigg absorbed every new flora and fungi it could find. After almost one month, they came into a thick forest. Usually at least a small portion of sun light falls on the ground. But in this place the trees are so densely packed that no sun light is falling here. There is small creak flowing around the trees. Yigg is trying to check for new plants by spreading her roots into the ground.
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Pragna is looking out. As yigg is checking Pragna got close to one of the trees. Last time he checked the density of trees got much higher, as they got close to the mountain.
In the past 40 days Pragna only travelled only 300 kilometers. So, he is still in outer periphery of the forest. So Pragna did not understand how forest got so thick here.
He looked at the tree trying to figure out any anomalies. He looked at the ground and the soil caught his attention. The plant after protruding from the ground slowly grows, by absorbing the minerals, water and sunshine. So after the tree grows the dirt around it is usually even. But around this tree the dirt near the trunk, looked much fresher than its surrounding. It almost looked like this giant tree grew up in a span of few days.
Pragna sent a message to yigg to comeback. Yigg understanding it, waited for his signal. Pragna calmly strolled around and he stood at a spot where the tree branched on top of his head looked less thick.
Then he sent a message to yigg, NOW!
Immediately disappeared and appeared on Pragna’s arm as a creeper. With all the high mana, he could muster Pragna tried to blast his way through the branches!
Even as he was raising, more than 100 weapons and spells are fired at him. Though he avoided some, more than 70% of them hit him!
Pragna lost his balance and crashed down at full throttle!
But even as he was crashing down, he saw many beings appear out of nowhere.
There are trolls who are fully armed with spheres, bows and shields. At the back of them there are trolls who are wielding staffs. Among them are women who are wearing black robes. Some of them are wearing bows, while most of them are using ivory staffs. But the thing that scared him is that, all of them are at immortal stage. Especially some of the beings seemed to be even at higher realm.
Pragna looked like a porcupine with so many arrows and spears ticking out of him. He is in tremendous pain and almost losing his consciousness. The only reason he is still alive is because of regeneration skill and young fire lord status. But he knew, that if he loses his consciousness now, he is done for. With every ounce of will-power he could muster he got up and started running away from them.
While running Pragna fired every flame arrows and spheres on his enemies. He unleashed his spirits on them. He thought he could use this to distract them and run away.
But something happened that he least expected. As he tried to run away, he ran straight into some kind barrier. He banged his head against it and toppled down. Shocked he got up and looked at his enemies.
The fire attacks that he threw at his enemies started dissipating while they were in midair. By the time, it reached them, it only produced slight gust of hot air. All of this happened in a span less than second.
But the worst part of it is not that, it is his flame spirits and golems. The women in black robes pointed their ivory staffs at them and all of them started dying!
All his spirits are formed by taking a fragment of his soul. Whenever a flame spirits died he would feel a slight pain. Now all his spirits died before they could even fight. The backlash he felt is unbelievable! His soul almost crumbled from the pain.
The fire golems on other hand are pulverized by trolls. Though the trolls are said to be weak to fire, this trolls which are wearing full metal plate armor, seemed to be least effected by the heat.
Pragna already took lot of damage and top it off the death of his spirits almost crumbled his conscious. He did not understand why they are ambushing him or how they able to so easily nullify his attacks.
Pragna barely standing. Suddenly roots started popping out of his body. All the arrows and spheres are expelled out his body. Yigg knowing that situation is bad took the matter into her hands. She extended her roots into the ground in hope digging her way out of here. James appeared as a sabre and attacked the group. As the sabre swung after images of are produced and attacked the crowd.
Oddly unlike Pragna’s attack this after images did not dissipate but rather hurt them. Yet all it could was cause a slight damage. Trolls and naga looked surprised at the attack. The troll king who is watching it, had weird expression on his face. He immediately raised his hand at the sabre and suddenly the sabre fell to the ground unable to raise again. Not just that, small fractures started appearing on the blade. James could not understand what happened and before he could retaliate the sword shattered like glass. The damage is too much of a burden, yet even the shattered blades tried to fight back.
The naga queen then fire balls at Pragna and his weapons. James and yigg rejoiced when they saw the fire. Pragna can absorb any type fire.
This fire balls when got close to Pragna, rather than trying to burn them, they exploded!
Pragna can absorb the fire, but not the force of explosion. The force from the blast completely shredded the protective cocoon yigg formed around Pragna. The sabre is almost destroyed. Only small part of the blade and a base edge of hilt remained. Pragna flew from the impact of explosion and fell like a ragged doll. The force of explosion eviscerated his right arm which has the dimension ring. His skull cracked open and fluids are licking out. Despite all this Pragna is still alive, but barely. Most of his body like meat that went through a grater. Most of his bones are broken. The only thing that took less damages is his spine
Pragna tried to get up and before he could do, a sphere went through his chest and nailed him down. The troll king threw that sphere at him. The moment the sphere struck him, Pragna felt like his weight has been increased by exponential degree.
Pragna is in horrible state. His mana reserves are completely down. He lost his fire familiars. All his potions that could replenish him are in his ring, which is on his dismembered hand.
His soul weapons are so badly damaged, he needs huge stroke luck to restore them.
But even in this situation Pragna did not lose hope, why?
Because of his unique constitution, even in a minute he will heal back. As long as he can absorb the heat…?
Then Pragna noticed something, his body is not absorbing any heat from his surroundings. In fact he started feeling cold. It is not cold emanating from his body. His soul always looked like a huge towering inferno. But some reason it started wilting down at a visible pace.
Not knowing what is happening, he looked and then he saw. On the barrier, which appeared to be invisible, there are symbols flickering.
Then Pragna realized, this is not a spontaneous attack, but rather a carefully executed ambush.
He hated himself. In his naivety, he thought he could bargain his way out here. Now he going to die.
Not knowing where he came from and not knowing how he got into the battlefront.
One of the worst way to die is to be whisked away with full of regrets.
Troll king ordered to collect the ring.
They got near Pragna to finish him off, when the ground trembled. With the sudden development, trolls and nagas became alert. Then suddenly, black liquid jutted out of the ground. Where ever the black liquid passed, everything started corroding!
The trolls and naga who were near the fissures of the black liquid were killed on spot. While the ones far away, even if single drop fell on them, they started melting down into black puddle. Smart ones immediately chopped of their body parts that were infected.
The naga queen and troll king immediately attacked. Naga queen created a barrier, which stopped the black liquid form further attacking the group.
Troll king on other hand, forced the liquid to go back to the source.
In less than a minute they forced the black liquid to go back. After it disappeared, all the trees and plants in vicinity, withered out. The water that was flowing started emanating a foul stench.
The trolls and nagas recovered from the shock. They thought they were the ones who are ambushing!
But the Naga queen and troll king know who did this. The black liquid is a signature attack of Samba. They thought all this time, he was dead. But apparently alive.
That is not the only thing they noticed, Pragna’s body disappeared.
The naga queen and troll king were once extremely powerful creatures. Though they lost it now, they still have some the abilities of their past glory, like telepathic communication.
naga queen asked the troll king telepathically, “I thought Samba is dead.”
Troll king replied back, “I thought the same. It seems green man left him alive here.”
Naga asked, “Do you think he will come after the portal token we got now?”
Troll king said, “No he is too weak to retaliate against us. Though he survived his teacher, he became so weak I barely could feel him.”
But then there is one question that bothered both. If not for the ring why did he attack?
The ring which has the portal token is with them. Even if he obtained, they know for sure that he does not have skills to modify the token to open the portal to a different place.
So why did he attack? Both had the same doubt. Did he attack for the half-immortal? They looked around and the body disappeared. But that did not worry them. Because a half-immortal is nowhere near to replenish Samba’s strength. If they could, the troll king and naga queen would have killed their counterpart’s or their own sub-ordinates to replenish themselves.
Troll king said, “It would not matter, if he tries to absorb this creature. We thoroughly check it. Apart from the two soul weapons, it had nothing special on it. Though its ability to control fire is much higher than a young fire lord but that is as for as it goes. It is almost dead and absorbing it would mean to nothing.”
Naga queen thought about it. It is true, they have nothing to worry about. After being trapped here for too long she has become paranoid. Then she laughed, what is an immortal to her? Nothing more than ants!
Once she gets out of this place, she can finally regain her glory.
Naga queen knew that all she as to do is stay vigilant till her and troll king finish the portal construction. After that they can finally get out of this realm.