I raised my shield, bracing for any sudden attack from the darkness. My entire focus was honed on my hearing, with my sight and smell far in the backseat this time.

Seconds ticked by, and there wasn’t any other sign of the shrouded assailant.

Realizing that I wouldn’t get much done by standing about and doing nothing, I decided to pry and brave the darkness. The first few steps were uneventful, but that ended once a loud hiss cracked the utter silence, with my senses detecting a slight change in the air behind my back.

Something was about to attack me, and I rotated my body, praying that I’d stop the attack before its fangs reached me.

But it was futile. I was slow and lacked any meaningful vision. The piercing fang of a creature penetrated the skin on the backside of my neck. It was painful, sure, but that wasn’t all. This thing, which I presumed to be a snake, injected some type of venom into my bloodstream, as evident from the trickle of cold liquid being shot through the holes in my neck.

As the venom flowed, my legs and arms lost their strength, turning into lumps of useless meat. With the lack of any support from both of my appendages, I fell face-first onto the ground, panic not evident from my inert facial muscles.

[You are paralyzed for 10 seconds.]

It wasn’t just my limbs. I couldn’t eke out a single word since the use of my mouth was gone too. All I did was ogle into the dark distance, waiting for the assailant to finish me off. If I didn’t do something in the next few seconds, death is more than certain.

I still can’t see anything…

Hiss…

Another hiss, and this time, it came a few meters in front of where my head was rested at.

[You are paralyzed for 5 seconds.]

I forced myself to move, but my efforts were all in vain. My eyes trembled from the exertion of my muscles, as at this point, I couldn’t even muster a blink. Another second passed, and I felt the cold touch of a snake’s tongue caressing my forehead as it flicked its tongue upwards. Goosebumps spread all over my skin from the cold, wet touch of its tongue, making me shiver.

Think, Gray, Think!

With my paralyzed body, the options of the things I could do was close to zero. There was one other thing that I hadn’t tried, but the efficacy of which I heavily doubt.

I held my breath and attempted to prime the Death bolt spell. I sensed the flow of mana surging from my core to the tip of my staff, which was still being held in my stiff fist, and as my mana coagulated inside of the orb, it then glowed the same hue of green and black, revealing just enough to see what attacked me.

That was when I saw what the assailant looked like. As I predicted, it was a snake.

Our faces were just inches apart; The snake’s scales were tinted green from my magic, being the sole source of light in this darkness. However, its scales weren’t what caused my balls to shrivel, no…

It was large. Way larger than any of the snakes that I’d seen on Earth. Its head alone was the same size as mine, and when it opened its jaw to snap my head off, I fired my magic at a location behind where its face was — I loathe to experience the aftermath of my own spell directly on my face — The snake was oblivious to what was going on, which was strange, then the explosion hurled its entire body away from where it slithered.

[You are no longer paralyzed.]

“GAAHHHH!”

My body regained its function and I bolted upright with a loud yelp. The snake was nowhere to be seen after my spell’s attack, and the darkness returned after.

I pointed my staff high and primed another Death Bolt. The glow of the magic provided some semblance of a vision within the next 2 or 3 meters or so, and I locked myself on the spot, waiting with bated breath for it to approach again. I could’ve aimed my magic straight at its head, sure, but my head would be melting from my own magic if I did that.

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As time passed with my entire senses on constant overdrive, I waited for the snake that never bothered to show itself again. Is it dead? The constant hisses that it produced were gone too, so I relaxed my stance and tried to find some kind of clue of what was I supposed to do here.

Once I felt the mana returning, I let out a relieved breath.

Unlike the previous missions or tests, there were no clues given by a message screen this time. I was just thrown in here with no direction or purpose.

The pace of my breathing relaxed over time, and I was able to regain some level of my composure. I was only a few inches, no millimeters away from death, and the shock lingered inside of my system, refusing to exit my body.

As much as I would like to wait for something else to happen, I couldn’t just stand still in the middle of nowhere for the entirety of this mission. I sighed, then faced a random direction and peered through the oppressing darkness. The glow of my staff was more than just a helpful tool in this situation — all thanks to Phillip, by the way — and with each step I took, the air turned heavier and heavier, like I was standing on the precipice of a suffocating fog.

Man, It’s hard to breathe in here.

The darkness grew denser; if it was even possible. All of my instincts were screaming for me to return — which I wholeheartedly agreed with — Yet, I felt a deep, primal urge to keep pushing myself through. There was something inside this… fog that was urging me to push deeper, to reach the center of it all.

Hiss…

Shit. More of those.

It was at this point that more snakes began to make their presence known. The noise of their slithering bodies was accompanied by their hisses, and with my shield raised, I took note of their numbers as they approached.

One… Two… four…

Four of them emerged from the surrounding darkness, their scales glimmered from the reflected light that originated from my staff. With my newfound source of light, locating them wasn’t a difficult task, and on top of that, the glints of light from their scales only made tracking them an even easier feat.

Without any warning, the closest snake — the one to my left — lunged at me with a ferocious hiss. My shield was at the ready this time, and its fangs met the tough shell, failing to crush it between its jaw. I felt a slight recoil from the impact — While it was heavy, it was nothing compared to the jabs from the lizard spearman — and with a roar, I pushed against the massive body of the snake and repelled it.

I couldn’t lose the vision my primed spell granted, so I needed to make very prudent use of my spell. I kept track of the body of the snake flying away from me, then, released the spell that was aimed at its long body.

The shriek of the spell contrasted with the sheer silence in my immediate perimeter, and the explosion after wasn’t a joke either, as the snake’s body burst into pieces, I observed the advances of the other snakes; Each of them being as massive as the other.

Priming another bolt, I retreated a few steps back. The previous two snakes that I killed had consumed half my mana pool, and I regained 5 back from killing two of them. Three more bolts, one for each…

Keeping my mental calculations to myself, I launched another Death Bolt on the second farthest of the group of snakes. Another explosion and a rain of snake guts later, the remaining snakes were only a few meters ahead of me, with both of their fangs ready to rip my body into pieces.

My shield caught one of the snakes when it pounced, but the other one swerved to the side, avoiding my shield’s range of defense. I let my spell loose on the advancing snake, killing it. But it wasn’t enough. And also, it was too late.

The bolt collided with the snake at a distance that I was less than comfortable with. The force of the explosion pushed me away with a force that took me by complete surprise, enough to stumble to my feet and I fell sideways on the ground, facing the other snake with its jaw about to swallow my face wide open.

Shit.

The fresh injection of venom entered my bloodstream once again. This time, instead of my neck, it came straight from my right arm.

[You are paralyzed for 10 seconds.]

Again?

Yelling internally didn’t help my situation at all. The snake was lodged in my right arm with its body covering my torso as I felt it coiling around my body. I primed another spell but paused as I realized the proximity of the snake’s torso around me. If I launched it, I would be caught in its explosion, no doubt.

Its lengthy body began flexing, constricting my breathing with every passing second.

No options left… I gritted my paralyzed face, and let my spell go.

A burst of green light erupted. The coils from the snake’s outer body burst into pieces and even melted while the light filled the space in my enlarged retinas. I couldn’t shut my eyes to shield them from the brightness due to the paralysis, and in a single instant, an unimaginable sting flooded my corneas.

I wished I could scream to let some of this pain loose, but I couldn’t. Even with the agony swelling inside of my chest, all I did after was flail in the air from the impact of the explosion, then land on the floor with an ugly thump, expressionless.

It was a sobering experience; to not be able to scream my pain out and being forced to keep it down was akin to being suffocated by an invisible pair of hands. Never again, I thought, but at least, the fight was over.

[You are no longer paralyzed.]

Once the paralysis was gone, I released all the pent-up pain that was stuck in my chest. My voice creaked from the sheer pressure that had built up in my throat, and I nearly vomited. Again. But I managed to hold it back this time.

My hands burned from a type of sensation I had never imagined I would ever feel. Parts of my white outfit were in the process of being dissolved, and so was the skin that the clothing once sheltered. While it wasn’t excruciating, the burning wasn’t anywhere close to being comfortable either.

After regaining what was left of my dignity here, I got up, nearly stumbling over the corpse of one of the snakes that lay bare under my feet. My mana was only a few points away from running out; I had maybe about two casts of it left before I had to resort to using my staff as a beat stick instead.

Yes, all the snakes were dead. But I didn’t escape unscathed either.

Channeling what was left of my arcane energy to the staff, I witnessed the aftermath of our battle in its full gory details. The snakes were almost unrecognizable at a glance, with their bodies and scales melting and breaking apart when I stepped on them.

For a brief second, I wondered if I would be able to inflict enough damage on myself and die from my own magic. It seemed plausible, but what kind of conclusion was I supposed to draw from it?

Swallowing a gulp of iron-tainted saliva, I peered through the darkness with a heavy heart.