The left tunnel was no different from the tunnel from which Conan came, but the number of crystals illuminating the area decreased over time. It became darker and darker in this cave, so their two movements became slower and slower as a consequence. After a few hours of walking, Conan discovered carcasses of several small animals. The type of animal was not clear from the shape of the skeleton, he also did not have any idea what kind of predator ate it, but he resolved himself and continued forward. He hoped that whatever ate them would no longer be there.
"Rustling, rustling, rustling..." odd noises came from the walls up.
"Eh! I hear noises of rustling, perhaps insects prowling around the wall." Conan thought to himself.
The rustling of the insects was too strong to belong to mere small insects. As anxious as Conan was, he wanted to keep out of contact with what it was. He quickly became aware of a giant silhouette. "What if it doesn't eat Humans!" thought Conan, hopefully. He hoped to get lucky and go around the Giant figure. The rattling of the giant centipede mandibles became apparent after some time. On a closer look, this thing was humongous with its whole body in red blood color and body length ranging around 20-30 feet, as well as more than a hundred pairs of legs. The monstrous eyes of the giant centipede loomed over these two unknown life forms.
Frightened for the moment, Conan and the girl stopped to follow in their footsteps. Conan wondered how such a giant centipede could live in this place. "Is this even scientifically possible in today's world? Why hasn't such a species ever been discovered?". While these thoughts went into the mind of Conan, that giant centipede rushed towards them. Conan and the girl barely evaded its attack and made a run for it. As the giant centipede made a corner, they continued to run. There was no time to look back, so Conan ran blindly into the dark tunnel as he attempted to gain as much distance as possible.
The dreadful mouth of the centipede twisted and broke outwards to search for its prey. After seeing its prey escape, it began to run toward it furiously. Inadvertently, the woman's body tripped on rough ground and fell.
Soon the giant centipede overtook them and, with its clawed appendages, grabbed the young girl's foot and bit the leg with its mandibles. "Ah ..." the girl screamed. Conan felt an excruciating pain in his leg. Even though the wound was inflicted on a single body, the pain was shared by both bodies. Conan calmed his mind and tried to think of an escape.
Conan attempted to control the female's body and evade the centipede's hold, but to no avail. Soon Conan aimed to find something that could be used as a weapon. He soon found a rock the size of a football, picked it up, and ran frantically toward the centipede's mouth. He then pierced the stone into the centipede's eyes and got it to lose its hold by bludgeoning it. A blood-curdling shriek erupted from the centipede's mouth. Taking the chance, the girl got away from the centipede. Her right foot sustained grave injuries, so she was unable to get up immediately. On the tip of the claws of the giant centipede, there were small openings through which the venom is extruded when bitten. Conan thought as such and decided to find a safe place before treating the venom, but sadly there was no safe place around.
Then the only option was to walk further down the tunnel until they find a safe place. Conan took her arms on his shoulders to support her. She was limping, but they tried to escape as fast as possible. Having made another turn, Conan finally saw a faint light from the outside. Conan was looking forward to the possibility of getting out of this cave if this small opening leads to the outside of this cave and the ground above. The giant centipede stopped and turned its head sideways, sweeping with its arcane senses. Finally sensing its prey, it rushed towards it again. With intense pain, Conan started running again, realizing that the noise of the rustling was coming closer and closer. The girl's leg was too painful, but he had to endure and gave whatever he could to get to the exit.
The giant centipede was chasing them at a much quicker rate. They won't be able to reach the exit in time. After realizing that, Conan remained behind while leaving the girl running forward. Gathering stones, he pointed them toward the mouth of the approaching giant centipede. With a hard exoskeleton covering its whole body, the thrown stones did not do any harm. Even if the eyes are damaged, the centipedes did not depend on their eyes instead used their antennae to find their prey. After sensing Conan, it sprayed a foul-smelling liquid from its mouth.
Conan dodged the spray of spittle and soon noticed that it was melting away the stones wherever it came into contact. "Is that acid spray! I would have died if I hadn't dodged that in time." Conan rejoiced inwardly. The giant centipede did not stop there but sprayed short bursts of acid fluid a couple more times. Conan predicted the direction of spray from the angle of its mouth and evaded it in advance, but it was getting harder. A portion of the fluid fell onto his sleeves and burned the fabric of his clothing. In haste, Conan tore his sleeves and threw them away.
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In the meantime, the girl came to the end of the tunnel, but it turned out to be a cliff with no way out. The girl extended her neck out and looked down. Down below was a deep ravine with a stream flowing through it. It should be over 100 feet up to the water surface if you jump. Jumping off a 100-foot cliff seemed ridiculous, but Conan knew they had no alternative. Conan didn't want to make the same mistake as before, so he let the girl jump first and analyze if it's safe to jump for him too. Usually, he wouldn't let a girl take that kind of risk by herself, but now it was a different scenario. It was a single consciousness inside both male and female bodies. Even if something happened to the female body after diving into the water, his other self should survive inside this tunnel and hopefully find a way to get away from the centipede.
While the pain was shared between the two bodies, he hoped that if death came, it would not affect both bodies. He may merely lose contact with the other body after excruciating suffering. After she made up her mind, the girl threw herself off the cliff. The girl embraced the feeling of free-falling and landed safely in the water. Coldwater gushed into her mouth and soaked her clothes while pulling her underwater. With prolonged deliberate thrusts across her legs and arms, she broke the surface and spat water. She took giant mouthfuls of air as she looked up at the cliff she jumped off.
Even though they were several meters apart, Conan could still feel both bodies, meaning that the small distance between the bodies did not affect his control over them. But if there is a sort of limit to this or not is something to examine later. For now, the escape was possible by jumping off the cliff. Upon finding a chance to escape, Conan too raced towards the ridge. Although barely missing the clutches of the centipede, which was chasing him, he also plunged into the river. The water soon shot up his nose, Conan coughed. A bobbed head came off the water, expelling the water from his mouth. Conan was thrilled as they finally came out of this damn cave.
The girl's right leg injury was severe, she felt piercing pain radiating through her whole leg and soon found herself unable to move her right foot as though as it had paralyzed. She tried to stay afloat with both her arms and her left leg. Conan jumped immediately after the girl jumped, so there wasn't a lot of distance between them. Conan wasn't an expert swimmer, but he was still a good swimmer when he was in college. He reached the girl within minutes and wrapped his arm around her mid-section so that she no longer had to fight to stay afloat.
Alas, the happy moment didn't last for long. Unfortunately, both bumped into a submerged rock in the stream and separated again. Subsequently, they were caught in a riptide. Further on, the river broke into two branches, the smaller one coming from the west and the larger one coming from the east. With her right leg paralyzed, the girl soon got swept away by the strong tide and entered the smaller branch of the river. With eyes filled with terror, the girl tried to fight the strong tide with her weak attempts. But soon she got exhausted, as though she was barely hanging on. Conan kicked hard to propel himself towards the smaller branch and reunite with his female self. Conan was caught in a force too strong to fight which eventually drew him downstream to the larger branch of the river.
Eventually, Conan lost hope of catching up with her female self and instead focused on staying afloat. He allowed the current to sweep him away rather than avoid it. After one hour's drift into the wild currents, Conan had already swept about 20-30 km eastward along the downstream. That was when he saw a riverbank at a certain distance. If he can reach out, he should be safe. Gasping, Conan swam to shore till his feet touched the ground under him. Conan waded through the waist-high current that pulled at his lower body with a violent undertow. Conan climbed out, shivering as a cold breeze descended upon his body while pebbles and sand moved beneath his feet.
The small branch of the river had weaker currents that progressively calmed down after a while. She looked around to find the nearest ground but found it disheartening that the ground was a few feet above the water level. Glancing westward, she soon saw the willow trees above the ground with branches reaching till the water level. After gasping for breath, the girl swam towards those branches. As she approached those branches, she hung onto them and wrapped her arm around them.
There was little effort needed to stay afloat but to do so for how long. She tried to pull herself upwards, but the branches were not strong enough to pull her weight, nor did She have enough left energy in her body. She also realized it and cried for help, "Help! Help! Is anyone there? Please Help! ..". But there was no response on the other side. She's already lost all sense with her right foot. If she left from here and looked for another way, she might probably drown along the way while looking, so she held on tightly.
After some time, she began to feel hopeless as she began to lose the hold of her hand and felt a consciousness leave her. Once she swallowed a little water, she woke up again with strength and screamed again with what little energy remained in her body. It went on a little longer, but in the end, she lost consciousness as the water began to fill her lungs. She was drowning. "Drowning, can't breathe, can't breathe, can't ..." Conan felt the same as his female self. Regret overtook him when he realized he couldn't feel his other self anymore.
"My other self did not die like that, did she?" Conan whimpered.