Release that Witch

”It looks like that the worm found its lair.” As soon as the basket reached the ground, Agatha glanced about the surroundings while holding the Stone of Lighting. The furrow between her brows deepened. She asked, ”Did you see Fran?”

”Miss Fran isn’t here.” Lightning had inspected every corner of the cave. ”The Blackstone Pagoda seems to be stuck in here. There’re some empty spaces on either side of the tower. Could she fall off the top and roll over to the side?”

The diamond-shaped stone tower spanned across the deep hole like a bridge, with its two ends rooted in the rocks. Nobody knew how it ended up like that. The tentacle demon and the Multi-eyed Demon could not be found anywhere either.

”The tower doesn’t affect my magic power,” Nightingale revealed herself from the mist.

”But you can’t walk through it like you walk through a wall, can you?” Agatha squatted down and produced an ice piton. She threw it toward the Blackstone Pagoda. The ice piton immediately broke to pieces, whereas the stone tower remained intact. ”There’s a rumor saying that this tower is made of God’s Stones of Retaliation. Although it won’t affect magic power on a mass scale like the prism of magic stone, it can block it.”

Elena corrected Agatha in a low tone, ”It’s not made of God’s Stones of Retaliation but it creates them. Corrosive magic power can change the mineral vein of the magic stones and thereby shapes them into a rectangle stone tablet. Only the mineral vein born under the Bloody Moon, however, has the capability to create Red Mist. The others simply help slow down the dissipation of the Red Mist. This was a top secret in the Union age. We learned it from Lady Eleanor after the fall of Taquila.”

Nightingale was displeased at the delay of the information. ”Why didn’t you tell us earlier?”

Elena snapped, ”You didn’t tell me there’s going to be a demon spire. There’re so many things that can possibly affect magic power. How am I supposed to know which one it is?”

Lightning flew in between them and intercepted their confrontational conversation. ”We have to keep going down, as we haven’t got to the bottom yet. I just managed to dive a little bit more and heard distant running water. It’s very likely that there’s an underground river down there. If Miss Fran did fell down from the side of the stone tower, she might still be alive.”

Elena’s voice brightened. ”Really? Is it possible that Sylvie didn’t find Fran because of this underground river?”

Agatha nodded. ”Very likely. As the stone tower has blocked most of the vision of the Eye of Magic, Sylvie couldn’t see the bottom. If Fran was flushed down by the water, naturally she couldn’t detect her magic beam.” She then turned to Lightning and said, ”You fly up to tell Wendy first. Ask her to instruct Margie to send some God’s Punishment Witches down here... as well as the soldiers from the First Army. Advise them to also put sentries here. We’ll continue with our search.”

The little girl nodded. ”Alright, leave it to me.”

...

With the help of the gondola and the Magic Ark, they soon had enough people to rescue Fran.

Lightning took advantage of this interval and thoroughly investigated the area below the Blackstone Pagoda. As she had expected, the vertical cave wall soon moved into a sloping position. The air also dampened. After she descended for another 30 to 40 meters, she saw a wide underground river.

Snow water trickled down the cave wall and pooled before cascading into a thundering waterfall that poured down in torrents from the mouth of the cave. When the little girl drew close, she could feel a crisp chill play upon her cheeks.

As a result of the moist air in the cave, at the bottom of the hole grew various mosses and mushrooms, one of which gleamed a ghostly blue light that lit up the surrounding area. Even without a Stone of Lighting, Lightning could clearly spy the outline of the cave. With the fireflies floating about, the underground area looked like an entirely different world.

When the ark took the witches and the Taquila survivors to the bottom, they were all fascinated by what they saw.

Nightingale exclaimed, ”If only we can grow those glowing fruit in Neverwinter. In that case, everybody can clearly see the road at night.”

”Let’s bring some back and grow them!” Lightning rubbed her hands in excitement. To discover and grow some new species was one of the most common enterprises for explorers. Sugar canes and corns, for instance, were brought to the Fjords from other small islands by explorers and later flourished. Lightning was not sure if these giant mushrooms and illuminating cattail fruits would be as sweet and delicious as bird beak mushrooms.

Agatha started a head count. ”Let’s finish our business here first. Margie, you stay here to help the First Army to establish a sentry post. We’ll continue with the procession along the underground river. If Fran is more than two miles away from us, we’ll pitch some temporary tents.”

Nobody made an objection. Lightning, Nightingale and Agatha all knew how to escape and protect themselves. The 10 God’s Punishment Witches led by Elena were all exceptional combatants as strong as Extraordinaries. They did not constitute a huge group, but it was actually the most powerful combination in the united front.

Once in the limestone cave, the roar of the rushing water rang off the rocks and down the underground river, producing thunderous reverberation. Lightning had to keep a close distance with the group so as to hear everybody.

Agatha asked, ”Can the devouring worm swim?”

Elena shook her head. ”Nobody has seen it swim. But the worm is colossal, so I think it shouldn’t be far away from the deep hole even if it was flushed downstream.”

”Are you able to tell where this river comes from and head?” Another God’s Punishment Witch put in. Lightning vaguely remembered that her name was Zooey.

Nightingale answered, ”If I remember correctly, it comes toward us and heads to the snow mountain. In other words, it’s a water vein from the Western Region heading to the hilly area in the south.”

It was a known fact that there was plenty of underground water in His Majesty’s domain, but Lightning wondered why those rivers ran toward the south, for there was not a single river there. She was curious where all those water went.

Suddenly, she saw something flutter on the rock not far away.

”Hang on, I saw something move there!”

Hearing her warning, everybody halted and drew out their weapons.

Nightingale immediately gave an affirmative answer. ”No magic reaction is detected, but there’s indeed something over there...” She then paused and slowly approached the object. ”It looks like a semi-spherical... egg?”

”What?” Agatha was a bit surprised.

”Since it doesn’t have magic power, it poses no threat to us.” Elena waved at the God’s Punishment Witches coming with her and said, ”Follow me.”

They soon successfully surrounded the egg. When Lighting made a close study of the tremulous egg, however, she knitted her brows.

A layer of gray skin was clinging to the rock, completely blending with the surrounding environment. When she held up the Stone of Lighting and gradually approached the skin, she spied many stomas opening and shutting as if it were breathing.

Elena coughed out a spittle. ”What the hell... is this? It’s gross.”

”If it’s really an egg, how big should its parent be?” Lightning roughly measured the area of the skin with her fingers and concluded that it was about three meters in length and width. The swollen part in the middle could almost house a full-grown dairy cow.

”The shape... No, it can’t be...” Zooey took a sharp intake of breath. She drew out her longsword and gave the skin a fierce stab, after which she pulled the steel upwards.

A large amount of slimy liquid gushed out of the ”egg” as a piercing shriek rang off the cave wall. Then they saw a black shadow come out of the swell and collapsed to the ground.

To Lightning’s dismay, it was a Mad Demon.