Release that Witch

Almost at the same time, the entire ”skin” shrunk and rolled, and a worm climbed out of the stone wall. With runny mucus pouring out of its skin, it then quickly climbed towards the top of the cave.

But Nightingale was much faster.

She suddenly appeared from the Mist and hung upside down on the cave ceiling as agilely as she was on flat ground and blocked the worm’s way ahead. Before falling to the ground, she stabbed a shining dagger into the worm’s head and nailed it firmly to the stone wall.

The worm struggled for a while, and then all of its six legs drooped. It was dead.

At that moment, Lightning finally noticed that the ”egg” was merely the worm’s torso. With its head and legs buried in stones and blocked by its giant belly, its torso did look like an egg.

The worm’s figure was out of proportion. Its front part resembled an enlarged ant, with the length of no more than half a meter. Its rear part, namely the ”skin” part that enveloped the Mad Demon, was big enough to hold three large barrels inside. Although over a half of the mucus had spilled out and the swollen ”skin” had shrunken, its area was still astonishing.

”Is the demon born out of its belly?” the little girl asked in surprise.

”I’ve never heard of something like that.” Agatha crouched and carefully studied the demon under the light of a Magic Stone. ”This Mad Demon... is completely mature. Look at its arm. The scar here is caused by the inlay of a Magic Stone. Its girth is larger than the other arm, meaning the demon had constantly thrown pikes with magic power.”

”Then where is the Magic Stone?”

”No idea. It’s probably been taken away.”

”So was it taken by this worm?” Elena asked impatiently. ”It swallowed the demon and digested it while hanging itself on the wall. Unfortunately, it came across us. Its Magic Stone was either digested by itself or lost during a war. Does this make sense? Don’t worry about this disgusting worm, looking for Fran is more urgent.”

”It swallowed the demon?” Lightning questioned in her heart. ”Its mouth is not big enough for an adult human being to go through, not to mention for a strong Mad Demon of nearly three meters tall.”

”That’s weird...” Nightingale’s voice came from the void. ”Obviously it’s dead, but why didn’t its magic power dissipate until now?”

”What?” Agatha was surprised. ”Do you mean this is a demon?”

”Yes, its magic power is as thin as mist. I didn’t notice it until it rolled out of the worm’s belly. But it’s surely dead. Judging from the decomposition level of its skin, it died one or two days ago.” Nightingale then asked with bewilderment, ”I thought that it was impossible for magic power to gather on a dead body?”

”If you saw it right, it is indeed weird...” Zooey nodded. Inserting the sword deep into the stone wall, she then said, ”Perhaps we should take these two bodies back for further investigation. Let’s leave a mark here and collect them when we finish camping.”

As they walked forward, they ran across more ”egg worms”, and again, though not all were buried under the stone wall, some were standing right beside the river bank or were in a cluster like mushrooms.

Being experienced, the witches could now make sure their strikes hit right at the worms’ crucial points or cut their heads off, which were buried under the dirt, one after another. Cutting open the worms’ bellies, they found that there were not only Mad Demons inside, but also Fearsome Demons and human bodies.

That startled the witches.

Beyond the Border Area, there was no human residence. How did the worms hunt humans?

Could it be that the worms had stretched their legs into the domain of Neverwinter without a trace?

At that moment, Nightingale suddenly alerted, ”There is a magic reaction ahead. Wait, no... is that, Fran?”

”Where?” Elena did not rush forward, but fanned out with the other God’s Punishment Witches, holding their swords and guarding all around.

Lighting understood that in the misty world, everything was black and white, and most of the objects she saw were constituted by visualized and twisted silhouette lines, except the magic power, which was in bright colors. That was why the dark underground environment had no influence on Nightingale.

”Front-left, 200 meters... about 400 steps. She seems to be entangled by something.” Nightingale’s voice went further and further and was blurred under the noise of water sprays. ”I can’t see... I’ll go first... Wait!”

A moment later, two gunshots sounded.

”Bang! Bang!”

The firing of the flintlock sounded particularly loud under the ground. The God’s Punishment Witches took a look at one another and walked forward while maintaining their formation. Lightning was faster. She flew over them and toward the gunshots while firmly holding the revolver in her hand.

Luckily, what she had worried about did not happen. Soon, Nightingale held up the Stone of Lighting to guide the way.

Lying under the witches feet were two monsters with sickle-like forepaws. The flintlock shots made two holes on the worms heads and blue blood flew on the ground.

”Are these the demonic beasts that you mentioned which can hide their figures?” Floating in midair, Lightning asked.

”Yes, but no matter how skillful they are, they can’t hide from my eyes.” Nightingale put away her revolver and patted at Fran who was tightly stuck, she asked, ”Am I right?”

Fran struggled a bit and groaned something, but it seemed that her mouth was sealed.

Nightingale noticed that both sides of the worm carrier were winded with white jelly which firmly fixed Fran on the ground. Her giant mouth was blocked too. Other than that, her strong body was full of wounds. Apparently, when she fell out of the deep hole, it hurt her badly.

Furthermore, to Nightingale’s surprise, there was more than one such giant worm. Another two devouring worms quietly lay on the ground, as if they were in deep sleep.

”Is this...” An idea flashed into Lightning’s mind. She quickly landed and pushed aside the moss on the ground. A mottled slate appeared in sight.

”Oh?” Nightingale whistled. ”Nice, it seems that we’ve found...”

”The legendary snow mountain ruin!” she said with excitement.

”What happened?” The others arrived one after another. In order not to stretch their formation too loosely, the God’s Punishment Witches had moved at a fixed speed. Walking in the front had always been Elena, which slightly changed Lightning’s opinion on her.

”I’ve found Fran, and two monsters who seemed to want to make a meal out of her,” Nightingale explained briefly. ”Fran is alright, but stuck on the ground. This is already part of the underground ruins, which means enemies could be around. Let’s take Fran out of here as soon as possible and call the First Army to set up sentry posts.”

Elena nodded, pulled out the heavy sword on her back, and neatly and quickly cut open those resilient jelly things. When Fran’s giant mouth regained its freedom, everybody heard her low growling.

”Don’t look up!”

When Lighting heard it, she had subconsciously raised her head.

It was pitch-black overhead, nothing could be seen at first sight. At this spot, the cave extended upward, creating an enormous dome-like space. The Stone of Lighting could only illuminate a very limited space on the ground, offering no detailed vision atop. The next moment, Nightingale felt that the fine hairs on her body rose up.

In the darkness, appeared one scarlet eye, then two eyes, three eyes...

She did not know how many eyes were staring at her at that moment. She saw those tens of thousands of eyes, like tens of thousands of stars, cohere into a gigantic red plate... which looked like a ”Bloody Moon”.