Their names might have made them more confident, but the two snakes were still stupid in a lot of ways. They would have never challenged the spaded snake before, but now look at them.

Typhon wanted to chase after her, but he noticed Galahad's water creature peering out at him from behind the little snake. He didn't like the way their leader kept looking at it, so he warned Galahad to keep the creature out of sight, before leaving to resume his own training.

The cave had undoubtedly changed.

The tense nature had transformed to one of fondness after their leaders return, with the nestlings feeling more protected and secure enough to make their true feelings known. And Typhon found it very peculiar.

He couldn't decide yet if she was really a tyrant or a queen.

While he thrived on the ambiguity of his emotions, and sometimes outright disdain towards his fellow snakes. He made it clear he was impartial to them from the very start. That way, it was easy to brush them off like they didn't exist.

It made them fear him and set clear boundaries of what they could and couldn't do. Whereas their leader was different. She did not seem to care about such things, nor was she concerned with how they saw her.

Although they attacked her, she did not kill anyone and had even helped them recover when they were down, making the snakes see her in a favourable light.

Those that slacked off before were now fully at attention due to a combination of fear and awe she inspired, like they had something to prove. But their leader, completely oblivious to the changing dynamics, carried on like she cared for nothing.

In their eyes, she was simply aloof. But he saw things for what they were.

There was an air of detachment about her, like she didn't really care what they thought at all. It was like she didn't really see them and always seemed to be looking through them like she was thinking of many things at the same time, and Typhon didn't know what to think about this at all.

On the surface, the nestlings could all be sorted into three groups.

One that held a favourable impression towards their leader and was genuinely excited for what came next.

Another was almost fanatic in nature and seemed to have an unusual fascination with their leader, paired with a strong desire to follow her around. Galahad easily fell into this group, as did the snakes who saw her as a divine figure because of her ability to heal and materialise things from thin air.

They would linger around her instead of training because they sought to learn from her directly, aspiring to do the same one day. And although she was yet to give many of them names, they remained just as devoted.

Typhon sighed.

His sister Ophelia also seemed to be a part of this group.

She had convinced herself she was their leaders' protector and would not allow any snake to come near her.

And her reason for barring him?

Apparently his glare was too strong, and she was afraid he would scare their leader away - as if he wasn't the one most wary of their leader's intentions!

And lastly there were those that remained neutral, like him and the spaded snake.

Although calling her neutral was a bit of a stretch as she seemed to detest their leader outright and preferred to stay alone sulking than participate in any form of training and would often fan the flames of discontent whenever she could.

She felt like a fool after being bested by their leader and made it clear she wanted her gone. It was partly his fault for asking her to prove herself, but he never expected she would do so in such a stupid way.

What exactly did rushing out all by herself prove?

If the leader had been a real enemy, her reckless action would have endangered them all.

But aside from those sour notes, he wasn't too concerned.

He wondered why the leader had asked him to focus on particular skills and not others. She had given no explanation for her instructions, only an order. Yet, his skills had greatly improved from that little input.

And now that he could see his stats, there were quite a few that were near to LV10 so it made more sense that he should focus on them and not the ones she instructed. He would have gone back to ask, but he decided to try and figure out her motives from the little he was given.

Not everyone could be as shameless as his sister who jumped at every opportunity to be near their leader like an impulsive brat.

Hm... Perhaps he was jealous? He'd never seen her look that excited before.

No. It was just as he feared – she was becoming too attached.

While he admired their leader, he thought it was best not to rely on her too much. After all she had left before, nothing stopped her from doing so again.

And aside from that, there were too many suspicious things about her that he just couldn't accept. It wasn't just that she could make mysterious items and strange liquids appear out of nowhere. It was that she seemed to have an unusual number of corpses.

The wasp creatures she had fed them, all looked strong and yet their bodies were damaged in so many places from slash marks. Just what had killed them?

If it was truly their leader that did it, she had to be extremely strong and if it was not. Just how strong was she to have gotten those corpses anyway?

He'd witnessed some of her skills during the times she practiced, while some were destructive, he hadn't seen any that could have made those marks.

He didn't know enough about their leader to deem her harmless to them and the pile of wasp corpses was a big red flag.

In short, it was too suspicious.

And it wasn't just the wasp corpses that made him wary.

When he faced her during training, she'd done something interesting with her shadow. When it spread towards him, he thought nothing of it, until the shadows covered him fully.

Then his vision faded to darkness and he experienced his body grow heavy while he struggled to move and breathe like he'd sunk into thick mud. In the darkness his body was deprived of all sensation, except a persistent aura of dread that evoked feelings of fear.

It was only for a few seconds but his body felt completely bound for a long time. And when she finally released him, he felt relieved to leave like he'd just escaped death.

-------------

As his training for the day came to an end, Typhon met up with Ophelia and her group who seemed to be heading outside.

[We're going to find more flowers to decorate our leader's perch.] Ophelia declared excitedly and he sighed in defeat.

Although their leader did not seem dangerous despite her actions, wasn't it going too far if his sister saw her as a figure to protect?

He was still worried about them getting too close, yet here she was doing something silly again.

As a precaution, he agreed to accompany them outside. But as they were about to leave the cave, two nestlings came up to him to report about a gathering of their fellow snakes outside the cave.

When he looked around the cave to confirm, he saw there were less snakes present than usual.

Ophelia, who was with him, wore a dark look too. If there was such a meeting and he was unaware of it, he knew it wasn't anything good.

He had his suspicions on who the likely culprit would be, but he didn't want to accuse anyone without evidence. So instead of going outside to search for plants as planned, it became a hunt for traitors.

Outside the cave, the air was filled with smoke from where parts of the forest still burned but they followed the scent trail left behind and soon found the gathering of snakes led by the spaded snake not far from the cave.

There were only about seven snakes, but it was already one too many. They were all tired from training and barely had any fight to them, and they were quickly taken down.

[Do you think we wouldn't know you were planning something?] Ophelia confronted them.

The spaded snake stared up at her defiantly. [I have nothing to say to you.]

Typhon was more disappointed than angry - they complained about being overworked, yet all the times they were up training, so was their leader.

He had been watching her very closely and he could see from her movements that everything she made them do was something she was deeply familiar with herself.

So to say she was punishing them was shallow at best.

[Haven't you all improved your skills because of the training?] He questioned them. [What exactly are you trying to prove by gathering here?]

[How could you let her take over?] The spaded snake shot back. [We were fine before she came back and made everything worse.]

Typhon agreed in part. He thought it's a shame she didn't name them all. If they could see their own status, maybe things wouldn't be this way.

[I didn't 'let her take over', she is the strongest of us all and could easily destroy us but hasn't. Do you think she would waste time training us for no reason?]

He was confident she was not a threat to them now, and until he believed otherwise he would not move against her.

The spaded snake hung her head in defeat and said no more.