When they opened their eyes again, Ryan and Alissa saw themselves in the middle of a weird garden. The place was quite dense, and the plants around had been cut in a manner that now they looked like walls. The 'walls' were green, but they could thousands of a weird ref flower that they had never seen before emanating pollen every single moment. The smell wasn't unpleasant. It actually was quite good, but…

Congratulations! The skill Poison Resistance has leveled up.

Poison Resistance Lv 5 ➞ Lv 6

You obtained 01 status point.

Ryan immediately covered his nose, but when he did that, the pollen began to fly around his body and then eventually touched his skin. He felt like those were ants that were biting him. The points where the pollen touched began to turn green. It was a poison that caused damage, so he could counter with Heal, but the more Ryan lets the pollen touch him, the stronger the damage over time will become.

Suddenly, Alissa cast a magic barrier around them. As expected, she wasn't dumb enough to use only on herself. In any case, now that Ryan looked at her, he noticed that she was looking at the sky for some reason. When Ryan did the same… he found a massive chunk of earth flying in the distance.

"Floating blocks of earth…" Ryan sighed. "Oh boy."

That was probably the location of their target. While that was fine and all, Ryan couldn't help but wonder… why their enemies always had to be so damn more powerful than him? Not only could they create their base in a flying fortress, but they also managed to create a massive garden that could emit so many pollens that the color of the sky changed from blue to pinkish red.

"I want to conserve my energy, so I will fly on human form," Alissa said. "You should create an earth platform and fly using that."

Ryan thought that something like that was possible, but he could only do so for a couple of minutes with his current magic powers. Although he had some mana potions, those were for the fight… in any case, spending them would be better than flying, always depending on Alissa. Against dragons, Ryan will need the battle experience to fight and fly at the same time, so that was a good chance for that.

Although that flying chunk of earth could be seen pretty easily, the place wasn't quite close as Ryan imagined. However, thanks to the fact that he had to fly for several minutes, he managed to notice several things. First of all, the garden wasn't a real garden… it was like a labyrinth of poisonous plants created to weaken all the invaders. In the distance, the only color Ryan could see was green and red, so perhaps, the labyrinth had been created to kill the previous species of that planet. It was insane, but it was also highly possible that the labyrinth covered the whole planet.

"I guess we are close enough," Alissa said, and then she began to fly low.

Ryan accompanied her, already imagining what she was planning to do. Still, he couldn't help but shrug at the idea of attacking their base without seeing things from another angle. After all, they only saw the lower part of the massive floating rock. In any case, Ryan could only watch since the rock was like ten kilometers above the ground level, and Alissa was always the one who decides what to do during those jobs.

Alissa transformed into her dragon form, and then she began to create another massive fireball of dark flames. However, before her attack could grow any further, some vines raised from the ground and grabbed her legs. Several other vines did the same in just a few moments until Alissa suddenly lost all her sense of touch coming from her legs. Alissa tried to fly, but before that also could happen, all the labyrinth moved toward her while completely ignoring Ryan. In the blink of an eye, Alissa was enveloped by the labyrinth and became a massive sphere of plants. That also revelated the true state of that world… it was a lifeless land where Ryan could only see the colors: brown, white, and black. It looked like all the resources and nutrients of that planet had been drained by something.

"Hopefully, I will learn something from this… if I manage to escape."

Alissa wasn't dead. Ryan could feel her presence, and the sphere enveloping her still was moving. So, she was fighting back. The problem was: will she able to free herself? Ryan had no idea. Before he could think of any way to solve that situation, Ryan suddenly heard a voice.

"Are you the two that Baal mentioned? How utterly pathetic!"

That voice was filled with amazement and absolute contempt. Still, it didn't surprise Ryan since it was clear that it belonged to a demon… coming from that massive rock, a single being came flying. As usual, Ryan tried to use Appraisal, but the skill failed… it looked like it was time to learn the improved version of that skill.

Based on the voice, Ryan already knew that the demon was a female. However, she was much bigger if compared to ordinary women. The demon was like two and a half meters long, and she was also quite fit. Ryan didn't expect any less, given that she had a green great sword on her back. Unlike the demons, Ryan saw before, that one only had a single horn in the middle of her forehead. Her eyes were completely black, but the irises had a silver tone. The demon also had two pairs of bat-like wings. One pair was recurved upward and the other downward. Still, the demons' most prominent features were her red hair, her smile full of confidence, and her bikini armor. Ryan couldn't help but wonder what she thought when she chose that bikini armor. At the very least, she didn't think that will protect her vitals. Still, as expected of the leader of the succubus.