Swimming in between those hovering islands were a few giant snakes swimming to and fro. They were mostly blue and white but some were bright colors whilst others were dim. There were a few sunspots appearing now and then on their skin like the surface of their body was boiling lava. In fact Lucifer’s guess wasn’t too far off; their entire body was actually made of plasma!

Some looked like anacondas while others looked like pythons and cobras. There were many different species of these plasma snakes but they all had one thing in common; they were all snakes flying around with happy smiles.

But as soon as the two outsiders appeared, the gigantic 1 km long plasma snakes turned their heads in anger. They hissed at White Snow and Lucifer. The plasma snakes happy go lucky faces turned to angry expressions as they started to growl and roar.

“Hissss….”

The snake closest to the trio opened its mouth and blew as a wind rushed forth like a gale and picked them up off their feet and pushed them backwards. But the wind was precisely aimed as it completely missed Sora who was in front of them.

The force of the wind threw them into the air and they were pushed back 500 meters. Lucifer slid across the ground grazing his body. White Snow was relatively fine because he had stronger muscles, could resist the wind force and land okay. He grazed his feet a bit but he wasn’t in too miserable of a state.

Lucifer wasn’t so lucky. He was caught off guard by the sudden attack and his weak and fragile body couldn’t take the blow. He lost his balance and slid across the hard dirt shredding his muscles and skin on the ground.

The single plasma snake sucked in and prepared for an even bigger breath this time, and the other plasma snakes flew over and were ready to join the fray.

“Halt!” Sora yelled desperately. If these snakes were to attack once more with a combined and full attack then White Wolf and Lucifer would surely die.

Lucifer at this moment looked no different than a corpse as he quickly bled out. The pain and fatigued had built up within Lucifer’s body all day. The adrenaline that was pulsing through his veins for so long had reached its limits and finally wore off. The strong pain from almost drowning and smashing against the rocks, having his arm cut off and his skin shredded all came rushing towards him at once. It overcame his mind and he could no longer cope with the pain as he passed into unconsciousness.

Lucifer had an incredibly high pain tolerance but his injuries were too serious, his fatigue was too great and he had lost so much blood that it was a wonder he hadn’t died yet.

His body slumped on to the ground as the entire world around him went black.

Lucifer opened his eyes, his entire body felt like it was being stabbed by pins and needles.

“Ah…” He groaned in pain as he looked around. A few of the fingers on his good hand were broken, his arm was still gone but it had been cauterized so the bleeding had stopped. Nearly his entire body was bandaged and every time he moved it hurt.

The doctor who had patched Lucifer walked into the room at this moment in time.

“Ah, I see you have finally awoken. That was a close call young man; I was barely able to pull you back from the brink of death.”

His snake like eyes widened for a second before returning to normal as his tongue flickered in the air.

Lucifer struggled to sit up as he slowly asked the doctor in a low voice. “What happened? Where is Sora and White Snow?”

“Don’t move so much young man unless you wish to reopen your wounds?”

The doctor walked over and forced him to relax.

“Sora is currently in the meeting hall with the village chief, council and grand elders. He will be out in a moment. He usually visits around this time. Please don’t rush things; you only just awoke after being in a coma for the last 3 weeks.”

“3…3 weeks?” Lucifer was quite stunned; it felt like he had only just closed his eyes.

Gulp, he had missed 3 weeks of school. No doubt Aruna, Ambrosia and Luar were wondering where he had been for the last few weeks. But he had no way of contacting them.

“Mmm, indeed. It was quite serious; it seems you went through quite some trauma before were you attacked by the Guardian Beast. The attack itself only caused minor flesh wounds while there was already major damage to your body before that.”

Lucifer nodded his head but in his eyes there was shock and terror. They had such divine beast protecting their city. So that wasn’t a dream? And this was only one of the Eight Great Strongholds. How powerful would the others be? With such beasts protecting them, how could anyone possibly penetrate their living space?

He had felt it firsthand and that power was only a slight breath, imagine if they were to really attack. His thoughts ran wild. Such power was unimaginable to a small human like himself. The world really was wide!

Were they living creatures or were they some sort of autonomous bio engineered robots. He didn’t have any clue.

If he could obtain just one of those divine beasts as a mount then he wouldn’t need an army to rescue his mother. He could annihilate their entire army in one fell swoop. With such a powerful backer he could storm the heights and conquer the world.

But for now he had to reevaluate himself, he was badly injured and his arm was gone. His arm was gone! The shock of losing an arm finally set in. He had lost his arm, an arm that had accompanied him throughout his entire life. Now that the adrenaline had worn off and he was thinking clearly he felt a wave of depression wash over him.

He would now spend the rest of his life as a cripple; his martial arts skills and training would drop considerably. He would now have a very big weakness that would leave him open to retaliation during a fight.

He had faced setback after setback since entering this world and so far it was all for naught. He didn’t get any major gains and had instead suffered for nothing. But unlike his world, this was the future. Surely they had the technology to regrow an arm right?