Scene 4 - Poisoned

With a wave of his hand, Scorpio teleported the contestants along the beach, all in the opposite direction to the next island. Watching the light flicker around her Rune scanned her new surroundings, she was sitting in purple sand that smelled like rot.

She got up from the weird looking sand and heard the crash of the water behind her. Turning around she opened her eyes wide to see the waters color behind was a pure purple, she knew it wasn’t a normal sea but a sea of poison judging from the mana in the air.

To her left and right she saw two contestants far away from her covered with a shield of light that was fading a bit for each moment that past. She had to make a choice fast, start tracking down contestants or start running through the forest.

Both had their pros and cons, if she started hunting contestants she could earn points, but might fail the challenge if she wasted too much time. If she started running she could get a good position at the bridge and hunt those who crossed, the con would be if a coalition was formed and she had to fight more than one at a time.

In a few moments Rune made up her mind and started running through the forest, she was confident in her stamina and her speed to outrun the others to get a good position. She figured with the spacing she saw that big groups wouldn’t likely form on the first Island and instead form on the second island.

The other contestants if they had a brain would understand this point and weed out the weaklings on the bridge crossing the second island. Now it was the thought of gathering allies or going in it alone was her next line of thought.

Rune chuckled as she slid down a hill, keeping to her pace she kept on running through the forest. If they were strong and had a good personality it wouldn’t be bad to team up with someone, but if they were lacking on strength or had a bad person she would eat them without a second thought.

Rune kept on running through the forest without stopping and noticed something immediately that the trees were getting thicker and the plant life was growing lush making it harder for her to find a path forward.

It got so bad to the point that Rune had to make up her mind and start jumping from tree to tree with her mana supporting her. Thankfully with all the poison mana around her it would be easy to recover the mana she spent when she needed to rest.

By now the shield surrounded her had disappeared and the forests started to make strange sounds.

‘It seems that the forest has a life other than us contestants. I wonder how dangerous this life is?’, In the midst of her thoughts, a jade colored shadow shot out of the brushwork aiming for Rune’s neck.

Despite bringing somewhat flustered Rune made a claw gesture with her hand and swatted the incoming projectile. Bones and flesh exploded outwards from Runes attack where a snakes body fell downwards.

“Humph what a death-seeking creature. Die pitifully-- What the fuck!?”

As soon as she crushed the snake a dozen more shot out of the brushwork targeting her body in all directions making her shocked before a fit of rage took her.

“You’re all… SEEKING DEATH!”

Streaks of green mana started to crackle from her eyes as she swatted the incoming snakes to death causing a haze of blood around her as she pushed forward filled with strength. With each step, she took more and more snakes rushed her with the intent to stop her making her chuckle at their futile attempts.

Rune figured they were at the around the 3rd HBR level completely underneath her level, Jumping through the air sending out claws of flame and poison throughout the field her blood boiled from the smell of blood in the air as she jumped from tree to tree.

Despite the dozen or so snakes jumping at her every few seconds, she dodged over half of them and the rest she killed head-on. At this pace should reach the bridge pretty quickly if nothing tried surprising got in her way.

As soon as she thought a foreboding feeling started tingling across her back making her stop on her spot. Since she stopped she was forced to kill the snakes that were following her from behind in place, it took her a few minutes to kill them but the cleared the area.

Despite clearing the area there was danger lurking somewhere, she stood there for a minute and couldn’t find anything which frustrated her. Finding nothing Rune grew frustrated and depressed to keep moving figuring if something strong came out she’d kill it if something stronger came out she’d poison it then kill it, if something too strong came out she’d run.

Jumping to the next tree she landed on the branch and strangely no jade snakes came out of the wild to attack her, but her danger senses shot through the roof putting her on edge. Looking all around her blood was pumping as thoughts filled her mind.

‘Where is this danger coming from?!?’

No matter where she looked nothing stood out of place driving her mad as the sense of danger grew inside her.

‘If the danger is not above, to the sides or below where is it?’

The sense of danger then reached its peak in her mind and then suddenly pain filled Rune’s left leg, she instantly reacted and smashed the wooden snakes head apart. Blue venom started leaking from her leg mixed with her own blood.

She had been bitten by an unknown poisonous snake, despite using poison cultivation at best she was immune to one hundred poisons thanks to the help of Master Mo. She Instantly figured that she wasn’t Immune to this poison as she started to feel weakness in her body and she started to sweat hard.

She had to act fast, quickly she burned the floor down below and hollowed out the middle of the tree. She wobbled inside and sat down cross-legged, Rune didn’t want to but she had to fight the poison inside her off with her own poison arts as fast as possible!