(Nov 15)

While we were fighting with Agora, I had attached a bit of my web essence onto its body.

I was hoping to be able to use my web essence to slow it down a bit or maybe even trap it, but since Agora was so big, the web essence was negligible.

However, my web essence was never removed so even after Agora had escaped, it was still attached creating a trail of web essence in its path.

“We should pursue it. We’re a bit tired, but we’re not injured while Agora seemed like it took some damage. If we wait too long, it might heal up,” I suggested.

After a moment of thinking, Connor finally nodded in agreement.

“Yes. You’re right. Let’s do that.”

But before we went, Connor had to quickly head back to the village and report what happened back to Elder Vindal.

He was quick, so it only took a few minutes for him to get back.

“Alright. We ready to go?” Connor asked.

We all nodded in unison.

The other followed behind me as I led the way with my trail of web essence.

We slowly picked up speed until we were running through the forest.

Agora had travelled a long distance and my trail of web essence still continued on even after half an hour of running.

Sven couldn’t keep up, so I had to carry him on my back as we travelled.

Finally, after who knows how long, we came across a clearing with a large lake.

We looked around the area and found a large cave leading deep into the side of a mountain.

My trail of web essence was also leading directly into it and was the perfect size for a giant snake monster to fit inside of.

Pretty much certain that Agora was somewhere in the cave.

Before I could enter though, Connor put his hand on my shoulder.

“It’s not a good idea to just walk in. Who knows what’s waiting for us in there. In such a tight cave, we wouldn’t be able to avoid Agora. We should try and lure it out instead.”

Good idea.

“But how should we lure it out?”

No one spoke up.

Although we knew we should lure it out, we didn’t know how.

Together, we started brain storming ideas.

“What if we run in, aggro Agora, and then run back out?”

“Not a good idea, we don’t know how deep it goes, and the cave might collapse if Agora gets angry. Too dangerous.”

“What if we make loud noises to draw out Agora?”

“Agora’s injured right now, so its probably not going to respond.”

“What if we build a fire and let the smoke draw Agora out?”

“We don’t want to risk starting a forest fire… And it wouldn’t be very effective since smoke floats up and out of the cave. Unless we were actively blowing smoke into it and deep inside the cave, it’d be minimal, whereas the risk of a burning down the environment... let’s leave this as a last resort if we can’t think of anything else…”

“Hm…”

That’s when I got an idea.

For a while now, there was a new ability that I wanted to test out and this was the perfect moment.

“You guys might want to stand back since I don’t know how dangerous this is…”

The others seemed confused, but they still stepped back.

I created a cut on the palm of my hand using my nail and let my blood flow from the wound.

Using magic, my blood started to heat up until it boiled, evaporating into a bloody mist.

By doing this, I separated the dragon blood from my human blood, turning it into a deadly poisonous mist that would kill anything that breathes it in.

Blood mist.

That’s the name of this new ability I created.

However, I wasn’t done yet.

I inhaled all the blood mist created from my evaporated dragon blood into my lungs and held my breath.

Next, I covered my entire hand in web essence and formed a circle shape using my index finger and thumb.

Then I raised it to my mouth and blew into it, producing bubbles made from my web essence to form and float out.

Blood Bubbles.

(Hopefully the names blood mist and blood bubbles doesn’t sound too cringe, since I just named it with the first thing that came to mind, as I do with all my abilities.)

It’s a combination of web essence and blood mist. An attack where I fill up bubbles with my highly toxic vaporized blood.

And since the bubbles are made from my web essence, I could control it at will. It was durable and could withstand attacks while being able to pop it at anytime remotely.

My plan was to allow my blood bubbles to float into the cave and when it’s deep inside, I’ll pop them and let my blood mist cover the area.

Agora is a giant A ranked snake with strong resistance against toxins and poisons, so it didn’t die to the blood mist, but it was enough to get it to leave the cave.

It didn’t even take 5 minutes before rumbling could be heard and Agora came rushing out of the cave.

Its eyes were bleeding and it flailed around in pain, destroying everything around it.

With this, combat commenced once more.

Connor led the charge into battle by jumping into the air, spinning his spear around and thrusted dozens of stabs forward.

Agora was already wailing around in pain, so it barely even noticed the attacks.

My blood mist was causing it a lot more pain than I had thought.

Honestly if we had just left it alone, it might have just died after a couple hours by itself.

Agora must’ve also realized that it was slowly dying as well since it threw away all regards for its life and went on a full rampage.

You know what they say, “a wounded and cornered animal is when it’s most dangerous.”

Agora unleashed a massive roar as a wave of magic washed through the forest. This was its last battle, and it was going all out.

It repeatedly smashed its tail into the ground creating tremors.

Brandon unleashed a magic roar which attracted Agora’s attention onto himself, allowing the me and the others to freely attack Agora.

Connor signalled for me and Mika to strike together via Sven’s telepathy.

I increased my sword’s weight and temperature all the way up before swinging forward with all my might.

With Brandon tanking Agora’s hits, and with our combined attacks, we managed to tear Agora’s body in half.

Its lower body was blasted off, but despite being separated from its upper half, it still wiggled around.

I activated dragons mind to avoid getting hit by the flailing detached snake body and jumped onto Agora’s main body.

Even though Agora was bleeding out at this point and was on the verge of death, it still turned its head to stare at me.

With just a glance, it knew that I had caused it to feel this pain.

In anger, it flung its head towards me, trying to tear me apart.

But before it could reach me, I raised my sword with both hands and plunged it straight down just as Agora’s head got close, piercing through its skull and brain.

Blood spurted out like a fountain as its body grew limp and collapsed.

Agora had died.

I jumped off its body as it was falling and landed nearby.

“Good job! Let’s head back now, and we’ll celebrate this victory!” Connor cheered.

I shook my head.

“Not yet. We should check inside of the cave. It may have laid eggs or something in there, we don’t want an Agora Jr to be born, do we?”

“Uh… I don’t think that’s a good idea. Who knows what’s in that cave. Doesn’t feel very safe. Plus, it might just be empty. Let’s just head back for now.”

“Don’t worry. I have strong instincts, I’ll be fine. You guys can head back first if you guys want. I just want to make sure the job is fully complete.”

As a soldier, I was taught that one must always complete a mission properly and not half ass it. That’s what I intended on doing.

Connor scratched his head as I walked past him and entered the cave.

It was dark inside, so I lit a torch with some fire magic.

The cave was quite big, with wide tunnels that stretched deep into the mountains.

I even started running since walking would’ve taken too long due to its massive size.

I noticed that there was a lot of rocks and debris laying around, which wasn’t strange since Agora probably caused a lot of destruction in here, but something caught my eye.

There was wood in here.

Not like trees or anything, but like, manmade wooden planks.

How did wood planks get inside of some random far-off cave that a giant snake monster was residing in? Did Agora bring it in?

I looked around, and I saw reminiscence of people being in here. There were burned torches, some scrap paper, torn clothing and even a bit of blood.

Maybe Agora captured some people and brought them to this cave?

The cave eventually led to a large open cavern area.

There was more manmade stuff around, like tables, books, scrolls, broken potions, and stuff. But what stood out was in the center of this cavern; a magic circle engraved into the ground.

This magic circle was obviously manmade.

I don’t know much about magic circles, but it looked to be some sort of alchemy or summoning circle.

But why was there a magic circle here?

And as I was inspecting the magic circle, my dragon instantly suddenly warned me of incoming danger.

Dragons mind automatically activated and I ducked just as something flew past me, piercing the air where I had formerly been.

I turned around to see a spear pointed at my face…

… and the one holding it was Connor.