Snake's mouth, which split all the way to his ears, twitched as his massive frame began to deform.
His spine popped with a sound like crackling beans, and his crimson scales stood up one by one before flattening back down.
His limbs retracted, his torso elongated, and his neck stretched forward.
His human face vanished completely, his features twisting, melting, and reshaping.
His upper and lower jaws protruded forward, three rows of fangs flipped out from his gums, and his vertical pupils narrowed from circles into slits, before settling into a complete vertical gaze.
A Red-Scaled Sea Snake over a thousand meters long now coiled on the gravel beach.
The thickest part of the snake's body exceeded four meters in diameter, its crimson scales reflecting a metallic luster in the sunlight.
The dark gold patterns along the edges of the scales formed a continuous line, stretching all the way from the snake's head to its tail.
The snake's head rose slightly, its vertical pupils locking onto Ethan, who lay prone in the pile of gravel.
The snake's mouth opened, the upper and lower jaws stretching past a hundred and twenty degrees, revealing three rows of triangular fangs interlocking within its maw.
Dark green saliva seeped from between its teeth, splashing in tiny droplets onto the gravel.
The snake's head swooped down, clamping its jaws around Ethan's waist.
Fangs pierced the muscles on both sides of his waist, and dark green energy was injected into the wounds from the tips of the fangs.
As the snake's mouth closed, the biting force of its jaws squeezed Ethan's ribs, making them emit a faint creaking sound.
The fishy stench of the sea mixed with the odor of rotting fish and shrimp flooded his nasal passages.
The sensation was so vile that Ethan nearly threw up his dinner from the night before.
If it weren't for his upcoming plans, he would have called it quits long ago.
“Cancel the coordinates for Anchor Point 1. Re-establish anchor coordinates.”
【Coordinates for Anchor Point 1 have been cleared. Please select a new anchor location.】
“Current coordinates.”
【Current coordinates anchored. Location: Wizard World - District 77 - Bodesir Bay.】
【Anchor Point 1: Wizard World - District 77 - Bodesir Bay.】
The moment the anchor was set, the snake's head surged upward, tossing Ethan into the air.
Its mouth opened to its absolute limit, and as Ethan's body fell back down, the snake swallowed him whole, engulfing him from head to toe.
Its tongue wrapped around Ethan's waist, securing him in the center of its mouth.
The fangs did not pierce too deeply, leaving only a few rows of shallow punctures on his waist and shoulders.
The snake's mouth closed, plunging everything into pitch-black darkness.
Ethan opened his eyes.
He could see nothing in the dark. He felt only the rough surface of the snake's tongue pressed against his face, covered in viscous saliva.
The fangs pressed against his back, swaying slightly with the snake's breathing.
The muscular walls of the snake's mouth wriggled slowly, pushing him toward its throat.
But he was held fast by the tongue, anchored in place.
Then, the snake's body began to slither.
The snake's head rose from the gravel beach, its vertical pupils casting a glance toward the surface of the sea.
The thousand-meter-long body slid across the gravel, its scales scraping against the stones with a rustling hiss.
Its tail dragged a deep trench into the beach, pushing the gravel to either side into two low ridges.
The snake's body submerged completely into the sea.
The Red-Scaled Sea Snake threaded through the reefs of the shallow waters, the dark gold patterns on its scales flickering in the deep blue sea.
The shallows were quickly left behind.
The slope of the seabed grew abruptly steeper. Reefs gave way to coral reefs, which in turn were replaced by black basalt pillars.
The seawater shifted from light blue to deep blue, and then from deep blue to an inky, dark blue.
The light grew dimmer and dimmer until only the dark gold patterns on the sea snake's scales continued to glow.
Snake continued to dive.
The basalt pillars transitioned into underwater cliffs, beneath which lay a bottomless trench.
The water in the trench was almost pitch-black, save for the occasional glowing jellyfish drifting by, trailing faint, eerie green light in the darkness.
Snake swam along the edge of the trench, his body winding through the water in an S-shaped trajectory.
With each sweep of his tail, his body surged forward by hundreds of meters.
The inky blue seawater glided over his scales, forming a thin film of water around his body.
This film reduced the water's resistance to a minimum, allowing the snake to swim at a speed that defied the naked eye.
One day.
Two days.
Three days.
Snake did not stop once along the way.
He swam through the trench, across the abyssal plains, and through a forest of giant kelp.
Each stalk of kelp in the forest stood hundreds of meters tall, their fronds swaying gently in the current and parting to either side as the massive snake passed.
Occasionally, Sea Race villages could be spotted on the seabed plains.
Those villages were constructed from coral and seashells, with members of the Sea Race working around the settlements.
When the sea snake passed, the Sea Race workers halted their chores and bowed deeply toward him.
Ignoring them, the sea snake swam directly over the villages.
At the edge of the plains, Snake passed through a cluster of glowing coral reefs.
The coral was a deep purple, with fist-sized luminous pearls hanging from the branches of each colony.
Blue, ripple-like patterns of light swirled inside the pearls, bathing the entire reef in a soft, moonlit glow.
Behind the reefs, a palace rose majestically from the seabed.
The outline of the palace loomed indistinctly in the deep blue water.
The main hall was constructed from massive blocks of deep-sea basalt, each the size of a carriage, with their surfaces covered in intricate runic carvings.
The runes pulsed in the water, sending out a ripple of pale gold light with every flicker.
A giant luminous pearl, over ten meters in diameter, hovered above the spire, its core swirling with the same blue runes as the water chains.
Snake came to a halt on the plaza in front of the palace.
His tail dragged a long groove across the basalt floor as his head slowly lowered.
His jaws parted, and his tongue released its grip on Ethan's waist.
Thud.
Ethan was spat out onto the basalt floor.
He rolled twice before coming to a stop face-down on the cold stone.
The dark green energy was still spreading across his body, and the dark green lines on his face had deepened compared to three days ago, creeping from his cheekbones to the edges of his eye sockets.
His breathing was virtually nonexistent, and his heart rate had plummeted from ten beats per minute to just three.
The puncture wound on his chest had healed completely, but dark green lines remained on the surface of his skin, making it look as though the toxic energy had already corroded his internal organs.
Behind him, Snake began to transform.
The massive body shrank, scales receded, and bones popped and cracked.
Snake reverted from his serpentine form back into a human.
He looked down at Ethan on the floor, grabbed him by the back of his neck, and lifted him up for a closer look.
Ethan's head slumped to one side, his chin resting against his chest as his arms dangled limply.
The dark green lines on his face gleamed with an oily sheen under the light of the luminous pearls.
His lips were a dark green, his eyelids were tightly shut, and his eyes did not move at all beneath them.
Snake let go, letting Ethan fall back to the floor.
He turned and walked toward the main hall of the palace, his footsteps gradually fading across the basalt floor.
Ethan lay prone on the cold stone, his cheek pressed against the rough surface.
The dark green energy lines stretched from his cheekbones to his eye sockets, and his lips wore a poisoned, dark green hue.
His chest barely rose or fell, his heart beating a mere three times a minute.
The surrounding seawater was kept at bay, held outside the palace by an invisible barrier.
At the dome of this deep-sea Dragon Palace, the giant luminous pearl spun slowly, sending out a ripple of pale gold energy with every rotation.
The runic carvings on the four walls flickered in sync with the ripples, bathing the entire hall in a warm, amber-like glow.
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