24 Don't Mess With The Snake

Kuraio looked around, trying to locate the source of that so disturbing voice. However, he couldn't see anyone in the vicinities: the closest group of people were a bunch of Forest Will Tribe members trying to take down a single Fire Earth berserker.

The latter was singlehandedly defending himself against all their assaults, and even managed to wound them in the process. This only showed the vast difference between the two tribes when it came to close hand combat.

The only problem was that they were both too far and too busy to even care about the thing that was happening on Kuraio's side, so it definitely wasn't them.

"Who then?"

The man moved the huge double-bladed weapon to his chest, his eyes moving rapidly around, trying to find the origin of that feeling of danger that was growing more and more each second it passed.

He looked on the roofs of the ruined carts, thinking that maybe some of the hunters managed to climb back on them and his senses were warning him about that. Nothing to be found!

"I really don't like it when people touch my things." continued the cold and acute voice.

Kurai felt a new wave of killing intent run him over. His eyes widened in shock as for the second time on that same day his face lost all its blood.

"Heavens!"

This time the killing intent wasn't a simply a feeling: he could see it! A wave of grim silver light, starting from the Forest Will Tribe woman that he was menacing before, crushed on him, almost suffocating him.

Yet, it wasn't all. The crushing feeling and the suffocation were only the preludes to something even darker, gloomier and more terrifying.

Voices. The silver aura brought with it numerous voices, that began hissing and lamenting in his ear.

He could hear screams of pain coming from different people: men, women, elderly and children alike. They screamed and moaned right in his ears, making even such a great and experienced fighter tremble in confusion.

"Great Fire, what is happening to me?" murmured the man, his eyes reddened and his grip on the handle of his ax became so tight that his knuckles started becoming white.

He wasn't the only one affected by the silver fog: even Star Leaf was touched by the ghoulish fog, and immediately started screaming when she began to hear the devious sounds that lied inside it.

The berserker warrior looked down at the woman at his feet that was struggling to get up, pushing her down again with his foot.

"Stay down" he grimly ordered, while also keeping an eye around himself to eventual attacks from the owner of the cold voice.

The Leaf didn't obey like last time: she was too much terrorized by the agonizing voices! She kept trying to escape from the grip of the Fire Earth warrior. The only thing in his mind was to flee as far as possible from those damnable screams. She wasn't a warrior, she wasn't even trained as a hunter. It was impossible for someone like her, who lived all her life being cared about by others to endure without going insane in this kind of situation.

However, Kuraio didn't know that. Although he had some information about the Forest Will Tribe, he didn't know that only the hunters were trained as soldiers and most of the people in the tribe weren't brought up like the Fire Earth people, ready to go to war at any time. The behavior of the green-haired maiden made him incredibly suspicious.

A flash of understanding passed through his eyes, realizing what was happening. What voices? What killing intent?

"Is this one of your Leaf family's poisonous hallucination?" He asked, cruelly stomping down on the woman's back.

Star Leaf was losing her mind under the influence of the voices, so she didn't even notice the question and kept trying to flee in every way even after being hideously hit.

This only strengthened Kuraio's belief that before she was playing a character and now she was using the other woman and some kind of poison that caused hallucinations to have a cover for her escape.

"indeed, it was you who told me that the other woman was a Leaf and a herbalist... hahaha, you almost got me!"

More he thought about it, more it made sense: this green haired maiden didn't seem like a warrior, so why she was sent to the Yellow Lake Region if she wasn't an herbalist? Moreover, when he attacked, she was clearly being defended by other youths till their death. They never even asked her to help them with the defense!

Before the warrior only thought they were protecting her because of her beauty, hoping of impressing her with their prowess, but now he understood that it was more because of her skills: a herbalist! Every tribe would do anything to protect their herbalists!

It was one of the most requested and important professions in the Extreme Wilderness Region.

Plus, the way she deviously tried to frame her countrywoman to lessen the attention that he was giving to her was very telling: this was definitely something that only someone who highly valued his life and wasn't afraid of the Village's rules or punishments could do! An Herbalist!

Probably she also used the opportunity to feed him the poison in some way. Now he was hearing thins, but it was all a hallucination caused by her!

"You are the herbalist!" smiled the huge man, ignoring the screaming voices and picking up the green-haired maiden from her waist, putting her on his shoulder.

"I don't need the other... she's enough..." thought the raider, still stopping to give a rapid look to the woman with black hair, the one at whom he ruled throwing blades, expecting to see her already far away. However, she was still there! Yet, the more shocking thing wasn't her presence or the fact that she didn't run away when presented the opportunity to do so. The more shocking thing was that she was kowtowing to someone. No, to something!

A snake, a black reptile with two deep and lively violet eyes. That was coiled into itself before the prostrating woman.

The serpent was looking right at him, scorn in his eyes.

"Little human clown, did this king gave you the permission to leave?"

"What?" the warrior closed and opened his eyes for a couple of time, wondering if that poison that the Leaf fed him was making him see things now.

"Ha, this hallucination is weird... I'm seeing someone kowtowing to a pet..." murmured the man.

The serpent slightly trembled at the Fire Earth warrior's word. He obviously heard them quite well, there were little things in the whole battlefield that he couldn't hear.

"Did you just call me pet?" said a cold voice full of unbridled killing intent. " I was going to make you my nex follower, but it seems that you don't deserve it. " exclaimed coldly the serpent.

Obviously, the serpent was Darkscale. He was more robust, almost a feet longer, and there was a silver light shining inside his magnetic violet eyes.

What caused these changes? Cultivation! He had passed a long time hidden inside the Blue Cave, practicing the Heavenly Battleground Technique every day. Now he could say that he was a quasi-cultivator.

No, not like before.

Now he actually had a cultivation base, even if unstable. The illusion experienced by Kuraio? A result of his cultivator base reversing some of its energy towards the warrior when the serpent locked his attention into the warrior's figure.

"I'll make you my first kill instead!"

Each time the serpent spoke, a little but intricate ring on his lower body light up with a silver light. Looking at it more closely it was easy to see it as a rune! That was a Secret World Rune, directly imprinted on his body and thus usable everywhere.

How was he able to activate it? Will Manipulation! He finally learned how to use a very basic form of energy probe with pure will, using that conquest to activate runes and deactivate them at will.

This happened pretty easily after he formed a cultivation base thanks to the Heavenly Battleground Technique and the Ghost Pond. In fact, Carelia confirmed to him that Will Manipulation would become easier to understand and use the more advanced was his cultivation base.

Powerful cultivator could use Will Manipulation to create energy probes capable of scanning entire kingdoms and moving entire mountains!

"That time will come for me... now, it's time to kill!" thought the serpent, his blood bubbling with fury.

Darkscale suddenly darted, moving on the ground at unbelievable speed. The Fire Earth warrior didn't manage to follow the movement at all: for him, the strange talking snake disappeared after saying some random menaces. For a moment, the warrior felt his contracted muscles relax: in the end, it was just another hallucination! A very weird one, that was true, but still only a hallucination!

However, this happy sentiment of his dured less than a second because the snake that was supposed to be only an illusion appeared like a ghost before him. There was a look full of ridicule on the creature's eyes while he slapped him away whit his tail.

Kuraio felt like if a mountain had crashed into him, he could hear his bones breaking under the might of the impact and was successively thrown toward the ground.

Red blood came out of his mouth, and he then began to lose consciousness. However, Darkscale wouldn't let his first kill and someone who disrespected him so much die in such a peaceful way.

He flashed forwards, reaching the torso of the man and reaching with his fang towards the naked neck of the downed man.

An agonizing scream resounded on the battlefield, followed by a strange gurgling sound.