Bush and Cabbage

Taking a closer look at the environment as we walked through the wasteland, I could see some floating boulders that seemingly defied gravity and are only held in place by vine structures as well as some kind of ruins and dead vegetation.

The air was still and deathly, nothing like the fresh forest air I was used to. The walk was a silent one, nothing much happened, just the occasional monster sound in the distance or some fleeing away. They were too fast for me to see them clearly, but thanks to my colorful movement sensing eyes I could see their silhouettes, and boy are they grotesque.

The scenery slightly changed as we went deeper, going downhill a steep cliff. At one point I even saw one side of the ravine being covered in black and white spider web with dozens, no hundreds of red glowing eyes looking at us. I never had a fear of spiders, but this... this made me truly scared of spiders. A shiver ran down my spine when I heard screeching noises coming from the side, probably the sound of their victims...

After what felt like hours we finally stopped in front of a huge, no ginormous stone pillar towering even out of the cliff. I wondered why we were here. There is nothing but that lone monolith standing there... or so I thought.

Small runes and symbols of unknown origins glowed up while a giant eye-shaped orb appeared in the center of the pillar.

Then the monolith shined a red light on us as if it was scanning us, well it probably was.

I couldn´t believe my eyes as the system gave me a notification.

*Ding*

[The skills "Body Scan" and "Soul Scan" were used on you!]

*Ding*

[Your level is too low to resist the skill "Body Scan"!]

*Ding*

[Your level is too low to resist the skill "Soul Scan"!]

*Ding*

[The monster "Monolithitus the wise" has a full view of your body and soul!]

I was absolutely flabergasted to see the notifications in front of me. I mean, you are telling me that, that thing in front of me is a monster and now can see my soul?

Inspecting the monster in front of me I could only see a giant black stone pillar with runes all over its body.

Monolithitus the wise then glowed in blue light, as many smaller pillars emerged out of the ground in a circle around us, before a magic circle appeared beneath our feet... the scorpion's feet. I was panicking about what will happen next but absolutely didn´t let it show on my face.

My vision turned white as a bright white light enveloped us. A few short seconds later the light died down and the surrounding changed once again, instead of being in front of a massive stone monster in a desecrated land I am now in a flower field inside a huge cave.

Right after we appeared to wherever I am, the scorpion released its grasps and let me free.

Never in my life did I slither quicker than now, as I went as far away as I could from the metal scorpion.

Touching the familiar dim glowing grass I remembered my first kill right after being hatched, I felt nostalgic thinking back but didn´t dare to stop slithering even for a second.

I don´t know why, but the metal scorpion just stood there while clacking its mandibles in joy and happiness.

Creepy, not gonna lie.

Why I would know that it was out of happiness and joy? Well, it is a monster thing, I guess... ever since I reborn as a snake, I got proficiently better at reading monsters' emotions and expressions.

Not looking back I slithered forth, deeper and deeper into the mysterious cave, the blue and green growths growing on the walls illuminates my path, making me realize once again that this world isn´t just pain and suffering, but also has beautiful things.

The deeper I went the more the vegetation there is, like funny-looking mushrooms, tall leaves, glowing fruit trees, and even an abnormally large smiling venus flytrap, which waved at me. Quite a trippy experience, and makes me wonder if I am high or something.

But my thoughts got crushed as I nearly died AGAIN by a random red stone falling in front of me. I couldn´t think about it for long as roots and vines sprouted all around it, and formed a long thick stem with a large jaw out of leaves and branches with many smaller mouths sprouting just next to the red stone.

It looked deformed and abnormal, like most monsters I have encountered.

I was already prepared to flee as this thing in front of me was now more than 5 meters high and I am pretty sure my venom wasn´t effective against it, but four vines with small mouthes quickly ensnared me and made me completely immobile in the blink of an eye. No matter how much I struggled and wiggled I couldn´t get free. Even using my "Intimidation" skill didn´t work on it.

The four small mouths opened wide and bite down at me, using my newly gained skill "Harden" a white shine surrounded me as I could feel my scales, well harden...

*ting* *ting* *ting* *ting*

The four mouthes tried to take a bite out of me, but only got their mouthes? beaks? whatever they had chipped, but it didn´t stop there, instead they used me like a chewing bone for dogs.

Seeing my mana going dangerously low, as I had to constantly fuel the skill with mana I panicked and tried to think about other solutions, but without hope.

*Boom!*

A cloud of dust blocked my vision when a large object flew at the main body of the monster. Feeling the four small vines loosen I used the chance to escape, but just got scooped up by another pair of vines.

The dust slowly cleared, revealing a cluster of thorny green vines and leaves that walked on 4 large roots on top of the other plant monster that ensnared me.

The new monster was even larger and had blade-like leaves all over its body and had one largemouth with 10 centimeters long black needles layering the mouth and another smaller one on the back, protecting its "blind spot", I didn´t even know if it could see or not, as it didn´t have any kind of eyes or other visible sensory organs.

"Stop toying with the newcomer!" said the two-faced monster, which had a mature female voice.

My head turned so fast that my neck almost snapped when I heard the monster speak in a language that I could understand. 'The fuck is going on!'

"Pff, sa sa sa sa sa sa! I couldn´t help myself seeing this scared worm aimlessly slithering around! Sa sa sa sa! It was too funny to see it being so scared!" his laugh was a mixture between leaves rustling and humans laughing and had the voice of a young man which was bizarre to look at as the mouth didn´t move when they spoke.

*Slap*

With a bundle of vines, it slapped the red core monster in its head, leaving a big dent that reformed in a matter of seconds.

"Stop laughing already you dumb bush!" said the female monster harshly.

"Haaa? What did you call me, you cabbage!?" retorted the male monster back while flaring its smaller mouths at the 4 legged monsters.

All the while the two plant monsters bickered I stealthily wiggled out of the "cabbage" monster's grasp and tried to run away but got spotted pretty quickly.

"Hey, the newcomer is fleeing again..." said the "bush" monster while pointing one of its small mouths towards my direction.

I glanced back to see the two staring at me with their non-existing eyes.

Slithering at full speed away from them I felt slight vibration beneath me. My instincts flared up as I did a sharp left turn dodging a root sprouting out of the ground. Feeling many other roots coming my way I did what I can do best, snaking like a snake.

"Oh, a slippery one!" commented the female.

"Heh, I like the feisty one more." spoke the male.

I ignored the two and concentrated on escaping and getting as far away as I could.

"Sa sa sa sa, let´s up the difficulty!" laughed the male as more roots dug into the ground and almost caging me in.

"Sa sa sa sa, good good, dance for me!"

*Slap*

"Stop being such a creep!"

"Tss..."

A tick mark appeared on my head as I heard them casually talking while I ran for my life.

*Bonk!*

At the moment where I got distracted, I rammed into something hard that appeared wasn´t there a few moments.

"I think that is enough you two," spoke a calm voice in front of me.

___

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