Chapter 44: The Floor is Lava (Except it’s Snakes)

Ren stood at the top of a spiraling stone staircase that seemed to descend into the bowels of the earth.

The air here was heavy and smelled of stagnant water.

“Okay,” Ren whispered, checking the corridor behind her. Empty. “The Vault is down. The drugs are down. The map is down.”

She took the first step.

Her bare foot touched the slime-slicked stone. It was freezing.

She descended slowly, clutching the oversized blue silk robe around her body to keep it from dragging. The bioluminescent moss on the walls grew sparser the deeper she went, turning the light from a soft green to a dim, eerie gray.

[System Warning: Entering Restricted Area – ’The Deep Storage’.][Temperature: 40°F (4°C). Host Stamina draining at -1 per minute.]

“Great,” Ren muttered, her teeth already starting to chatter. “A walk-in freezer.”

She reached the bottom of the stairs and flattened herself against the wall.

Ahead lay a long, wide corridor. At the far end, she could see it—a massive, circular slab of obsidian, polished to a mirror sheen. The Vault Door.

But between her and the door was a problem.

The floor wasn’t stone. It was mud. Thick, black, viscous mud.

And the mud was moving.

Ren squinted in the gloom.

“Oh no,” she breathed.

It wasn’t just mud. It was a carpet of Pit Vipers.

Hundreds of them. They were coiled together in a massive, writhing mass of scales, slumbering in the cool mud.

[System Analysis: Hibernating Pit Vipers. Status: Asleep (Low Metabolism).][Danger: Extreme. If you step on one, they will wake up. If one wakes up, they all wake up. If they all wake up, you become a pincushion.]

Ren stared at the twenty-meter stretch of snake-filled mud.

“I have to cross that?” Ren whispered hysterically. “I’m barefoot!”

She looked at the walls. Smooth, slick stone. No handholds. No ledges.

She looked at the ceiling. High, vaulted, covered in dripping stalactites.

“Okay,” Ren exhaled, her breath misting in the cold air. “Think light thoughts. Be a feather. Be a ninja.”

She hitched the hem of the silk robe up and tied it around her waist, turning it into a makeshift tunic to free her legs. She stepped off the stone landing.

Squish.

Her foot sank into the mud, just inches from the head of a sleeping viper. The snake twitched, its tongue flicking out lazily, tasting the air.

Ren froze, holding her breath until her lungs burned.

The snake settled back down.

Ren took another step.

Squish.

She navigated the minefield. It was a game of high-stakes Twister. Left foot to the dry patch. Right foot over the coil. Don’t sneeze. Don’t shiver.

Halfway across, a drop of condensation fell from the ceiling.

Drip.

It landed directly on the nose of a large, brown viper right next to Ren’s ankle.

The snake’s eyes snapped open. Vertical slits dilated. It hissed—a low, rattling sound that echoed in the silent corridor.

Hsssss.

Ren didn’t move. She didn’t breathe.

The viper lifted its head, swaying. It looked at Ren’s leg. It sensed the heat.

Ren slowly, agonizingly slowly, reached into her pocket. She didn’t have a weapon. She had the Jade Key.

It was cold stone.

She touched the cold Jade Key to her own ankle, masking the heat signature for a split second.

The snake paused. It flicked its tongue again, tasting the air. It smelled the King’s scent on the robe. It felt the cold stone.

Confused, the viper lowered its head and went back to sleep.

Ren let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding and took a massive, silent leap over the remaining pile, landing on the stone platform in front of the Vault Door.

She stumbled, her hands slapping against the cold obsidian to steady herself.

“Safe,” she wheezed. “I’m safe.”

She looked at the door.

There was no keyhole. Just a circular depression in the center of the obsidian slab, carved with the same serpent motif as the key.

Ren pressed the Jade Key into the slot.

Click.

A deep, grinding rumble shook the floor. The snakes in the mud pit behind her stirred, hissing in annoyance at the vibration, but they didn’t wake fully.

The massive obsidian door rolled aside with a groan.

Ren slipped inside.

The Royal Vault

She expected piles of gold. She expected jewels.

What she found was a hoarder’s paradise.

The Vault was a cavernous room filled with… everything.

There were crates of dried fish. Piles of furs. Barrels of wine. Weapons made of bone and stone. Sacks of mysterious powders. And in the corner, a pile of what looked like shiny rocks and sea glass.

“Where is it?” Ren muttered, scanning the chaos. “Where is the map?”

[System Quest Tracker:]

Find the Swamp Navigator Map.

Find the Sleeping Herbs.

Ren ran to a large wooden desk cluttered with scrolls made of dried leaves and animal skin.

She rifled through them. ’A drawing of a duck?’

“Come on, come on,” she hissed.

She found a scroll made of waterproof shark skin. She unrolled it.

It was a map— a dynamic chart of the swamp, marking the currents, the safe islands, and the red zones labeled with crude drawings of crocodile teeth.

[Item Acquired: Swamp Navigator Map.]

“Got it.” Ren shoved the scroll into her robe.

“Now, the drugs.”

She scanned the shelves. Jars of pickled eyes. Jars of green slime.

Then she saw it. A small, sealed clay pot labeled with a symbol of a sleeping eye.

[Item Acquired: Heavy Sedative (Powdered).]

“Bingo.” Ren grabbed the jar.

She had everything. The Map. The Drugs. The Key.

She turned to leave.

But as she turned, her elbow bumped a precariously stacked pile of golden goblets on the edge of the desk.

Ren lunged to catch them.

She missed.

CLATTER. CLANG. BONG.

The sound was deafening in the quiet vault. The goblets bounced off the stone floor, ringing like church bells.

Ren froze.

Outside, in the mud corridor, the hissing stopped.

Then, a new sound began.

It wasn’t the lazy hiss of sleeping vipers. It was the synchronized, angry rattle of three hundred snakes waking up all at once.

[System Notification: Alarm Triggered. The Floor is no longer just snakes. The Floor is Angry.]

“Run,” Ren whispered.

She bolted for the door.

But the way back was blocked. The mud pit was no longer a sleeping carpet. It was a churning sea of raised heads, bared fangs, and angry rattles.

Ren skidded to a halt on the platform, staring at the wall of venom between her and the stairs.

“Okay,” Ren panted, clutching the map and the drugs. “Plan B.”

She looked around the vault. Her eyes landed on a barrel of what smelled like high-proof grain alcohol.

“Sorry, Syris,” Ren muttered, grabbing her survival lighter from her inventory.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep