Chapter 134: 134

While Michelle and Alexander were in the basement beneath the tavern, looking for the source of the intense humidity, Kieran, Anastasia, and Ivona were in the jungle, fighting a few huge snakes relentlessly attacking them.

They were already spent, both physically and mentally, because the snakes attacked them early in the evening and didn’t give them a chance to rest throughout the whole night. If they soon didn’t come up with a way to deal with them, they would end up in real trouble.

But the snakes didn’t even give them time to think properly.

Kieran and Anastasia were defending against the attacks while Ivona pumped them with her light element spirit energy to help restore their energy and give them some kind of boost, but she was already exhausted. And as she also had to dodge the attacks of the snakes, her control over her spirit energy was slipping, and the support she could provide got smaller.

Slowly, each of the attacks directed at Ivona was dodged more clumsily, the poisonous fangs of the snakes leaving her by millimeters.

Kieran noticed it, so he set a flaming circle around her to stop the snakes, so she could recover a bit. But that also prevented Ivona from supplying Kieran and Anastasia with her spirit energy. They had to fend for themselves for a while.

Anastasia was somehow fine because she was mostly relying on her physical strength, and her soul energy was only used to strengthen herself and increase her stamina. But Kieran was using a combination of his physical strength and fire element attacks, which drained his stamina much faster. Also, he had to keep the fire circle around Ivona intact, which increased the speed at which he got more and more exhausted.

With the state he was in, more and more holes appeared in his defenses, and as a snake spit some poison on him, he was barely able to move to the side so it wouldn’t hit his eyes and blind him.

But another snake was already behind him, lunging at him to bite.

Luckily, Anastasia stepped in and slashed with her clawed glove at the snake, pushing it away as she created a deep gash on its side. They had already killed quite a lot of snakes, but the strongest and most dangerous ones were still unharmed.

Ivona noticed the fire circle around her fluctuating and realized that Kieran had either gotten injured or his spirit energy was about to get exhausted. Since the first wasn’t the case, it had to be the second. But that could put Kieran in grave danger.

And as she had guessed, the fire circle soon dispersed.

So Ivona instantly gathered her spirit energy on her palms and pressed one palm to Kieran’s back, so she could restore his spirit energy as soon as possible. She knew it was dangerous for her to get so close, as she was then in range of the snake’s poisonous jaws, but she had to help. She couldn’t just stand back as support.

“Well, this is quite the predicament you are in…” Snow’s slightly childish voice carried to the ears of the three as she walked next to Mare and stared at the snakes. She and Mare had gone by themselves to scout the area and didn’t expect to find such a situation when they returned.

They were gone since noon of the day before and were planning to return to the place where they were supposed to meet with Kieran and the rest in the upcoming evening, but they found a place they decided to show to the three, so they went to find them earlier.

Mare instantly took on her snake form and lunged at the other snakes. She was a Venom Jade Serpent, so even though her cultivation wasn’t the best, her bloodline was able to suppress the snakes and make them back down.

But some of the snakes clearly weren’t content. Before retreating, one of them lunged and bit Kieran hard in his shoulder, only letting go after Mare bit it herself and injected a big dose of her venom into it.

The snake weakly retreated and curled up next to a tree. It would soon die, and the other snakes couldn’t help him. The other snakes also knew it, so they stopped paying attention to him and turned to stare at Mare vengefully. They knew her bloodline was superior to theirs and that she was more powerful than them, but she had hurt one of them, so they were enraged.

Very few snakes lived in groups, but the kind that Kieran and the rest encountered, Burrowfang Serpent, was just like that. They were the kings of the jungle and had huge dens in the whole underground. And their king snake was powerful enough to gain human speech, but he rarely came out of the underground. And even when he did come out, he never spoke. He usually only came out to save the other snakes or take care of intruders.

Seeing that the snakes wanted to launch an attack, Snow took on her full fox form and let out a deafening roar at the snakes, her huge size towering over them. The bloodline of Divine Snow Foxes was around the same as that of Venom Jade Serpents, a bit higher, so the snakes gave up the thought of counterattacking. They could have been able to overtake just Mare, but coupled with Snow, it would be impossible.

Also, Snow could control ice, and the snakes felt it. Being cold-blooded creatures, intense cold was one of the things they feared.

When the snakes retreated, Mare took on her human form and quickly rolled up Kieran’s sleeve, looking at the deep bite mark in his forearm. The skin around it was turning black-purplish.

“Should I contact Michelle?” Snow asked as she walked over after taking on her human form again.

“No,” Mare shook her head. “The poison isn’t that strong. I can take care of it with Ivona’s help…” she said as she formed a ball of spirit energy on her palm. Unlike Cold Flame, Nyxaroth, or Snow, her spirit energy carried no element, an anomaly which could only be found in the world of beasts of special bloodline. Instead, her spirit energy carried her poison.

“How do I help?” Ivona asked when she heard her name.

“For now, recover your spirit energy. I can take care of him alone for a while.” Mare condensed intense, poisonous spirit energy on her hand before placing her palm over the wound on Kieran’s forearm.

She let all the spirit energy seep into Kieran’s blood and controlled it to spread through his bloodstream. But she made sure it didn’t reach any vital points. Soon, her poison swallowed the poison of the Burrowfang Serpent, and it no longer threatened to harm him.

Then, there was just one thing Mare had a problem with, and she needed Ivona’s help with that. Pulling her poisonous spirit energy out of Kieran’s blood. Because even if she pulled out her spirit energy, it would leave behind her poison, which would in turn kill Kieran.

So Mare could just wait for Ivona to recover her spirit energy while keeping her own spirit energy in check in Kieran’s bloodstream so it wouldn’t go anywhere where it could cause some serious trouble. She knew that her treatment would have some side effects on Kieran, but it was better than having him die for the measly poison of a Burrowfang Serpent.

Ivona knew that she had to hurry, so she took a pill to aid the recovery of spirit energy and sat cross-legged on the ground. After about half an hour, she had enough spirit energy to say that she was recovered. Though it wasn’t at peak, her dantian was filled to two thirds, so she was satisfied.

“Mare, what should I do?” She quickly walked over and stopped next to Kieran and Mare.

“Place your hands on his neck and insert your spirit energy into his bloodstream. Then, you have to push my spirit energy out along with all the venom.” Mare explained as she glanced at Kieran.

He was fully conscious, but his face was ghastly pale, bringing about a ghastly sight.

Also, it was clear he had to be in extreme agony because of the wound and the venom because even though he was usually silent, soft groans escaped his lips and a deep frown was on his face.

Normally he looked like a dashingly handsome young man, but at the moment, he looked like he had one leg in the coffin, looking like a vampire, except that he was lacking red eyes.

He did look regal and handsome even when he was pale and clearly sick, but it wasn’t good to look at, especially for people who knew him. The paleness added to him a strange, sickly charm which could take breaths away, but only of those who only saw him like that. Those who knew what he looked like normally were more worried about him than charmed by his new appearance.

Of course, Anastasia, who already had some feelings for Kieran, was astonished when she saw him like that, and she had faith in Mare and Ivona, but her concern was more prominent.

Still, the image of sickly Kieran got engraved into her soul, never to be forgotten.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep