Revenge

Vidal and the mercenaries were making their way back.

They made two simple stretchers from branches and vines, carrying the two Soul Masters who had been severely injured by the Eyeless Snake during the siege.

"Norbert, remember this. Half of the losses this time will be on your head." Vega did not dare point the finger at Vidal, so he could only vent his anger on Norbert, the lone traveler.

"Hmph, do you think this was what I wanted to see? The one I saw last time really wasn't this big." As Norbert spoke, he suddenly stared at a large tree to the side in horror.

On the trunk, the White-Scaled Great Snake, its belly scorched black by lightning and still dripping blood, coldly watched them. Though it had no eyes, its bowstring-taut body showed that it had already locked onto its target.

"Run!" he roared, rapidly pulling away from the terrifying creature.

The Eyeless Snake shot out like lightning, opening its pitch-black maw and biting Benini, who was walking at the rear.

He did not even have time to let out a scream before he was swallowed whole.

Norbert could clearly see a bulge slide down its throat before finally vanishing into the wider part of its body.

A Soul Elder had been devoured without the slightest ability to resist!

The others could not help growing even more terrified.

"This beast holds such a strong grudge? It ignored even its wounds and came straight after us." Vidal's face was pale.

"Shit!" Vega cursed. "Maybe we should have stopped it earlier."

Though afraid, the mercenaries did not simply wait to die. They summoned their Martial Souls one after another and launched a counterattack.

"Don't worry! Its Soul Power has been heavily depleted, and its injuries aren't light either!" Leiqi shouted, steadying the formation that had begun to fall apart.

The Eyeless Snake did not linger. It twisted its tail and vanished into the undergrowth in a flash.

Only the still-trembling leaves remained, rustling softly in its wake.

Although they had driven it back for the moment, no one felt any joy. That brief encounter had cost the group a Soul Elder, while all the Eyeless Snake had paid was a little patience.

They continued onward with even greater caution.

Not long afterward, they discovered the corpse of a giant snake more than ten meters long ahead. Its body had been corroded beyond recognition by stomach acid, but they could vaguely make out that it had also been an Eyeless Snake—a smaller one.

Beside the snake corpse lay two human bodies. One had completely lost its skin, exposing bare flesh and bones, while the other was Benini, who had only recently been swallowed.

"I told you I wasn't wrong! This is the Eyeless Snake I saw—ten meters long, exactly five thousand years old!" Norbert shouted, pointing at the snake corpse.

"Shit, that freak ate its own kind?"

Koman, the Jackal Mercenary Group's other squad leader, looked even uglier at the sight. "Is it demonstrating to us? Showing that it intends to fight us to the death?"

"What do you mean?" Vidal asked in confusion.

"When snakes encounter danger or powerful enemies, they have a habit of vomiting up their food to lighten their burden. A snake with an empty stomach is more aggressive, more dangerous, and more lethal than one that is full," Koman explained.

"Look. These two human corpses and the snake corpse were all vomited out at the same time and placed in front of us.

"This means that when it fought us in the clearing earlier, it had this smaller Eyeless Snake in its belly and was full!

"Now that we are preparing to leave and it is no longer under threat, why would it vomit up its food?"

Koman asked in a grave tone.

After thinking for a moment, Vidal said solemnly, "To hunt better?"

"That's right. It wants to hunt us down and take revenge. For that, it was willing to vomit up the food it had worked so hard to catch." Koman nodded.

"Damn it," Vega muttered.

"What should we do next?" Lei Yin asked. "Go straight into the forest and track it?"

"It feels like the few of us might not be enough to beat it. Do you have any interesting tricks you haven't shown us yet?" Yan Jin looked at Amon expectantly.

"You'll definitely be shocked." Amon smiled faintly. "The Eyeless Snake is a Soul Beast with a strong sense of revenge. If we stay gathered with the mercenaries, it may fear our strength and not dare act rashly. But once we separate, there is a high chance that it will seek revenge."

"So we're deliberately showing weakness?" Lei Yin lightly stroked his chin. "Are we just going to wait here?"

"Of course not. Let's go find Vidal and the others. Since the Eyeless Snake didn't attack us, it has probably set its sights on the other group." Amon followed the trail the mercenaries had left along the way.

Not long after, he arrived at the place where Norbert and the others had found the snake corpse.

"This is..." Lei Yin was surprised when he saw the ten-meter Eyeless Snake corpse.

"Cannibalizing its own kind... It seems the one we saw earlier was not even at its strongest. Though it doesn't make much difference." Amon glanced at Benini's corpse and confirmed that the Eyeless Snake was hunting down the mercenaries.

Continuing onward, he saw several more corpses along the way.

Some had their chests pierced by earth spikes, some had been crushed into piles of mangled flesh, while others were covered in purple bruises and had died from poison... There were few signs of battle where those bodies lay, showing that they had all been killed in an instant.

"Goldie hasn't been eaten too, has he? If so, since he was sort of our prospective companion, I'll collect his body," Yan Jin muttered.

Amon shook his head. "It shouldn't be that easy. His Martial Soul is a cat-type Martial Soul known for its quick reflexes, and the Gem Cat is among the best of them. With so much cannon fodder around, he should survive longer than most. Of course, once they die one by one, he won't be able to escape in the end either."

Yan Jin vaguely spotted a white figure in the forest. Without a second thought, she immediately fired several Volcanic Bombs at it.

The Eyeless Snake twisted its body and rapidly vanished into the dense undergrowth.

"Tch, it ran fast. Amon, we can't kill it like this."

"No rush."

The Eyeless Snake believed it was well hidden. In the forest, it was the hunter, yet it did not know that countless eyes were watching it.

They belonged to worms marked by twelve segments and starry colors.

On the way here, Amon had scattered a large number of Worms of Time. Their tiny bodies were concealed among the branches and leaves.

If the Eyeless Snake had fled without looking back, deeper into the forest, he truly would have had no good way to track it. But it had insisted on taking revenge on the mercenaries, plunging straight into the surveillance net Amon had laid.

By the time they found Vidal and the others, the mercenaries had already suffered grievous casualties. Even Vega's younger brother, Tapa, had died in the snake's jaws.

At the sight of Amon, Vega could not help but show more resentment in his eyes. "It's all because of you, all because of you... If you hadn't insisted on looking for that damned thing, my brother wouldn't have died."

Levi, the lone Soul Elder who had barely spoken until then, stepped in front of him and said quietly, "Now isn't the time for infighting. Besides, once you chose the path of a mercenary, you should have been mentally prepared for this long ago."

Vega took a despondent step back. "Sorry. I lost control."