The closer he drew to the jungle, the damper the air became. But unlike the foul dampness of the sewers, this moist breeze carried a fresh scent that soothed the heart and lifted the spirits. Chen Mu felt invigorated.
Just as Chen Mu was losing himself in the novel sensations the jungle offered, something black suddenly shot out of the trees and hurtled straight toward him!
Too fast! Before Chen Mu could react, the black thing had wrapped around his ankle. Almost simultaneously, a tremendous force tugged at it. He instantly lost his balance and fell to the ground with a thud.
A snake?
Chen Mu's heart tightened, but everything had happened so abruptly that by the time he tried to resist, he had already lost his balance. The grip on his ankle tightened, and the force dragged his entire body toward the jungle.
His back scraped against the grass, burning with pain. Seeing the dense shrubs drawing closer and closer, Chen Mu hastily curled into a ball. The fine thorns covering the bushes were chilling, but everything happened so quickly that he had no time even to be afraid.
His instinctive choice was to protect himself rather than counterattack with the Tail-Shedding Shuttle Card. That alone showed just how far, how very far, Chen Mu still was from being a competent Card Adept.
The branches struck the arms he held protectively in front of him, instantly leaving dozens of crisscrossing bloody scratches. Another wave of burning pain made Chen Mu suck in a sharp breath.
Although he had no idea what the thing was, the sensation around his ankle suggested a snakelike creature, or perhaps some monster's tentacle.
Chen Mu's pitifully scant knowledge contained not a scrap of information about jungle creatures. The only thing he could think of