The Dragon Monster closed its eyes, savoring the crystal.
Hermione's gaze drifted over its head and upward.
She soon noticed the strange sight above her.
She had been in the cavern long enough for her eyes to adjust to the light. Details that the illusion and her nerves had obscured earlier now came into focus.
The hot air still blurred and distorted her vision, but she could make out the cavern ceiling. It was not the hard rock she had expected. Instead, it had a dark red texture, like the inside of some living creature. Countless bright red, vein-like strands of varying thickness wound across it, interlacing into a vast web that covered the entire vault and gave off a faint red glow.
They looked like blood vessels.
The red light seeped through the surrounding "shell," bathing the cavern in a dim crimson glow. It felt like a prison at the bottom of an abyss, with magma flowing beneath it. The oppressive sight made it hard to breathe.
Hermione immediately looked away and gripped the Karma Fire Jade Talisman more tightly.
A steady, scalding heat flowed into her palm. Compared with the talisman's heat, the stifling warmth that had troubled her earlier seemed insignificant. A fierce yet steady presence spread from the talisman through her entire body, then faintly outward. The oppressive red glow descending from the ceiling seemed to retreat before it, leaving a relatively "clean" invisible space about two meters wide around her.
The pressure abruptly eased, and she could breathe freely again.
Her courage returned with it.
Out of the corner of her eye, Hermione spotted the end of a thinner "blood vessel" hanging down from the ceiling nearby. It clung to the uneven rock wall like a vine and trailed almost to the ground. Its tip