Sleep eluded her.
No matter how she tried, slumber would not come.
Konehl-Ghervil realized her inability to sleep had nothing to do with Esli’s incessant chatter.
A full moon hung high, casting its glow as firelight flickered within the modest cave.
A faint whisper of wind mingled with the crackling and popping of burning firewood.
Ordinarily, such sounds would be as soothing as rain on a cloudy day, lulling her into sleep.
Tonight, however, not a single hint of drowsiness touched her.
‘Could one not sleep within a true dream?’
‘Considering it differently, her true state in reality was already sleep itself… yet, the concept of a dream within a dream was not unheard of.’
‘Best not to dwell on such wild theories.’
‘It would be far more reassuring to await an answer from Govet-Ghervil than to speculate on her own.’
Her body, though weary, could only find solace in resting her eyes.
Esli had been gone for more than twenty minutes.
‘Surely that poor soul hadn’t gotten lost?’
A prickle of unease prompted her to sit up, intending to search for her.
Just as she retrieved a torch, a rustling sound emanated from the other side of the cave.
“Why are you only just returning now?”
No reply came.
‘Had she misheard?’
Driven by caution, Konehl-Ghervil hurled the torch forward.
The torchlight illuminated its path, eventually resting among some loose gravel, casting several elongated shadows on the cave wall.
Indeed, there was nothing there.
The shadows belonged solely to the stones.
Her guard remained unlowered; the more peculiar the situation, the more vigilant she became.
This world was hardly hospitable to humans, rife with mist, malevolent entities, and plagues; with such dangers lurking, anything could happen.
She picked up some stones and threw them several times towards that direction, a meager attempt to bolster her courage.
Ensuring no corner was left unchecked, she reasoned that any venomous snakes or pests would surely have been scared away.
Only when the torch’s flame began to wane did she cautiously approach.
Under such conditions, resources were scarce, and wood could not be squandered.
She picked up the torch, gave it a shake, and the flame reignited with renewed vigor.
Still uneasy, she scanned her surroundings, but found no anomalies.
Rustle, rustle—
The faint rustling sound returned.
This time, she distinctly heard the sound of something slithering across the ground.
A single thought consumed her mind.
‘Run!’
‘To investigate the source of the sound now would be utter foolishness.’
She refused to believe that whatever creature had endured a barrage of stones in silence was benevolent.
Fleeing towards the campfire was not an option; regardless of whether the creature feared fire, the fire pit was situated deeper inside the cave, a dead end.
From the corner of her eye, a dark silhouette darted swiftly past the firelight near her feet.
The object was thick, perhaps seventy or eighty centimeters in diameter.
‘What in the world is that!?’
Amidst her terror, she propelled herself forward, sprinting wildly towards the exit.
Thwack!
She hadn’t taken more than a few steps when something resembling a thick tree root tripped her.
Her mind, quick to react, knew it couldn’t simply be a lifeless root.
Drawing on her numerous past falls, as she stumbled, she flung the torch backward and began tumbling down the slope, body over heels.
By the fleeting torchlight, in that instant, she barely discerned what the ‘thick tree root’ was connected to.
An elongated human face!
It was twice the size of a normal face, with eyes and two nostrils set unnervingly close together, an indistinct mouth, and a long, triangular chin.
She also witnessed the face’s chin splitting open vertically, revealing a crimson maw and two sharp fangs.
The creature’s mouth, shockingly, was situated beneath its chin.
‘She had truly stumbled upon a nightmare!’
Disregarding the excruciating pain of rolling over gravel, she shielded her head with both hands and continued to tumble as far as she could.
The creature, too, seemed bewildered; surely, a normal fall would prompt one to immediately try and stand?
‘What kind of escape was this?’
In a matter of moments, having rolled for dozens of meters, Konehl-Ghervil attempted to slow her descent and stop.
The gentle slope was not uniformly smooth; interspersed along its length were several two-to-three-meter drops, a fall from which would either prove fatal or render her immobile.
Risking her head, she removed her hands to grasp at stones embedded in the sandy soil.
The incline was not overly steep, and after several attempts, her tumbling speed began to diminish.
Her palms chafed agonizingly, and bleeding was inevitable.
After three more desperate attempts, her right hand finally latched onto a jagged rock, bringing her to a halt.
Looking back, she saw a three-meter vertical drop mere inches from her side.
Huu…
Huu…
There was no sense of having narrowly escaped death; her chest heaved, and she gasped for air, enduring the pain as she tried to stand and continue her flight.
Something cold and slick coiled around her calf, her arms lost their purchase, and her body was dragged backward.
Her attempt to rise failed.
‘Damn it, how did it catch up so quickly?’
‘Which meant her tumbling speed had been only marginally faster than this monstrous thing.’
The moonlight shone brightly.
Looking up, she clearly saw a black python, its head adorned with a human-like face, estimated to be twenty meters long.
Its head hovered directly above her.
Its colossal body encircled her, tightening into a constricting ring, intent on strangling her first.
‘How could a python move with such incredible speed?’
This question consumed her mind in that moment.
The sounds of shifting sand and stones around her quickly provided the answer.
‘This wasn’t the one from the cave.’
From four directions, they slithered, joined by the one pursuing her down the slope—a total of five colossal pythons.
‘Without a doubt, Esli must have disturbed their nest earlier that day.’
Upon seeing its kin arrive, the closest python abandoned its plan to strangle her before devouring her.
Instead, it opened its enormous maw and lunged for her head.
‘It intended to swallow her whole.’
“Do you truly take me for such an easy target!?”
Gritting her teeth, Konehl-Ghervil mustered all her strength to hoist a nearby stone, thrusting it forward towards the python’s gaping mouth as she sharply dodged to the side.
The stone struck firmly into the serpent’s mouth, lodging in its windpipe and impacting precisely where her head had been moments before.
Shards of rock scattered, leaving a sizable crater in the ground.
‘Had she not moved, she would have been crushed to a pulp.’
The python thrashed its body, violently shaking its head in an attempt to dislodge the stone.
Her eyes remained fixed on the churning human-like face atop the colossal serpent’s head.
‘Until now, whenever danger struck, her only recourse had been to flee and be protected.’
‘Even the most docile person has their breaking point, and she was far from docile!’
Today, she would not grant this beast any quarter.
Pulling free her bound foot, she scrambled onto the python’s neck, raising a stone, poised to strike down.
Before she could secure her grip, she and the stone were flung through the air.
To a giant python roughly twenty meters in length, her weight was negligible.
Even its struggle to free itself was enough to effortlessly send her flying.
‘An enraged rabbit is still but a rabbit.’
Seeing this, the other pythons swam frantically towards where she landed.
The nearest black python, less than two meters away, coiled itself upon a rock, its massive body compressing into a spring-loaded strike posture, aiming to swallow her feet first.
Mindful of its fallen kin, this python harbored no underestimation.
This time, Konehl-Ghervil lacked the strength to evade; her body throbbed with such excruciating pain that she was on the verge of losing consciousness.
“Ooooh—”
A low, piercing shriek echoed across the desolate Gobi.
The pythons’ movements froze; several of the more distant ones, as if hearing some terrifying sound, turned and scattered in different directions.
With its prey so close, the nearest python refused to relinquish its meal, deciding to devour it before retreating.
It launched itself forward.
Whoosh—
A colossal axe whizzed through the air, cleaving through the python with effortless ease.
The python’s body fell in two halves from mid-air.
Its head, propelled by inertia, landed before her, the human-like face atop it staring directly into her eyes.
A foul, bloody liquid splattered all over her.
“My apologies, my apologies.”
The python’s head was kicked aside as Esli, draped in a thick wool coat, a colossal axe resting on her shoulder, obscuring the moon above, her greasy lips curving into a smile brimming with apology.
“I found a merchant caravan, and those people were simply too enthusiastic. It took a great deal of effort to persuade them… only then did they agree to send someone back with me.”