I just wanted to watch TV! But now, I'm in a Fantasy World!-Chapter 66: The Harmonic Snake (1)

The Red Chains began to mobilize their forces in preparation to capture Matthew. A scouting group was assigned to wait near the only passageway that led back to the central region of the underground mountain.

"No word from the scouts?" The Battle Mage asked.

"No. There haven’t been any movements from that region. They are hiding and even stopped using torches and are waiting in a pitch black area."

"Good. Have them stay there to seal off any possibility of that Green Mage or the late king’s son passing by!" The Battle Mage ordered.

Meanwhile...

Deep inside the underground path leading toward Matthew’s hideout, Thane and Esau continued their coordinated hunt and battle against the beast. The air was thick with humidity, each breath carrying the scent of moss, bat guano, and the faint metallic aroma of mana-rich stone. Their footsteps echoed softly across the cavern floor, distorted by the jagged walls and twisting tunnels.

"Attack it!" Thane ordered sharply as he stepped aside.

A gigantic cave bat, wide as a grown man’s torso, dove from the ceiling with its grotesque fangs bared, aiming for Thane’s head. Its leathery wings cut the air with a thunderous flap.

Esau reacted instantly. The Groundling dashed forward, raising Bolgard’s axe with both hands. His movement was still rough and unrefined, but his timing was improving with each battle.

SPLAT.

The blade sank into the bat’s skull, and the monstrous beast convulsed violently, shrieking as blood sprayed across the cavern floor in a dark splash. It tried to wriggle free, the wings smacking Esau’s face, but the Groundling held firm.

"Great timing! You are getting used to it!" Thane chuckled as he quickly bandaged shallow scratches across his hands from earlier strikes.

Throughout this section of the cave, countless sleeping bats hung overhead. Some were even larger than the one Esau had slain. More worryingly, several beasts with matted fur and distorted faces lurked deeper within the crevices. Normally, these monsters remained dormant until disturbed.

Seeing that there were monstrous beasts that had evolved due to the mana, Thane wanted to draw them out and even used his own blood.

But Thane realized something dangerous.

His blood, perhaps because of the Ambrosia fruit, was potent.

And apparently, delicious to mana-starved creatures.

Every droplet he shed had begun drawing the dormant beasts from their slumber. Now, their hunger awakened, they lunged at him with frightening aggression.

A pack of three colossal bats swooped from above. Thane swung his Big Bonky Stick with a resounding crack and smashed one directly into the cavern wall. Bone fragments burst like shrapnel. The second bat shrieked as Thane summoned a small boulder from his storage into its face, knocking it aside. The third bat latched onto his shoulder, but he struck its throat, ripping it away.

Meanwhile, Esau was practicing dagger and spear throws, hurling them at the bats as they passed.

But sadly, not a single knife landed.

One bounced off a rock and hit Esau’s own foot.

Another lodged harmlessly in a stalactite three meters above where he aimed.

Even so, the pair was beginning to understand each other’s rhythm. Esau listened carefully and followed Thane’s commands, making their teamwork smoother with each minute. The Groundling’s newly strengthened body showed surprising hardness and resilience after receiving Bolgard’s soul.

Thane noticed a bite mark from a giant bat on Esau’s arm. Yet the monstrous fangs had barely broken the skin.

"It is like your hands are becoming stone..." Thane said as he tapped Esau’s arm. It felt like hardened leather over compressed muscle, dense and almost mineral.

Then Thane crouched beside the downed giant bat and extended his hand to absorb the corpse into his Item Storage or into the Channel.

A soft blue light flickered from his hand as the Celestial TV’s strange authority stirred within him. The monstrous beast, with its warped body and embedded core, responded at once. Its flesh began to unravel into motes of light, strips of fur and sinew peeling away in slow, spiraling streams. Bones dissolved into dust mid-air and vanished, as if swallowed by an invisible vortex.

Even the thick pool of blood that had spread across the stone was drawn inward, curling like red smoke toward Thane’s hand before disappearing completely. In just a few heartbeats, the cavern floor where the bat had died was left utterly clean, bare rock gleaming as if it had never known violence.

The absence of blood changed the smell of the air.

Something in the cave’s atmosphere shifted. A distant pressure brushed against his senses, a heavy, hungry awareness moving somewhere ahead in the tunnels. His instincts flared in warning.

"Esau! Something is coming!"

The bat dissolved into mist and vanished entirely, leaving not even a smear of blood on the stone. The cavern floor was suddenly spotless, unnervingly so.

Just as the last trace disappeared, Thane stiffened.

A foreign presence surged from the tunnels ahead.

It was massive. It was heavy. And it was hungry.

The pair immediately leapt into the underground river beside them. The cold water swallowed them silently. Thane scooped up mud from the riverbed and smeared it across his face and arms. Esau mirrored him, wiping the gritty mud over his small form. They pressed their bodies low and remained still, their faces slightly over the river.

Only the sound of dripping water and a river echoed within.

A few tense minutes passed, and the presence and killing intent that Thane felt finally revealed its source.

Then the stone trembled.

A gigantic serpent slithered into view. It emerged from a shadowed tunnel, its massive form undulating like a living avalanche. The beast was at least nine meters long and nearly a meter wide, scales glistening like polished obsidian.

Pale scars crisscrossed its length, and long streaks of blackened flesh marked where fire had recently burned it.

Thane’s breath hitched.

"Master..." Libra whispered. "Be wary. That snake is strong."

"I know..." Thane replied softly. "Level seventeen, at least. If Seraphina’s team were here, maybe they could fight it. Best to avoid that beast as it could distort my plans."

The serpent lowered its head toward the place where the giant bats once lay. Its forked tongue flicked violently, tasting the air. Confusion rippled across its features.

The scent of blood lingered, but the blood itself was gone.

It hissed, frustrated.

Then it thrashed.

The mighty tail swept across the cavern with explosive force.

CRACK!

Massive stones shattered like glass. Boulder fragments blasted into the air and skittered across the cave floor. Ordinary bats, small, normal ones, shrieked and fled from the ceiling, scattering in chaos.

The serpent’s rage grew.

Its throat bulged.

FWOOOM!

A massive blue fireball erupted from its jaws, spiraling upward before detonating against the cave roof.

BOOOOOOM!

The explosion dwarfed anything Thane had seen from the battle mages. A dome of blue flame rippled outward, melting stone and shaking the entire cavern. The spell’s intensity reminded Thane of Stratus’s destructive force.

"Master! The amount of Power and Mana combined in that spell...!"

"I know! That snake is what we’ve been looking for! I told you that if we wait, we would find it! A Harmonic Core. That beast has both Power and Mana."

The serpent hissed again, still baffled by the disappearing blood, then slithered away into another tunnel, vanishing like a phantom.

Thane and Esau waited until the rumbling stopped.

Only then did Thane rise from the water, wiping mud from his face.

"So it really was drawn by the blood," he murmured.

"Interesting... It means scent is its primary detection. If I distract it long enough, a strike from Excaliblade should break through its scale."

"Esau won’t be able to keep that thing in bay." Libra rejected.

"Why would I make Esau bait?"

"No..." Thane grinned.

"We leave the baiting to the Red Chains. That beast can handle a whole squad easily."

He sensed the serpent burrowing downward through a narrow tunnel.

"Good. It’s headed deeper. Let’s move."

The pair waded through the river for a bit, waiting to see if the snake had truly passed. After a few minutes, the pair made their way through the river. They had passed this before and eventually reached the broader channel. They swam with steady strokes, Esau kicking furiously behind Thane. After several minutes, they surfaced in a wide cavern. It was dark, but with Thane’s eyes, he saw them.

The group was discreet, but obviously bored and not guarded.

A group of Red Chains waited.

Three barbarians crouched behind jagged stones, axes drawn. Three battle mages stood behind them, staffs pulsing with faint light. They were positioned as a guard formation, clearly believing themselves hidden.

But Thane’s perception cut through their camouflage effortlessly.

He grinned.

"Well then..." he whispered.

"Looks like we found our volunteers."

Moving close by, Thane and Esau swam silently. As the group did not use torches to hide their presence, they did not expect that someone could see in the pitch black cave.

Thane told Esau to wait and slowly crept close towards the area where the group was whispering to each other, unaware that Thane was closing in.

With the Celestial TV to bring out the bats they killed, bringing out the same blood that he had absorbed.

All fell quietly behind the very boulder where the group talked.

"Hmmm? What’s that smell?" A Barbarian frowned.

"Alright... Who farted?!" Another cursed at the sudden smell.

Thane slowly began to creep back quietly as the group began to argue.

As Thane was moving back to the river, he could sense the presence from a distance.

The snake was approaching!