Chapter 53 - 53. Snakes
Noah undid his splints and put everything back in the space-ring.
He lied on the ground to stretch his limbs and test their recovery and was happy with the results.
'I'm almost back to my peak form. In another week I should be completely healed but like this is fine, I can't waste more time.'
His injuries had mostly healed so he decided to start moving to find a way back to the Balvan mansion.
Noah peeked outside the cavity and looked upward.
Only fog filled his field of view and, apart from some dents in the rocks of the walls, there seemed to be no viable handholds.
'I fell for a few hundred meters. Climbing them back would be doable if it wasn't for these rocks being stupidly hard. From here I can't even see if the handlings would last till I reach the softer part of the wall.'
Noah stared for a long time at the wall above him until he gave up on the idea of climbing it.
'If I don't find a handhold I have to come back here through the fog, what if I can't find my original path? What if I slip once? Climbing the wall is just a bet too risky to be taken.'
He turned around with unwillingness to look at the path below him.
The fog was thicker toward the bottom of the gorge and the number of handholds was the same as the other side.
However, some yellow roots sprouted from small holes in the wall downward.
'It appears that nearing the bottom some vegetation starts to emerge. I can totally cling to them to slow my descent.'
Noah was deep in thought, he continued to look down but he could not find any flaws with the roots, the path toward the bottom of the cliff was definitely easier to tread.
'Do I really have to go there?'
He was reluctant to enter such a dangerous place but there was no other feasible option for him.
'It's either going up and try my luck, which for now has always been awful, or going down and have fun with the magical beasts that destroyed a medium-size noble family. Well, I can always wait here for someone to rescue me.'
He smiled and shook his head at the absurd idea of being saved but then his expression became cold and stern.
'No mistakes allowed from now on.'
He sharpened his mind cutting off every superfluous thought as he crouched on the edge of the cavity.
He slowly pushed his body over the hole, remaining hanged on the edge with his right hand.
When he confirmed his target below him he released the grip and slid on the wall using his body to slow the descent.
The skin on his back and feet was scraped by the attrition with the hard rocks but Noah didn't care, his eyes never left the root below him.
As he went over it, he grabbed in its direction and steadily held on it.
The root was elastic and it stretched when Noah's weight fell on it, yet it didn't break.
Noah was relieved seeing that the root could support his body and hastily looked below him to find a new one.
Nevertheless, the root in his hand moved and a soft hiss sounded from the hole.
'Fuck!'
Noah immediately understood the situation and released the grip to continue his downfall.
He grabbed on the next "root" and started searching for another one before his body even stopped.
As he found a new one he again left his hanging and descended again.
He repeated this process for more than one hundred meters but there still wasn't any sign of the bottom of the cliff.
Meanwhile, the hissing sound behind him became stronger and filled the fog over him.
Noah wasn't thinking about anything other than the next handhold and he continued sliding ignoring the sound.
At some point though, the noise appeared in the fog below him.
When Noah went for the next "root" he found out that it had two eyes and a tongue pointed in his direction.
'Earth snake!'
The "roots" on the wall were, in fact, snake-type magical beasts, specifically Earth snakes.
Before the snake could bite him though, Noah grabbed it by its throat and held on it.
'You are just a rank 1 beast, you are no different from a root in my eyes!'
These were his thoughts as he continued to slow his fall using the same method as before.
More and more snakes came out from the holes in the wall till Noah could see about a hundred of them below him.
He could not stop or retreat so he directly jumped in their pack kicking and punching any beast that attacked him.
The snakes were weak and almost harmless to a rank 2 body in the higher tier but Noah's real threat was the fall, he could not allow himself to gain speed.
Since a slow descent was no longer possible Noah chose to directly walk on the bodies of the snakes, jumping from beast to beast like they were the steps of a stair!
He was walking down the cliff on the heads of a pack of rank 1 magical beasts!
After a few hundred meters treaded in this way, the fog finally began to disperse showing the valley at the bottom of the gorge.
The environment was filled with green grass and a small river ran in the middle of it.
Noah though had no time to enjoy the scenery as a scary view unfolded in the valley below him.
Tens of yellow snakes more than seven meters long were coiled on each other on the ground with one longer than fifteen meters in their center.
Noah stared with wide eyes at the beasts while moving toward them, he could not stop even if he wanted to.
When he was at less than fifty meters from the ground, he unsheathed his sabers and let his body falling freely in the middle of the dreadful pack of snakes.
'About thirty rank 2 and one rank 3 Earth snakes, bring it on!'