A stream of flames poured directly onto the spit snake's face, but once again, the only thing it did was close the snake's eyes. It didn't need them to ram straight into Alec. It just had to continue straight ahead.

After all, the light shining brightly even through its closed eyelids was more than enough to guide its way.

When that wasn't enough, and when it was close enough, however, something else latched onto another of its senses.

Alec threw himself to the side just in time to avoid the snake's massive body.

The snake noticed the flames dissipating and turned around without missing a beat.

"Damn it!" Alec cursed. He thought that the snake would have lost him with that.

The snake's split tongue shot out and flickered back and forth as it tasted the air to catch Alec's traces.

Its eyes weren't the snake's only tools to find prey. And for some reason, Alec smelled great to the snake.

Alec ran in the opposite direction of where the others were preparing the trap. He had a gut feeling that they needed more time.

It felt like many minutes and seconds had passed for him, but that was only because of the intensity, and because his mind was firing on all cylinders to think of a way to survive. In reality, only tens of seconds had passed since he started attacking the snake.

Alec could feel the snake move through the ground. It was massive enough to send vibrations into the soles of his feet.

But that could have been an illusion since his legs were pumping like an engine's pistons to try and outrun a monster the size of a carriage with the length of three. His shoes hit the ground like he had a vendetta. His thighs burned like hot lead was slowly replacing his blood. His lungs were pumping enough air to make it feel like he was about to burst.

While running and thinking and surviving, Alec also had to control his magic circle and increase its rotation.

The increased heart rate during physical activity was essential. That was how the oxygen gathered by the lungs and infused into the blood reached the body's muscles. The faster the heart beat, the longer the muscles would last. The longer his legs could carry him, the longer he would live.

'Fuck, I need a spell for situations like these.'

He could technically use Taryeon's Flash Steps. That would make him faster. But he could feel the snake breathing down his neck.

He needed to focus to cast a spell for the first time. That would inevitably lead to him slowing down, and that was if his muscles didn't cramp from his heartbeat failing to keep up as soon as he used his magic circle for magic again.

'And I need to do something about that.'

"ALEC!" Maura's voice cut through the chamber, startling Alec sharply enough to make him stumble half a step. He took the opportunity to throw himself to the side and dive out of the snake's way.

He rolled on the ground and quickly got back on his feet.

The snake was big but annoyingly nimble. Its size didn't come from an overgrown body or fat. It was muscle and pure power.

It turned after Alec like a homing missile. It would not let go of such succulent prey.

However, as Alec ran in a curve, something gradually entered the snake's view.

It was the sun.

Alec wasn't sure how the snake would react to such heat. It was too much for it to be an ordinary animal since even he could feel it from the other side of the room. Maura had gone all out.

The air he breathed was dry, and his eyes stung.

If it had been an ordinary animal, it would have turned tail and fled in the other direction.

There was a possibility that those instincts remained in the snake, even after turning into a monster.

But there was also another possibility because the snake was a monster.

From what Alec had gathered, both through personal experience and literature, monsters often threw caution to the wind in favor of ferocity and bloodthirst.

The world of monsters was a savage one, where cowards died, and survivors were the strong.

The blazing sun in the eyes of the snake wasn't just a source of heat. It was the next step. It was a ticket forward. It was something a monster could never run from, only to.

Without hesitation, the snake charged straight toward the other side of the room, where Maura had continuously used Heat Ray until she exhausted all of her mana.

It was hot enough to melt stone. Unfortunately, though, the floor was a creation of the Bjerion civilization. A simple spell from a first-circle mage wouldn't be enough to scratch it.

But the ground wasn't the only source of stone in the room.

Maura, Ticka, and Nia had gone above and beyond.

The massive snake crashed into an upside-down Earth Dome, shattering it like an egg. Naturally, yolk spilled out.

Molten stone flooded the room with orange light as the snake, suddenly bathed in lava and clumps of stone as hot as it, twisted and hissed like a life fish thrown on the grill. It shook its body furiously, but the lava clung to its scales like glue.

When it hardened after being exposed to the air again, it turned back into stone after fusing with the snake's burnt flesh.

The snake thrashed around wildly in a desperate attempt to cleanse itself but only managed to cover more of its body in the molten stone.

"That's what you deserve you rat bastard motherfucker!" Ticka shouted ecstatically.

As if in response to her voice, the snake slowly stopped tossing itself around like a worm on a bed of salt. It turned around, revealing a ghastly figure.

Most of the flesh on its head was burnt, revealing a white skull beneath. Lumps of cooling lava ran down its head like tears of blood. Its eye sockets were filled with stone.

Still, the students felt the third-stage monster's gaze weigh down upon them.

But it looked at one of them specifically.

It wasn't Alec, the one it had chased until it fell for the trap. It wasn't Ticka, who had taunted and mocked it. What were words to a mindless beast but hollow air?

No, the snake looked, not with its eyes nor its tongue but with a sense the students couldn't understand, toward Maura. She was the source of the heat consuming its body. She was the one who had robbed it of life.

It wasn't intelligence or a desire for revenge.

She had defeated it. That meant she was the worthiest and most delicious prey.

The snake opened its mouth and lived up to its name.

A glistening needle shot through the air toward Maura.

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