Chapter 516: Lost meal

Crash!

With how emotional I was when I jumped back inside the tunnel, it was inevitable that I wouldn't be able to aim my own body properly in the single perfect line that would allow me to pass through all the small turns and crevasses of this place.

Striking the damned, stone wall with my own body, I could see how a big chunk of the prime stone cracked away from the wall and fallen on the floor, blocking me from advancing anywhere further the place.

"GET LOST!"

Unable to hold back my emotions and excitement at the looming fight, I intended to smash this rock to hard that it would be sent flying towards the enclosure from where this devious honk came out, but by underestimating my own strength, when my first came into contact with this rock, rather than moving it forward, it turned it into grapeshot of stone pellets that exploded outwards!

While I could tell that only a selected few of cultivators from the world outside of the mansion would be capable of surviving such attack, even if it was something I did accidentally, I had the feeling that something of such magnitude wouldn't even make a simple bruise of this elusive enemy of mine.

As the path was now cleared up, I once again tensed my muscles…

"HONK!"

With the shockwave way more powerful than any of the shockwaves that I ever produced with my magic hitting me squarely in the body, I could feel how quickly the layers of entropy were thinning out under the immense pressure of the sound while forcing my entire body to bury itself into the hard rock that made the floor of this place.

Thinking about it, if I could just brace myself against this attack and transfer its energy to the floor like now, how the heck did it manage to throw me off before? Was this sound the reason why the inner part of the cave was laid out with this strange type of bricks?

So many questions, only waiting to be answered!

Despite how potentially dangerous this small adventure of mine could be, I couldn't help but feel excited at the notion of finding out all the details about this place, this enemy and everything that connected to those two.

After all, the more I knew before immersing myself in the wisdom visions, the clearer the picture of the entire world I would have after them!

As soon as the shockwave finally went past me, I unburied myself from the rubble that used to be the floor of this cave and moved forward. This time, I didn't dare to recklessly jump as I did before. If another honk were to come my way when my body would be airborne, I would end up flying even further than when it hit me for the first time!

Opting to slowly approach this curious object producing those strange honks, I inched forward, always ready to brace myself for another attack. Yet when I finally reached the bricked floor, what came my way wasn't a powerful honk like the one in the past, but something entirely different.

"H-hon-k."

As silent as the whisper of the morning gale, the sound that I heard just now was as close to the desperate cry for help as far as I could understand this kind of animalistic sound and the intent behind it. Yet I wasn't going to get tricked like that.

A lot of potent monsters and spiritual beasts, when faced with something they couldn't overwhelm with its raw power, would use all sorts of dirty tricks to make their opponent lower its guard only to be smashed moments later! Just like all the way back with my fight with Pengu, it never really gave me the chance to fight properly at first, opting to deprive me of my mobility in advance just to kill me with that ray from its sword!

Even if looking back now, that level of attack wasn't even enough to help me scratch my back from the itch, the fact that it wasn't a type of aggression that you would expect from a simple monster remained unchanged.

BLURRP!

Sensing something coming my way, I retraced my steps a bit to brace myself against the stone wall rather than those strange bricks a bit further… Only to hear this sound of someone's stomach is empty? Just what the hell was going on?

Thinking about it… When I saw those stupid disciples, they were all carrying some kind of platters filled with indescribable matter that had a stench so awful that I couldn't help but cut my sense of smell off. If I were to connect the facts like that…

"I'm so stupid…"

First thing first, if a beast was enclosed in any given place for so long, there had to be someone taking care of feeding it to prevent it from starving. While I never paid attention to what was inside that caged away part of the cage to the point where I could see what was hidden there, it was given that it was its feeding time!

With how the light in the cave was focused on the outer part of the tunnel, while I was unable to spot anything, the beast in the enclosure had to most likely watch as its meal was scattered away, prompting its aggression!

And just like with humans, with no meal to let it regenerate its strength, after one more roar, the amount of energy that it could use simply dried off! While this reasoning made perfect sense and allowed me to connect both of those powerful honks to the sounds that came later, I didn't allow myself to drop my guard as I approached the inner part of the tunnel once again.

When the last turn was finally past me, I could see that while my accidental barrage of stone didn't manage to do any harm to the monster behind the iron bars, one of the disciples that I deprived of consciousness was unlucky enough to be hit with most of the stone bullets, turning his body into nothing more than another bit of this strange mass that was already scattered on the walls on the cave.

Or rather, it would be if not for a long, orange beak reaching through the iron bars and happily chomping away at what was left of that disciple body!