Immortal Ice Empress: Path to Vengeance

As the battle with the Earth Elemental raged on, the amount of deaths on the mercenaries side began to decrease. They seemed to understand that although the Earth Elemental is exceedingly powerful, it isn't very intelligent. Or maybe it is, but it's been corrupted by whatever's sitting at the bottom of the chasm.

Another important fact that they learned is just how useless they are in the face of overwhelming power. There are thousands of mercenaries in the Core Formation Realm and yet they haven't been able to put so much as a scratch onto the Earth Elemental.

Even Robin, the strongest person in their group, has barely been able to damage it even with Mira taking most of its attention away!

The only saving grace in this fight is that the Qi in the air is so dense that they can basically keep spamming abilities without worrying about having to take time to replenish their reserves.

At least that's what most of the mercenaries thought. Some of the more intelligent people knew that they weren't the only ones receiving this benefit. The Earth Elemental and all the other beasts in this chasm also don't have to worry about their reserves running out.

Mira and Rhydian have been doing their best trying to restrain it or damage the Earth Elemental in some way, but it was all for naught. Actually, Mira had an idea, but she would have to accumulate enough energy for at least 5 to 10 minutes without being disturbed.

However, there are a few problems with that plan. One, there's a risk that accumulating that much energy will cause her to accidentally break through. Two, if she doesn't break through then after she releases such an abnormal amount of energy, then the backlash from such a technique would, at best, turn her into a cripple. Worst case scenario, she'd die on the spot. Third, there's no guarantee that she'd even kill it if she unleashed such an abnormal amount of energy!

That was only one such plan that Mira thought of and it seemed like the most feasible one. The most reliable is to wait for Robin's wind drills to dig into the Earth Elemental and then break the Core that way, but how long will that take? Hours? Days? By that time, even if they do end up killing it, they'd most likely get devoured by the surrounding beasts!

Unfortunately, they might not even need to wait until they kill the Earth Elemental for that to happen!

Soon after the mercenaries regained their wits and started using their brains, the situation took an unexpected turn for the worse.

Snakes, thousands of them, began slithering out of the walls, ground, and up from the chasm! These snakes were almost entirely black and ranged from 50 centimeters long to tens of meters long. There were even a few Peak-Stage Rank 6 snakes.

Nobody in the group could identify these snakes, well, except for one person… err… Phoenix.

'FUCKING HELL, MIRA!! What kind of dogshit luck did that inheritance bestow upon you?! You and Rhydian better get the hell out of here NOW before you, me, and everyone around you dies without ever knowing how!!' Elenei screamed and almost emerged from Mira's Soul Sea to buy Mira a bit of time.

Mira, on the other hand, has never heard Elenei so panicked, so without hesitation she started running while informing Robin and Rhydian.

"Dammit!! You two, we need to get the fuck out of here now!! Something much worse than this Golem is about to show up and I don't feel like sticking around to see it!" Mira yelled before running away as fast as she could. Rhydian, feeling Mira's emotions, also didn't hesitate to follow after her. In fact, she even approached Mira and allowed her to jump on her back as the two of them ran away.

Robin didn't quite understand the situation, but almost immediately after Mira ran off a feeling of dread washed over her. Her intuition was telling her that if she didn't leave now, it was instant death.

Usually, she's not one to rely too much on her instincts because instincts can't be used as proof, but she's still a relatively strong cultivator. Her intuition is countless times better than a normal person's and has saved her life more than a few times in the past. Now, it seems that she's going to have to rely on it again.

Also, she trusted Mira's judgment because although the little girl might be a bit anti-social and indifferent, she always does things that give her the best chance at survival. At least, that's what she learned by accompanying her over the last few weeks. Well, that and her ability to sense danger is off the charts!

Barely half a second later, she too was running for her life in the same direction Mira went, completely ignoring the mercenaries getting devoured by the thousands of snakes popping out of the ground. They were brought here as canon fodder, they were told upfront that they are canon fodder, now it's time to serve their purpose!

They were going to die anyway, they might as well make themselves useful by stalling whatever's coming for a few extra seconds.

Not only that, but Mira and Rhydian are way more useful than this ragtag team of mercenaries ever could be. The two of them together, combat prowess, might even be able to fight evenly with her! They stand almost no chance in even hitting her, but Robin seriously doubts that she could kill them.

Essentially, she didn't need this group of mercenaries as long as Mira and Rhydian were with her.

Just a few seconds after Robin and Mira disappeared, all of the mercenaries were devoured by the snakes. Yes, it was extremely fast, but one must understand that they were already in a state of panic and were fully focused on the Earth Elemental. They didn't have the time nor ability to keep track of their surroundings. So by the time the snakes showed up, it was already too late.

As soon as they all died, a massive serpent, hundreds of meters long, seemingly crawled out of the abyss and before the Earth Elemental could even process what was going on, it vanished into the belly of the mighty beast!

Mira, Rhydian, and Robin took a peak behind them to see what just appeared, but they could only catch a glimpse of the beast before a primal fear took over their bodies and they almost turned straight into stone statues!

'You idiot!! Don't look back at that thing! What just appeared before you is known as a Basilisk and from the looks of it, it seems to be a mutated one as well. If I'm not wrong, it'd be more correct to call it a Cursed Basilisk! I don't know if it's a pureblooded one or not, but that thing definitely has Basilisk genes in it! With how powerful it is, you would be turned to stone in an instant should you look it in the eye. Actually, you're quite lucky that it hadn't spared you three a glance. If it did, you definitely would've died on the spot! I guess you can only count your lucky stars that you're weak right now!' Elenei scolded and explained.

'FUCK! Why didn't you tell me what it was beforehand?! If I knew it was a fucking Basilisk, then I wouldn't have looked back just now!'

'Hey, that's your fault for being a dumbass! Who asked you to try and examine a mythical creature!?' Elenei rebuked, causing Mira's mouth to twitch, but she was able to calm down a bit thanks to that.

That's when she suddenly thought of something that made Elenei seriously question her sanity.

'Goddammit!! That bitch stole my loot! I was going to collect the Earth Elemental Essence from the core, but that fucking snake just had to steal my prey! To make matters worse, that beast wasn't even a mythical or legendary beast of the ice element! That could've saved me from having to do a trial!' Mira inwardly cursed at the Cursed Basilisk.

Elenei, on the other hand, felt like she was losing her mind when Mira just said that.

'Are you crazy?! It would be a miracle if you and that girl Robin could even take down that Earth Elemental, much less that basilisk! How do you plan on extracting its Blood Essence if you won't even be able to look at it without dying!?' Elenei began scolding Mira again which caused the latter to go silent.

The crazy thing is what Mira said, she actually meant. She'd almost rather die than have to go through five trials set up by the F.LD.I.L.

She also thought it was a shame to lose out on the Earth Elemental Essence because even if she couldn't sell it, she could give it to Rhydian.

That's when she thought of something weird.

Why didn't it look at them? Rhydian is a beast with a bloodline that even the Heavens can't control while Mira's sure that some of the more powerful beasts should be able to sense the aura of a Phoenix on her. Shouldn't those be like treasures of the highest grade for any beast?

As if sensing her thoughts, Elenei cleared her doubts even though she was a bit skeptical as well.

'If I'm being honest, I have no idea why it didn't chase after you. Maybe it was because Rhydian is a beast that should never exist in a Mortal World to begin with and therefore it couldn't sense her bloodline. Or maybe it's because you two are ants in its eyes and even if it did eat you and Rhydian, there wouldn't be any benefits. I think that's the more likely solution because it's not like beasts get the bloodline of those they eat. Even if I, the basilisk, or any other mythical beast consumed Rhydian as she is now, they'd barely be able to fill the gaps in their teeth. That's why I've never thought about consuming Rhydian. The last reason I can think of is because someone or something told it not to.' Elenei explained.

Mira accepted her reasoning because she couldn't think of anything more plausible. In any case, Mira was just glad she was still alive. Still, that didn't stop her from running even further away from where that Basilisk came from, but she'll remember that Basilisk and should the opportunity present itself, she'll definitely take back the loot that was rightfully hers!