Chapter 868: Sweet Swamp Air


    As soon as Kat regained her full range of movement she sat up and breathed in deeply. It was not a pleasant experience. The air was damp, dank, and all around rather horrible. Now she was inside an animal so it was rather understandable, but that didn’t make the slightest bit more pleasant in her mind. The second thing Kat decided was that she wanted out of this damned snake as quickly as possible. The problem with that, is after being tossed around so much Kat didn’t know which way was which. The mouth was likely closer and certainly less disgusting... but if Kat didn’t know which way that was, it would just be a guess.


    *Hey Lily how close is the snake to you guys?*


    [Um... pretty close? I think it tried to go after us once it had you... but it started thrashing when it was still a while out and the waves from that knocked us further away. That being said... I can still see the snake pretty well from here. In fact, it’s mostly out of the water and huge so I can see it perfectly fine.]


    *Wait... how is it out of the water when it’s dead?*


    [I think it had to have some earth maniption powers, or at the very least mud maniption powers. Maybe by moving the water in the mud and everything else with it. The whole snake is like... a bit less then half in the water?]


    *Right well... any idea which way the exit will be for me?*


    [No? I mean... hmm... that would be a useful thing to know... hmm... hang on...] Lily started to focus on the link between herself and Kat... and managed to find that she did in fact know which direction Kat was in... vaguely. [Right... well... I do know roughly which direction you’re in... but that doesn’t really help because I still don’t know which way you’re facing]


    .....


    Bother. With that, Kat started to look around for clues... but there really wasn’t anything to indicate which way she’d need to head for the exit. After staring at the walls for twenty seconds Kat decided she was wasting time and summoned her demonic fans. Kat then tried to slice into the wall. The muscle lining was nothing before her des... and the rest of the muscles weren’t much better. They were quite tightly pact but taking them one at a time allowed Kat to get into a good rhythm.


    Eventually though, Kat’s luck would run out. She heard her fans clink against something hard. Cutting away a bit of the surrounding area revealed that she’d ended up finding where the snake stored its scales. Or at least, the spare ones. *Odd. You know... I kinda just expected the snake to be using magic or a bit of directed regeneration but... well...* Kat could see stacks of scales lined up to be moved into position. They were spread out a bit and stacked twenty high with muscles surrounded them presumably to push them into the correct spot.


    The one nice thing about this find was that the scales were ever so slightly tear drop shaped. This gave Kat everything she needed to know where the exit would be. Kat backed out of the hole she’d cut in the wall and then started to run. Well it was more of an awkward jog really. The snake was big yes, and while it’s mouth wasrge enough to swallow Kat whole, the rest of the body was not sorge. Kat had to stay crouched over quite awkwardly, especially with her horns.


    Now, you might think, ‘Kat, you’re strong, why not just let your horns cut through some stuff? Why worry?’ the answer to that was Kat didn’t find the blood that inevitably fell on her in such instances pleasant. It might just slide off, but it wasn’t nice to have on for any length of time at all. Still, Kat wasn’t all that far down the snake’s gullet so it didn’t take too long for Kat to reach the mouth. With a small application of demonic energy Kat managed to wrench open the snake’s clenched door and step out into the wonderful ‘fresh’ swamp air. It might have been pretty badpared to proper fresh air, butpared the snake? Well Kat was certainly thinking her haste was worth it.


    Kat stumbled out of the snakes mouth and into the water. Kat was able to spot the ice chunk for where she was and started to wade over, keeping to her unassisted speed. Kat wanted to get back to 100% energy as quickly as possible, well second to getting to Lily in a timely manner of course.


    When Kat made it over, she found Xiang and Yang sprawled out on the ice. Xiang was off the side, coughing up more gunk, while Yang was bandaging some cuts she’d taken during the ride. Part of the ice chunk had cracked and left more than a few sharp edges. They normally wouldn’t require such careful attention but with all the poison around Yang wasn’t taking any chances. Xuena wasn’t best friends with a fool after all. Basic medic training was something she beat into Yang during their long friendship and it was paying dividends here.


    Xiang was a bit better off, or perhaps it was just that his skin was naturally tougher. Well, I guess it depended on your definition of better. It seemed that in thending he’d somehow managed to swallow some of the swamp muck. It was why he was still hanging over the edge. Xiang was trying to get as much of the poison out as possible. Lily was doing fine. She was just resting on the ice, which, while a little wet now, wasn’t so bad. The cold wasn’t effecting her at least, unlike the other two that were mostly just trying to ignore it.


    Once Kat was just a few steps away from the chunk, Lily dashed across the ice and glided towards Kat’s arms. A few millimetres away Lily transformed and Kat had to step forward a bit and lift up the foolish girl to prevent her from touching the poison. Lily pouted as she was held up by the armpits like an unruly child. “Really? I just wanted a hug...” said Lily softly.


    Kat just raised an eyebrow, “And I just don’t want you to be poisoned,” Lily sighed and transformed while Kat was still grabbing her. Kat picked up the falling Memphis without much issue and sighed. Lily just snuggled into Kat’s arms not really saying anything more. She knew Kat was being quite reasonable and she’d not really been paying attention to the poison at all.


    With Lily in hand, Kat hopped up onto the ice chunk and gave it a quick pulse of demonic energy before she rxed on the ice, letting herself calm down. “So... what now?” asked Kat.


    Xiang wiped his mouth and sat up, “Well... that’s a bit of a question isn’t it. That snake... it’s well out of our, and by our I mean Yang and I’s, weight ss. That being said. It’s dead now, and we’ve got its corpse here... it’s worth so much money... maybe even enough to trade to Xuena if the scales can be turned into good enough armour. Now, some of that is the fact it’s Rank 3 but a lot is just howrge the damned thing was. Which of course... is the issue.


    “We just don’t have any way to transport it. Our rings are nowhere nearrge enough to handle something like this... and I have no idea what we should do about it. This is like... like leaving a massive chest full of gold to rot in a swamp because you can’t carry it. The wealth is RIGHT THERE... but I really don’t know how we’d carry it out of the swamp let alone to Sect Master Ice Prick,” exined Xiang.


    Yang snorted at the ‘prestigeous title’ that the sect master received from Xiang but otherwise nodded along with the exnation. Kat of course looked at the snake and pondered that question herself. It was big yes... and undoubtedly heavy... but probably not quite outside of her strength range. If they went that direction though... Kat knew she’d be dragging it. Probably for days, at a pace around that of a normal human. “Well, what are our options?” asked Kat.


    Xiang scratched at his chin for a few moment before saying, “Hmm... not a lot of ideal ones... but certainly more than a few suboptimal ones. The first thing is of course to take the best parts. The fangs, the poison sacs, maybe the eyes as well and a handful of scales just because we do have some space in our rings.


    “The other option is that we split the party. Someone, or I guess two someone’s stay here and guard the corpse. It’s a Rank 3 beast. It’s not going to decay for a month or so even without treatment... but I’m not entirely certain that Yang and I could safely leave the swamp by ourselves and we certainly couldn’t keep a corpse this size safe 24/7 until harvesterse.


    “The final option I see is spending the time to cut off the entire head as is, and try to sell that. It’ll have most of the good parts, a good bit of scales, but more likely some noble would love to have it preserved for a wall or something. If we’re really lucky their might even be a bounty on it... but that’s wishful thinking.”