“Stay here”, “Don’t go”, “Let’s be together”…
The flowers were not making any senses. There were only incomprehensible cries or laughter. Somehow, Angor caught the emotions between the strange frequencies.
Most of them were telling him to stay!
He did not know why the flowers wanted him to remain. Still, from their “peaceful” noises, Angor was sure they did not mean harm.
“What do you want from me?” Angor tried to ask.
The flowers did not respond. They kept releasing their emotions, asking Angor to stay.
Angor sensed something else as well. It was a complicated, regretful idea.
“We could’ve kept him if there is no light…”
So… he could not reach the ceiling before because of the flowers?
Angor was unsure of whether he should call these things monsters or strange plants. Nevertheless, he had better leave.
He did not sense hostility, but only God knew whether they were just pretending to be harmless so that they could draw him into a trap. Angor knew about a certain type of flower called Rafflesia in Goldspink Empire, which drew creatures near using a sweet scent, then devoured them.
Angor lifted his flashlight and checked both directions. He did not know which way to go, or which way he came from, so he simply chose a random one and kept flying.
He kept hearing the emotions from the flowers on the ground, combined with an occasional sweet smell which caused him to daze a little and lose his direction for a second.
That must be what made him move in circles.
With the help of the flashlight, even if he would be affected by the “traps”, he could still move towards one direction.
“Why are there so many of them?” Angor pondered. He was interrupted by the smells several times when he barely moved half a kilometer as if the flowers REALLY wanted to stop him.
After an hour or two, Angor still did not reach the end of the path, and he did not see anything else besides the endless flowerbed beneath him.
He kept thinking along the way. Was this the underground maze or not? Where was his teacher? Why did the flowers want to stop him? Still, he knew thinking about the questions was useless. He would only be stressing himself out.
After flying for a long time, Angor finally reached the end.
However, this probably was not a piece of good news, because the end of the path was a wall, with no detours around it. In other words, he chose the wrong direction.
When he was several hundred meters away from the wall, Angor thought he saw a light in front of him when his flashlight shined on the wall.
He moved the flashlight towards where he saw the strange light. Maybe something on the wall was shining? Angor was planning to go back, but the sudden light spot aroused his curiosity.
Anyway, he did not know where he was going. Maybe it was a treasure! Sunders mentioned that all wizards who left the Nightmare Realm all showed greed towards the place, so this world might have more treasures compared to the other places, even if it might take some effort to find them.
Angor slowly approached the wall with his beautiful idea in mind.
About a hundred meters away from the wall, Angor saw faint light moving along it.
So the wall was shining. Luminous stones maybe? Those were not really valuable.
Angor kept moving forward for a dozen meters until a strange frequency invaded his mind.
At first, the wave hummed in his mind. Soon, it grew stronger and became many times worse in a matter of seconds.
The frequency acted like a deadly soundwave weapon, which instantly pierced Angor’s eardrums and hit his brain. Before he could react, Angor felt the pain building up in his head as if it was going to explode.
The wave was torturing his mind. It felt similar to what he went through during Sunders’ spiritual power test, but this one was ten times harder. No, even worse!
Angor felt his brain fluid boiling like water which was about to release smoke. He neither had the correct words nor any time to describe such pain. Like raging waves, each sharp pain was followed by an even stronger one.
“ARRRGHHH—”
Angor screamed. He could no longer control himself due to the boundless agony. He fell from the air.
Angor was flying a dozen meters above the ground. Even if the gravity was weak, his body would not make it if he hit the earth like this.
When peril was imminent, several green vines suddenly appeared below him. They broke out of the dirt and twisted in shape. In a matter of seconds, they created a net.
Angor fell straight into the net made by the vines.
With the cushion to damp most of the momentum, Angor reached the ground unharmed.
As Angor struggled and rolled on the ground in pain, the vines changed again. They became ropes, wrapped themselves around Angor’s limbs, and dragged him away from the wall until he was a hundred meters away from it again.
When he was far enough, the pain inside his brain began to fade.
Angor regained his breath. He thought he was dying. He saw his past life flashing in front of his eyes, which indicated he was almost gone for good!
He was in his top condition merely several seconds ago, and now he felt weak all over his body. His spirit almost crashed. That was close!
When everything quieted down, Angor was sure he lived through the incident. However, he used up his strength to stay alive. Now he could not even lift a finger.
He was in pain, but he still remembered being “saved” by some plant vines. Angor did not know if the vines meant to save him or had other ideas. Did they move on their own or was someone else controlling them?
Still, he was saved, and he should be thankful. Angor tried not to faint and let out a “thank you” weakly.
No response.
Of course. Vines could not speak.
The violent waves were no more. Angor’s spirit was self-repairing, and the self-preservation function of his brain started to work. Angor felt faint and sleepy. His vision blurred.
Before falling into a deep sleep, Angor saw a flower appearing in front of him. It also had a mouth on it, but its petals were shiny like stars…