Chapter 147: Familiar Foes
Irwin's body shot down the vein faster than he had imagined possible, picking up speed rapidly. At one point, he had a moment of freefall, causing his stomach to lurch before he touched down again. After what had to be half a minute, he felt the downward motion turn to a straighter one, and before he had time to think, he reached the end. He shot out of the end and into a much smaller cavern with a dozen other openings leading away before slamming into the furthest wall with a grunt. Pushing his face from the sandy, stony surface, he wondered oddly if these things looked this rocky in life or if they changed to rock eventually.
"Yeah, that happened to me too," Greldo whispered from the side, looking at him with a tight smile.
Catching the hint, Irwin quickly got up and stepped aside just in time for Scintilla to slide inside the room. Halfway through, she turned into a red blur that appeared beside him with a wide grin.
"You still happy with your jumping card?" she whispered.
"It's not," Irwin began, just as Numilli slid into the chamber, smacking into the far wall with a pained yelp.
Irwin held his breath at the surprisingly loud noise. After a few seconds, he breathed in relief.
"So… now what?" he asked, turning to Greldo, who grimaced.
"Now we need to go further down," his friend said. "And try to dodge the insane number of wyrms. This thing is riddled with them. Far more than the other one."
"It's a much older corpse," Numilli whispered as she poked the wall before her. Her face turned pale as she turned to them. "We should hurry."
Hurry? Why? Irwin thought before voicing his sudden worry.
"Explain."
"If… if one of those wyrms has been around the heart for a long time, it could have grown," Numilli said as she looked at the nearby holes.