For several hours, Taixuan continuously searched the forest, trying to look for a way to get his body fixed one way or another.
However, things weren't going as he had planned.
For some reason, since the time he had entered the forest, he couldn't find even a single animal let alone monsters who had their cores developed.
It was strange. Although thanks to the restrictions placed on his body by the system, he couldn't feel any exhaustion or the need to eat either.
He simply continued to walk restlessly, treading through the hidden spikes that lay underneath the cover of leaves, twigs—covering the entire ground below.
His weary, old hands slowly touched the bark of a tree as he stopped for a minute.
The night had already descended upon the world, and yet here he was, trying to save himself from death.
All of a sudden, a faint squeal reverberated throughout the entirety of the once dead silent forest.
Taixuan's face turned towards the direction of the voice in an instant. Within the last 11 hours of searching the vicinity, it was his first time hearing a sound other than that of his own mind.
It was faint, however, he could roughly guess the location of the sound, for even if he had lost his powers, experience remained engraved deep into his bones.
With slow yet adequately quick steps, He headed towards the direction of the sound, hoping to finally see an end to this condition of his.
Soon, as he approached the place, Taixuan noticed a small crevice opened up in the ground, leading to a world unknown to those on the ground.
It could very well be a trap of some monster that may be trying to lure him to its lair; however, knowing that there was an equal chance that it could genuinely be what he was truly looking for, he had no choice but to head in himself.
He slightly narrowed his eyes, looking into the cave's depths before jumping straight off into the crevice. Although it didn't look like much from the outside, Taixuan realized the vast space hiding under the protection of the darkness.
His feet quickly approached the wall behind as he kept falling for more than 3 seconds.
The wall behind began to slightly curve as he reached further down, giving him just enough space that he needed to use the wall itself as a slide to reduce the impact of the fall.
A mere moment later, his wait ended as he had reached the ground safely.
However, he could not see anything at all.
On the contrary, the sounds that he could hear from outside had increased exponentially in here.
The air was heavy and pungent, much like a battlefield adorned by the pooling blood and countless corpses, making it hard for him to breathe.
Just as he took his first step towards the cave's depths, Taixuan felt an immense pressure fall into his entire body while an image of a long, scaled body wrapping tightly around him came into existence.
His expressions worsened in the split second as he realized that this indeed was a trap laid by a monster.
Behind his head, two bright cerulean eyes slowly surfaced from the shadows, their irises elongated like a reptile's.
A thin, long tongue split into two at its end, slithered past his ears as he heard a strange, cracked voice echo in his mind.
'Why... are you here...?' the voice seemed to be straining both his mind and soul, as he felt his heart slowly stop beating.
Taixuan could already guess it, the beast was just as strong as he was in his prime. And looking at his pristine white scales, he could only guess a single name.
A mythical beast that had been reduced to a mere fantasy story after countless centuries of no successful sighting of it over the vast World.
The Blue-eyed Soul Eater Snake.
One of the strongest beasts to have ever been written down in the history of Martial Path, designated the throne of one of the 7 Monarchs of beasts.
Just as its name stated, it was said to have the powers to rival heaven upon reaching adulthood, however, the one who had been holding him down seemed no stronger than the realms of Void Amalgamation.
Meeting such a literal legend in a bleak cave, Taixuan felt blessed, however, at the same time, unlucky.
"My Name is Mo Taixuan, I came here upon hearing the faint squeals, hoping to find the beast's core to fix my dying body." He said his intentions clearly out loud.
He wasn't scared of the beast; rather, he simply knew that such tactics wouldn't work against the sole beast present under the heavens to possess the ability to peek through one's soul.
The snake slowly tightened its grip around his body and moved its head forward, facing Taixuan face to face as it glared into his eyes.
For a split second, he thought as though his mind had suddenly been breached by someone, almost like someone was forcefully trying to read the depths of his existence.
However, he remained calm, for the perpetrator stood right in front of him.
It only took the snake a second to read through all of his memories, his current thoughts, and his intentions altogether.
But, for some reason, it kept staring in his eyes.
"I like the look of your eyes, human." Its voice once again rang in Taixuan's mind, making his eyes shake subtly.
"To think... There existed a human whose memories even I cannot read completely." An apparent hint of crankiness in its voice.
The snake as well, was astonished to know Taixuan's rough past and understood his desperation more than anyone else.
After all, it was going through a similar situation as well.