A Serpent's Tale
Chapter 298: Cursed Mountains

Chapter 298: Cursed Mountains

Around the fifth day into tracking Ashtraz in the desert, and Gary could tell that we were getting close, as it was getting easier to catch her.

In that time we had an encounter with a Dune Worm.

I was much stronger than last time, I also restrained my strength so as to not kill it last time. So killing it was a piece of cake. I finished it in one shot with just my fire alone.

I didn’t bother taking its corpse into my storage space either, since that would take too much time. I only incinerated the head of the worm after all. And most of its body was still underground, so pulling it out would only be a waste of time.

That was the biggest hurdle that we faced, but it wasn’t something that impeded us much at all.

Another two days passed after that and Gary could track Ashtraz even easier.

Gary was a rather large Dragon-Born with a unique constitution. His body apparently had heightened senses which surpassed the average for most Dragon-Born, nearly akin to actual Dragon-Kin.

Whereas Dragon-Born are scaly in appearance similar to Serpentar, Dragon-Kin conform more to the likes of a Lamia or Naga in terms of flesh how Anthroid they are.

Anthroids being more flesh than anything. Dragon-Kin fall under this term, but Dragon-Born don’t. The reason being their appearances

As mentioned, Dragon-Kin, which are the truest and highest form of Dragons, have a regular fleshy body, similar to that of Elves, but with clawed feet and hands and some spots covered in scales. Most commonly found on either their cheeks or hips, but they can appear in other places too.

They also had wings, a tail and horns atop their head, had extremely tough skin, could smell someone from a hundred thousand metres away, had a violent temper and slitted eyes, just like Naga’s.

And as for Dragon-Born, they fall under the term "Therioid" which just means they have a lot more exotic features if you will.

I learned both those terms in my Etiquette classes, as it was important to know the difference.

One of said features of the Dragon-Born, was their skulls, which have a rather distinct look to them, that being a long and extended face that was filled with sharp teeth.

The back of the head had either spikes or horns sprouting out from them, depending on what draconic heritage they had, sometimes both.

Either way, Gary was special even among typical Dragon-Born, as he had a constitution, which greatly heightened his senses to their limits.

Normally that would be something that would be hellish torture for any living being, because that meant you felt EVERYTHING. Could hear EVERYTHING. Taste EVERYTHING.

But the Illuminati found him and trained him to hone his senses and control them, and he eventually became one of their best, if not the best, tracker they had.

And he was helping me hunt down Ashtraz so that I could stop her from doing something probably incredibly stupid and harmful.

"How much longer do you think until we reach her?" I asked Gary in a frantic tone, unable to stop worrying about Ashtraz.

I was currently leaning on his back with my tail wrapped around his waist to hold myself onto him.

"Hard to say." He responded as he pointed forwards and slightly to the left.

I teleported the both us around one point five kilometres in that direction as he continued.

"Normally we should’ve reached her by now with her having to sleep and all, but there’s been no trace of her. All we’ve been doing is getting closer. So, I think she might not be sleeping at all."

"Is she crazy?!? That’s tantamount to suicide! There’s a reason we sleep at night out here!" I yelled in worry as I tightened my grip on his shoulders and around his waist.

"Ack! Tight!"

"Ah, sorry." I apologised and loosened my grip and teleported us the same distance in another direction.

"Its fine. That way now." He pointed a fair bit mor to the left this time.

It seemed that we were now making a detour towards the left, especially since at that new point, Gary’s arm moved a little more to the left again.

I teleported us there and pulled out the map of the region of the Naga kingdom that we were in, which was the north western quadrant, to see if I could tell where we were going, or if there was somewhere that we were headed.

It was hard to know where exactly we were compared to the map, but I could roughly guestimate where we were.

"I think we’re heading to the cursed mountains." I declared as I teleported us once more, around two kilometres since I think I know the where we’re headed.

"... Which one? There’s like five of them in this kingdom alone and I only remembered their names, not where they were." Gary asked as he took a second to scan the area.

I looked at the map and read the name out loud, "The Cursed Heaven Piercing Claw Mountains... That’s a fuckin mouthful."

Gary chuckled as he agreed with my sentiment, "Hehe, I know. Why can’t they ever just name these places after the person that cursed them, or the reason they cursed them?"

I gave my conjecture, "Dunno, must be some bullshit about the names giving them power or some shit."

"Oh yeah, I think I heard something about that from our coven members." Gary commented as he finally pointed in a direction, with me teleporting us once more in that direction. "Makes sense I guess... Wait, I think I see the Mountains from here."

"Can you? I can’t see a thing with all the heat and the sand blowing everywhere. Should we head there and see if she’s there? She does seem to be going that way, so we might catch her if we do." Gary suggested.

To which I agreed. "Yeah, and even if she’s not going there specifically, she’ll still pass by, which will give us a good chance to catch her. How far away do you reckon they are anyways?"

"If we’re lucky, I’d say around two hundred and fifty thousand metres away." Gary guess as he stared off into the distance.

"That far?!? Really?"

"Yup, I’m afraid so. It’s a long way away."

"How are you able to see that far? I know you have better senses than most of your kind and all, but still!"

"Dunno what to tell you. I could be wrong, as it could also be closer or further away. I’d have to get a better look once we’re closer."

"Whatever. Either way, if we’re right and she is going that way, should we do some big jumps then? Instead of small and sporadic ones instead?" I consulted since I wasn’t sure what the best option here was.

"Depends on how much Mana you lose and how far you take us. What’s your limit?"

"Around twenty Kilometres roughly."

After saying that I teleported us to the edge of what I could do, and felt a little tired. That used up more Mana than I thought it would.

"You okay? Feels like that took a lot out of you." Gary asked in concern.

"I’m good. Just took a lot more Mana out of me than I thought it would. Around five percent roughly."

"How much you got left?"

"Uh... Less than fifty percent of my Mana left."

"Let’s do one more then and get some rest, it is getting kind of late after all." Gary suggested.

"Yeah, good idea." I took a deep breath and blipped us another twenty thousand metres. After that, I let myself relax and fell off of Gary’s back with a thud. "I’m so tired."

"I’m not surprised, you’ve been at this for days now. Your bodies probably not used to this if I had to guess."

"Yeah... Probably... How close are we now, can you tell? And can you detect any traces of her here?"

Gary looked off into the distance and pondered my questions with a hum.

"I’d say still close to two hundred and fifty kilometres left in terms of distance. As for traces of your friend... yeah, I can still tack her."

"That’s good... They’re a lot more traceable right?"

"Yeah, they’re a lot clearer now, so we should be able to catch up to her in a couple of days I reckon. That is if she hasn’t been sleeping at all."

"Good... Good..."

After that, we made camp for tonight a little earlier than normal so that I could rest my body and recover as much Mana as possible.

The next day, I ended up teleporting us sixty kilometres, losing fifteen percent of my Mana, which was more than I recovered last night, meaning I ended up losing more than I got back, and was now down to less than forty percent.

And on top of that, it was such a large expenditure of Mana, that I was sweating buckets in exhaustion.

I think it has something to do with my [Mana Heart] as to why I’m getting tired in the first place. Since my Mana is now connected to my physical being, I think using it is taking more of a toll on my body.

’Maybe if I had more Mana or something, this problem would go away. Wait a minute...’

"I’ll carry you the rest of the way, so that you can save your energy for when you need it. I may not be able to go as far as you can in such a short space of time, but I can certainly get places faster than normal."

Gary could see my clear exhaustion, and decided that it would be best to just carry me the rest of the way himself.

Which he did, as he started to run off towards the Mountains, which I could just about see now myself.

Fortunately, I wasn’t tired enough that I would lose my grip on Gary, not to mention he was holding onto me also so I wouldn’t slip off.

And so, we started running towards the Cursed mountains.