After escaping that hallucination of Jessica... Six pairs of eyes appeared in front of him.

Giant cobras, monsters powerful enough to rival B+ rank warriors, perfectly adapted to this forest environment. And there were six of them.

The first cobra attacked. Its head sliced through the air with stunning speed, fangs extended, and Kaiser barely dodged by diving to the side. He felt the reptile’s breath brush against his cheek, then he rolled across the ground to get back up.

Second attack, this time from his right. He couldn’t dodge it completely; the cobra’s head struck his left shoulder.

"Fuck!"

The impact threw him against the trunk of a tree, and he felt his scars reopening under his clothes, warm blood soaking his tunic.

"Shit," he muttered as he got back up, his legs trembling under his weight.

He immediately understood that he couldn’t fight them with brute force. His body was still too fragile.

He closed his eyes. He stopped fighting the panic rising inside him. He focused on his breathing, on the rhythm Diavolo had taught him, and he formed the first Mudra.

His fingers positioned themselves with precision gained over the months: index and middle fingers extended, ring and little fingers folded over the thumbs. The Mudra of Opening. Immediately, he felt the ambient mana respond to his call, golden filaments converging toward his hands.

<Mystic Arts: Mudra of Perception>

He felt a tension at his fontanelle, the same one he had experienced during his first astral projection, and he let his mind split in two.

His body remained leaning against the tree, eyes closed, breathing short. But his spirit rose above the battlefield, hovering five meters high, and suddenly he saw everything.

He saw the six cobras arranged in a circle around his motionless body. He saw their massive bodies, each eight to ten meters long, coiled around tree trunks or spread across the ground. And because he was seeing from the sky, he could anticipate every movement, every trajectory, every angle of attack.

The third cobra struck. From his aerial position, Kaiser saw the reptile’s head lunge toward the left side of his body. He commanded his legs to move, and his body obeyed, taking a sideways step to evade the trajectory he had anticipated. The cobra’s head missed, slamming into the tree he had been leaning against, and its fangs sank into the bark with a wet sound.

Kaiser opened the eyes of his physical body and formed a third Mudra. This time, his fingers traced a complex pattern.

<Mystic Arts: Language of the Flora>

The vines hanging from the branches suddenly came to life. They wrapped around the two closest cobras, immobilizing them in a bundle of vegetal ropes. The reptiles thrashed, but the vines held firm, reinforced by the aura he had infused into their sap.

The three remaining cobras, seeing their companions immobilized, turned their attention back to Kaiser. They attacked simultaneously, three heads slicing through the air from three different directions. From his aerial position, Kaiser saw the three trajectories converging on the spot where his body stood. He calculated the intersection point, the only blind spot where the three attacks could not reach him, and he threw himself there.

He dove forward, rolling under the head of the first cobra, slipping between the next two with only centimeters to spare. And then he quickly fled into the forest.

...

"Shit, an Epic rank," he breathed.

He knew what that meant. Epic rank monsters stood above simple B or A rank creatures. It was the threshold beyond which an opponent could no longer be faced with brute force alone, even for an experienced warrior. And him, with his still fragile body and his reserves almost exhausted because of the cobras...

’I’m in deep trouble.’

Kaiser didn’t have time to hesitate. He closed his eyes, found his breathing, and raised his hands in front of him.

The Mudras chained together with a fluidity he had never achieved during training. His fingers danced in the air, tracing complex patterns that would have been impossible for a human eye to follow.

The first Mudra, the one of Opening, activated his energy channels and drew the surrounding mana toward his palms. The second, the one of Perception, lifted his spirit out of his body to embrace the entire clearing in a single glance. The third, the Mudra of Stabilization, anchored this aerial vision in a clear consciousness, safe from the distortions that demonic pressure might have caused.

But he didn’t stop there. His fingers continued to move, shifting from one configuration to another without the slightest hesitation.

The fourth Mudra, the Tripataka, concentrated the ambient mana in his forearms, and he felt an intense heat spread through them, as if his bones were transforming. When he looked down, he saw tattoos appearing on his skin, star patterns that coiled around his forearms in perfect spirals, each glowing with a silvery light.

"That’s new," he murmured, but he didn’t have time to be surprised.

The chimera suddenly accelerated. Its six legs began striking the ground in rhythm, and its shapeless body rushed toward him with a speed that its mass should have made impossible. The lion head opened its maw, revealing three rows of teeth pointing in contradictory directions.

<Mystic Arts: Kartarimukha>

His fingers froze into a configuration that resembled a blade. The silvery light from his forearms spread along his hands, forming an immaterial extension that lengthened his fingers by several centimeters. It was not a physical weapon, but a spiritual vital point, a zone that Diavolo had taught him to target on any living creature.

He shifted to the side to avoid the forked tongue, pivoting on his left foot.

The lion head passed within a few centimeters of his shoulder, but he was already out of its trajectory. With a push from his legs, he rose a meter into the air. His aerial spirit gave him a plunging view over the mass of flesh, and he identified the weak point.

The chimera’s spiritual core was not in one of its three heads. It was at the center of its body, where the poorly assembled flesh formed a barely visible cavity. Kaiser thrust his hand forward, his fingers in Kartarimukha cutting through the air, and he struck.

The immaterial blade sank into the cavity without resistance, and the chimera let out a shrill cry, a sound so high-pitched it made the branches of the surrounding trees vibrate. Its three heads turned at the same time, searching for the attacker, but Kaiser had already landed back on the ground, rolling across the brown grass to get out of reach.

The monster was not dead, but it was wounded. Its movements had become slower, more disordered, and its six legs struggled to coordinate their steps.

Kaiser understood that the spiritual core was damaged, but not destroyed. He needed a more decisive blow.

He looked down at the ground. His hands were trembling.

His fingers recomposed into a new configuration, that of the Mudra of Transmutation, the most complex one he could perform at the moment.

The chimera, sensing the danger, attempted one last attack. Its three heads lunged toward him simultaneously. Kaiser waited until the last moment.

He bent his knees, passed under the lion head, and avoided the fangs by a few centimeters. At the same moment he gathered a handful of earth.

<Mythic Arts: Transmutation!>

The handful of earth transformed into a stone spear that pierced through the flesh with a tearing sound, cleanly slicing the monster’s neck.

Blood splattered across his face but he was still safe for the moment....

He walked until his feet were bleeding, and finally, as the sky began to brighten on the horizon, he saw a clearing in the trees.

He approached, pushed aside the last branches blocking the way, and found himself at the edge of the forest. In front of him, the plain stretched as far as the eye could see, bathed in the pink light of dawn. The tall grass swayed under a light breeze, and in the distance he could make out the first roofs of Yggdrasil.

He stopped for a moment, breathing heavily, and let his shoulders slump.

"I did it..."

Behind him, a familiar laugh burst from the trees. "Nyo-ho-ho! You took your time, Baby boy!"

Kaiser turned around and saw Diavolo sitting on a low branch, his legs swinging in the air.

"You followed me?" Kaiser asked, both irritated and relieved.

"From the start," Diavolo replied as he jumped down from the branch. "Someone had to pick up the pieces if you got eaten."

Kaiser shook his head, a smile forming on his lips despite himself. He sat down in the grass, exhausted, and gazed at the plain spreading out before him.

"Now," said Diavolo, holding out his hand, "let’s send some demons back to their shitty hell. Nyo-hoo!"

"What the hell is that Nyo-hoo!? You’re annoying me and it’s embarrassing!"