He had sent it in to distract a lightning serpent in an enclosed cave and dropped several hundred kilograms of stone ceiling on top of the situation.
The poor thing had almost certainly not survived.
Well.
He filed that away and kept moving.
Then the hiss came.
It filled the entire cavern — not just loud but physical, reverberating off every wall and surface, pressing against the eardrums with a fury that was as much about intent as it was about volume. The lightning serpent's body had straightened from its coil, neck raised, scales blazing with electric light, its vertical pupils locked onto Lukas with the particular, focused rage of a creature that has identified exactly which puny, presumptuous thing is responsible for the indignity it just experienced.
