Everyone present heard the sound at almost the same time.
The next moment, Gauss used Any Door several times in rapid succession and appeared right in front of the cave.
What he saw made his heart jump.
The cave, which had been extremely solid before, had completely collapsed. When they picked this place, he and Serandur had gone out of their way to choose a cave with especially hard-packed earth precisely to avoid a cave-in.
And just an hour ago, when he came by, he hadn't sensed anything unusual at all.
But now it had still collapsed.
There was no helping it, though. The serpent nature in Serandur's blood made him instinctively favor cool environments like caves, so it was only natural that he'd choose a place like this to break through.
Gauss had no time to regret it.
A buzz filled the air as he immediately expanded his mental perception outward.
That invisible, intangible force passed through layer after layer of shattered rock and sank into the interior of the cave.
The scene inside quickly unfolded in his mind like a painting.
He saw the cave buried under massive fallen stone.
And in the deepest part of it, he "saw" a cold figure curled up on the ground, surrounded by rubble.
Thump. Thump.
What made Gauss finally breathe a little easier was that Serandur's heart was still beating—slowly, but steadily.
As long as he's still alive, that's enough…
With Serandur's level 5 physique and his half-snake body, as long as the injuries weren't especially severe—especially not fatal—then there was still room to save him.
And the Red Dragon Company wasn't the old five-man squad anymore. They now had plenty of capable people, and Serandur was no longer the only healer around.
There was no sign of any other life nearby either. From the look of it, the cave-in had simply been an accident.
Gauss let out a long breath.
Just as he was about to start a rescue—
Crack… crack…
The rubble inside the cave began to shift and grind noisily.
"Hm?"
Gauss's attention snapped toward the source of the movement.
It was Serandur. He was moving.
As his body shifted, the rocks pressing down on him were slowly forced aside.
"Looks like you've still got plenty of strength…"
The huge weight in Gauss's chest finally lifted.
To him, as long as Serandur's life wasn't in danger, everything else was secondary. Even something like a failed breakthrough was a small matter compared to that.
Crackcrackcrackcrack—
But soon the movement of the rocks became larger and larger, and the aura radiating from Serandur grew stronger as well.
"Hm?"
Boom!
Suddenly, the pile of rubble at the cave entrance exploded outward.
Through the rolling dust, a figure slowly slid out.
Only then did Gauss get a clear look at Serandur's current state—and the sight made him frown instinctively.
The scales on Serandur's lower body had split open, and blood was seeping from wounds of every size. That part wasn't too surprising. It would've been stranger if someone buried like that had come out completely unharmed.
But his upper body…
Something was clearly wrong.
His eyes had changed so drastically that they felt unfamiliar even to Gauss. A crimson light glowed deep within them, as though all his usual reason had vanished.
Scales had spread across almost his entire face.
And while Gauss was studying Serandur, Serandur—trapped in that abnormal state—was also taking in the outside world.
Naturally, the first thing he noticed was Gauss, floating in the air and impossible to ignore.
"Hiss—!"
Serandur suddenly bared his teeth, his expression twisting into something feral, and let out a dry, threatening serpent hiss at Gauss.
Some animal instinct deep inside him was screaming that the being in the sky was a lethal threat.
That was enough to confirm it for Gauss. Serandur had truly lost control.
Seeing him twist his thick serpent body and prepare to flee into the woods, Gauss naturally couldn't just let him go.
He immediately pushed his flight spell harder and shot after him, moving even faster than Serandur.
As the gap between them closed, Serandur seemed to realize that he couldn't shake the flying creature above him. He abruptly snatched up a huge chunk of rock from the ground.
A dark green energy instantly coated the stone, imbuing it with magic.
Whoosh!
He hurled it into the air like a cannonball straight at Gauss.
But even though the attack came without warning, Gauss had been watching him closely the whole time. He shifted to the side and dodged it instantly.
"Looks like I'll have to subdue you first."
Gauss didn't waste time trying to talk Serandur back to his senses.
Under normal circumstances, Serandur would never attack him. If he was lashing out indiscriminately now, then his mind was clearly gone.
"Any Door!"
With a flash, Gauss appeared right beside him, floating in midair.
Then, before Serandur had time to react, Gauss clenched his fist, coiled his shoulder like a spring, and drove a punch straight into his face.
Boom!
The blow landed like a battering ram. Serandur's cheek caved in as the flesh and scales rippled in waves from the impact.
The next second, his entire body was blasted sideways as though struck by a giant hammer.
He hit the ground and rolled several times before finally coming to a stop.
Fortunately, his body seemed even tougher now than before. Even after tumbling dozens of meters, all he really suffered was disorientation. He pushed himself back up not long after.
Though to be fair, Gauss had held back. He was attacking his teammate, after all. Under normal circumstances, that punch would have seriously wrecked the old Serandur.
He could already tell—Serandur had gotten stronger.
So did that mean the breakthrough had succeeded? Failed? Or had it succeeded, but with some sort of side effect?
For modern humans, bloodline power was still both incredible and dangerous—a true double-edged sword.
On one hand, it granted greater talent and strength, allowing adventurers to stand out from the crowd, just like Albena's Giantization.
On the other hand, bloodline power was inherently unstable.
If it couldn't be controlled properly, it would lash back at the wielder and become a danger to both them and those around them.
In that sense, plain, ordinary pureblood humans actually had an advantage. The strongest among them could eventually reach a kind of steady, pure strength.
Serandur staggered to his feet, and when he looked at Gauss again, there was fear in his eyes.
Even before, he had instinctively sensed the danger Gauss represented. But instinct was one thing. Now that they had actually clashed, he had finally felt the terrifying force hidden inside that seemingly fragile human body.
More importantly, the moment he thought about fighting Gauss, some other instinct inside him recoiled in resistance. An invisible power seemed to be holding him back, as though his feral state and some buried part of himself were fighting for control.
That was why his first instinct upon seeing Gauss had been to run. He had only thrown the rock because he realized he couldn't escape him.
"Hiss! Ahhh!"
As Gauss stepped closer, Serandur suddenly clutched his head and let out a cry of agony.
His huge serpent body began thrashing wildly across the ground.
Seeing that, Gauss immediately guessed that his earlier punch had triggered some kind of change inside Serandur.
So he simply remained nearby instead of closing the distance further.
"Serandur. Wake up."
Maybe the part of him that still recognized the voice heard it, because the human side of his consciousness finally regained the upper hand.
The thrashing gradually weakened, and the scales covering his face quickly receded.
At last, he stopped moving entirely and lay still on the ground, like someone who had fallen asleep.
Gauss finally let out the breath he'd been holding.
By the time they returned to the medical tent, Serandur was lying on a bed and slowly pushing himself upright. He touched his cheek and his head, both of which ached badly.
But his mind was hazy, like someone who had blacked out from drinking too much. He couldn't quite piece things together.
What happened? Why was he in the medical station?
The last thing he remembered was entering the cave he'd picked for seclusion. After that, nothing.
"Are you all right, Serandur?"
Gauss was standing nearby with the rest of the core team and several priests, all looking at him with concern.
"Yeah, and you even attacked Gauss," Albena added, sounding a little resentful.
She was convinced that even if she ever lost consciousness, her love for the commander would still keep her from attacking him.
"I… attacked him?"
Still half-dazed, Serandur pointed at himself, disbelief written all over his face.
He genuinely didn't remember attacking Gauss.
But seeing Albena and the others all nodding with complete certainty, and knowing none of them had any reason to lie, he had to admit that he probably had attacked his captain.
So this throbbing pain in his face that felt like he'd been hit by a cannonball…
He reached up and touched his cheek again.
Gauss coughed awkwardly, like he'd read his thoughts perfectly.
"Serandur had lost consciousness at the time too, so let's not dwell on little details like that."
He quickly changed the subject and began telling Serandur exactly what he'd looked like while out of control.
He even took out a recording crystal.
The moment he noticed Serandur's condition had gone wrong, he had started recording, specifically so he could review it afterward.
The other teammates had only seen the situation from afar at the time, but now that the crystal was projecting the scene, they could all clearly see how abnormal Serandur had been.
In that state, his body had seemed larger, his strength and energy much more violent, and he had completely lost control of himself—more like a giant serpent monster than a person.
The others started murmuring their guesses.
"Could it be beastification syndrome?"
"Not that severe, right? He recovered way too fast. It might just be simple bloodline backlash."
Unlike everyone else, Serandur stared at his own image in the recording. After a brief moment of confusion, a memory long hidden deep inside him suddenly surfaced in his mind like a bolt of lightning.
A bitter expression appeared on his face.
"What is it?" Gauss asked, immediately catching the change in his expression. "Do you know what happened to you?"
He motioned for the priests to leave.
Once the outsiders were gone, Serandur finally nodded.
He had no intention of hiding it.
The people left in the room were family to him now.
"Captain… do you know where serpentfolk came from?"
But before anyone could answer, he continued on his own.
"Originally, serpentfolk were human.
A long, long time ago, a group of people caught sight of the Snake God's great form with their own eyes. Overwhelmed with awe, they chose to cast off their original humanity—including the reason that came with it.
Those people became the first true serpentfolk.
They hissed in the dark and prayed to the Snake God they were trying to emulate, and the Snake God answered those desperate believers with tremendous power.
Relying on that divine gift, serpentfolk civilization expanded rapidly and, in a very short time, built a mighty empire in the mortal world.
Cannibalism, living sacrifice, and even breeding with powerful serpents as a sacred ritual were all common in their temples.
They saw reason as a shackle on the flesh and longed to shed the remnants of their humanity like dead skin.
But at the height of their civilization, a terrible crisis was born.
By constantly abandoning their humanity, the serpentfolk created a horrifying existence—the Serpent Kings.
These Serpent Kings began appearing in city after city, and each one possessed power far beyond that of ordinary serpentfolk. They slaughtered every life they encountered—human, intelligent races, even their own serpentfolk kin.
Then, with other civilizations launching retaliatory attacks against the serpentfolk for all their invasions and atrocities, the serpentfolk civilization collapsed under pressure from both within and without."
He paused, then continued.
"To prevent another royal bloodline from destroying their civilization, the surviving serpentfolk chose the opposite path.
They embraced reason, and began interbreeding with humans and other intelligent races generation after generation, until the far more stable half-serpent race we know today was formed.
But among our people, there has always been one old saying:
The royal bloodline never truly vanished. It only sleeps in the depths of every serpentfolk bloodline, and from time to time, it awakens."
The room fell silent after Serandur finished.
"So what you're saying," Gauss said, "is that you awakened that violent royal bloodline?"
Serandur nodded.
"I can feel it. There's a weak but terrifying power hidden inside my body now. It's awake."
His face turned grim.
In serpentfolk legend, awakening the so-called royal bloodline was not a blessing.
It was a curse.
Whoever awakened it would gradually be devoured by that power, lose their reason, and eventually become a monstrous thing that brought disaster to everyone around them.
Gauss looked at Serandur's face, which had all the hopelessness of someone who'd just learned he had an incurable disease, and scratched his head.
"Can't it be treated?"
Serandur shook his head.
"Captain, this isn't an illness. It can't be healed."
"It doesn't sound that hopeless, though." Gauss blinked. "I mean, didn't one punch from me snap you back just now?"
At that, Serandur touched his still-aching cheek, and even he had to admit the situation didn't seem as severe as the old stories said it should have been.
Was it because the royal blood had only just awakened?
Seeing the uncertainty on his face, Gauss patted him on the shoulder. His other hand slowly clenched into a fist.
"Don't worry. I'll be responsible for punching you awake whenever you lose it."
"That's my duty as your captain."
Hearing him say that with complete seriousness, Serandur didn't know whether to laugh or cry.
My dear captain…
If the royal bloodline's curse could really be suppressed with brute force, then it never would have become the kind of disaster that destroyed an entire civilization.
Before he could say anything, Albena beamed at him.
"Yeah, yeah. And if the captain's ever too busy, I don't mind helping."
"Me too." Alia raised a small pale fist.
"I can as well," Shadow added, her tone cool as ever.
Serandur blinked.
"You… you're not just looking for an excuse to beat me up, are you?"
But even as he said it, some of the fear in his chest had already eased.
Just by seeing all of them standing there, he felt much better.
~~~
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