After killing the tiger, Leo walked toward his prize — the orange-colored herb.
When he picked it up, he found that his earlier suspicions were correct. The herb didn't burn his hand at all. Not even a tingle of heat. When he placed it into his leather satchel, the satchel was completely fine.
Good. One down.
At this point, he had been using the spell for a total of 45 minutes. He only had a little more than an hour before it would wear off entirely. The options were clear — either finish killing two more animals, collect those herbs, and sprint out of the forest before time ran out, or find himself a safe place before the spell wore off and wait out the cooldown.
He decided that waiting out the cooldown was the smarter play. Rushing through dangerous encounters on a timer was a recipe for getting killed.
But he still wanted to scout the area while walking toward his hiding spot. He kept his senses sharp, paying full attention to the surroundings as he moved toward the lake. The hiding spot he'd chosen was the cave behind the waterfall — the same one he'd discovered during his first trip into the forest. It could fit him comfortably, and the magical barrier at the entrance would keep predators out.
While he was walking, something caught his eye.
In the distance, a herb gave off a small shine before fading. He stopped mid-step. He had already found another potential herb, and he hadn't even been searching for one.
He decided to go closer and take a better look.
He walked slowly toward the flickering light, every footstep deliberate and quiet. The shine flared again, a brief pulse of soft luminescence, making him even more curious. He crouched low and peeked through the trees to find the source.
Behind the tree was a plant that was periodically emitting light. The source of the glow was a low-hanging fruit dangling off one of its branches. It pulsed gently, almost rhythmically, like a heartbeat made of light.
But in front of the fruit, a snake was coiled up in the grass.
Leo's breath caught.
The snake was bigger than any snake he'd ever seen. It was twice as long as him, its body as thick as his torso. If it rose to full height, it would tower over his under-nourished frame and could crush him like paper. At this point, it had already noticed him peering from behind the tree.
It hissed loudly.
Then it stood up.
The previously coiled snake slowly unraveled its body, revealing its true size. Five meters tall. It dwarfed him completely, its scales gleaming dully in the filtered forest light. Its forked tongue flicked out, tasting the air.
Leo swallowed hard but didn't retreat.
It was a few yards away, so he stepped out from behind the trees to face it head-on. While he did this, his mind was already racing — calculating angles, distances, and escape routes. He wasn't thinking about how to kill it.
He was thinking about how to steal the fruit.
He hadn't really used any of his stamina to kill the sleeping tiger. So for this battle, his body was fresh and full of energy. He grabbed his knife and pointed it toward the snake.
The snake hissed again, louder this time, when it saw his aggressive posture.
Leo moved first.
He immediately sprinted around the snake, hoping that its lack of limbs would slow its ability to pivot and pursue. He figured a legless creature couldn't match a human's lateral speed.
He was dead wrong.
The snake moved lightning-fast, its massive body slithering across the ground with terrifying efficiency. It almost caught up to him in seconds.
Leo saw the snake closing the gap and reacted on instinct. He jumped up, kicking hard against one of the low-hanging branches to launch himself over the snake's lunging body. He sailed through the air and landed behind it just as the snake's jaws snapped shut on the spot where he'd been standing a heartbeat ago.
The snake bit down into the wood.
A piece of the tree trunk tore off like it was soft bread. The snake opened its mouth and the crushed chunk of wood dropped out, splintered and mangled beyond recognition.
Leo's blood ran cold.
As he saw this, he understood immediately — the scale of this battle was entirely different than what he had envisioned. One bite from those jaws would snap him in half. There was no surviving that kind of force.
But the snake's attack had served its purpose. It was now several yards away from the fruit, lured out of position by Leo's provocation.
This was the perfect time to steal the fruit.
He had planned this from the beginning, because his main purpose was only to take the fruit and run. Trying to kill this monster wouldn't bring him any profit. He wasn't going to be able to carry its massive body back to sell it anyways. And more importantly, it was simply too dangerous.
Leo spun on his heel and bolted toward the glowing plant behind him.
His fingers closed around the fruit. He yanked it free and threw it into his satchel without breaking stride, then took off running.
But he had miscalculated the snake's speed.
He managed to grab the fruit and take a few steps — but that was all.
The snake lunged forward with explosive force, its jaws gaping wide. Leo threw himself sideways, rolling hard across the ground to dodge the bite. The satchel flew from his grip during the roll, tumbling away across the forest floor.
Before he could recover, the snake whipped its tail around.
The blow caught him square in the stomach.
A crushing pain exploded through his core. The air left his lungs in a single, violent gasp. His vision blurred. But there was no time to process the agony — during this moment, the snake was already coiling itself around him. Loop after loop of thick, muscular body wrapped around his torso and squeezed.
The pressure on his chest snapped him back to reality, cutting through the pain like a blade through fog.
He couldn't breathe.
The snake's head reared back, preparing to bite. Its fangs gleamed.
Leo immediately used both of his arms to stop the head from reaching him, pushing against its jaw with everything he had. The muscles the spell had granted him strained against the serpent's raw power.
The tree was a very good example of what those jaws could do to him. If those fangs reached his flesh, he was dead.
His right hand still held the knife.
A thought crystallized in the chaos.
He shifted — switching to holding the snake's head back with only his left hand. His right arm reared back.
Then he stabbed the knife deeply into the scales of the snake's neck.
The blade sank in with a wet crunch.
The snake stopped trying to bite him. Its body reacted immediately — squeezing him with even more power, constricting with savage, desperate force. It was trying to crush him to death before he could finish the job.
Leo realized it had become a race. A battle of speed. Who would kill the other first.
His ribs screamed. His vision darkened at the edges.
But his hand was still on the knife.
He grabbed the handle with white-knuckled force and dragged the blade upward. The knife sliced through the snake's neck, tearing through scales and muscle, carving a path straight up into its skull. The blade ripped through the snake's brains.
The coils went slack.
The snake stopped squeezing. Its massive body went limp and collapsed to the ground with a heavy thud, dead.
Leo immediately pried himself out of the snake's loosened hold, gasping for air. His ribs ached. His stomach throbbed. But he was alive.
After grabbing his satchel the minute he got free, he was planning to leave immediately. Every second spent here was a second wasted.
But when he pulled his knife from the head of the dead snake, something caught his eye.
A shiny stone sat right next to the butchered head of his victim.
He paused.
He reached down and grabbed it. It was an interesting stone — small, smooth, and slightly luminous. It gave off a faint, almost imperceptible glow.
He didn't know what it was. He didn't have time to figure it out.
He just threw it into the satchel, tossing it into the same pocket as the fruit. He'd examine it later, when he wasn't racing against a ticking clock.
Then he started walking quickly toward the lake.
It would be a 30-minute walk according to his estimates. He could run, but he deliberately chose not to. He wanted to conserve every drop of remaining energy.
The battle with the snake had taken a huge chunk of his stamina, and he had spent a total of 45 minutes at this location between the fight and the approach. Now, Leo only had roughly 30 minutes of the spell left.
During that time, he would have to reach the lake. Swim through the water. Get behind the waterfall and into the cave.
And the biggest problem?
He would have to face the crocodile.