The scene forced that truth into him without mercy.
"Ugh… cough, cough…"
He desperately tried to pull air into his lungs, but every breath only brought in more of the blood filled stench, making him cough again and again.
He felt sick.
He was scared.
While clutching the egg as if holding onto it for support, he felt the cool temperature through his hands and it calmed him just a little.
He vomited again and again, emptying everything in his stomach, but even so, he kept moving forward.
At the edge of the open area, he thought he saw something white move.
"This is... a snake?!"
When he carefully moved closer, a white snake with its scales stained with blood in several places lifted its head, reacting to his voice.
Looking up at its thick, long body, which was several times larger than his own, Qiong Xing found himself staring straight into its eyes, with their tall, narrow pupils unique to reptiles.
For some reason, fear did not rise up when he looked into those beautiful golden eyes.
"Hello."
He knew it was a strange thing to say in this situation, but he could not think of anything else to say, so he bowed his head and greeted it.
"...…"
"...…"
Maybe it really was strange.
The white snake looked at Qiong Xing with an expression that seemed to say, "What is this guy talking about?"
Of course, he could not actually understand a snake's facial expression, so it was just how it felt to him.
Still, after Qiong Xing's foolish greeting, the snake seemed to relax a little.
It was still cautious, but the killing intent it had before appeared to be gone and he wanted to believe that was a good sign.
Unlike the bandits who had been killed, Qiong Xing had no intention of harming the snake and it seemed the snake could sense that.
"...…"
"...…"
They stared at each other, both unsure of what the other would do next.
But when he looked more closely, he noticed that the snake's gaze kept shifting toward Qiong Xing's hands.
He had never seen a snake lay eggs before, but he knew that snakes were born from eggs.
"Is this your child?"
When he lifted the egg in his arms so it could be seen more clearly, the snake moved its neck and looked like it was nodding.
It seemed that the egg he had picked up along the way belonged to this snake.
Judging from the situation, the bandits had not been satisfied with just kidnapping people, they had also stolen eggs from rare creatures.
It had probably gone well for them until now, but this time, they had chosen the wrong target.
It looked like they had been killed by the giant snake when it came to take its egg back.
Perhaps the bandits dropped the egg while trying to escape from the attacking parent snake, or maybe they were killed by something else along the way.