With the hydra worms gone, Jason still has to wait for the water to stop flowing. Though that did give him a chance to examine the place the worms popped up from. After all, surviving underground in an area where the roots are blood thirsty is quite the feat.

Jason was a bit weary over the chance of now being attacked by said roots. Once he looks into the holes though, his worries are somewhat put to rest. Just below the surface are seven severed roots which are slowly leaking a liquid that looks like a mix of plant sap and the ooze the hydra worms had put out.

Though speaking of that ooze, Jason was still covered in the stuff and he despite the slight sting he didn't want to get off at the moment. His guess on how the worms lived underground is that they attached themselves to the roots and the ooze is what pacifies the roots. The reason they only started to coat themselves in the stuff after coming out of the ground is likely that while underground they're constantly pumping the roots full of the stuff.

So sure, the slight amount of damage was annoying, but since there isn't an actual battle going on he could out heal it. At least for the moment having something to turn away the roots was more important than getting rid of the nasty full body itch. Not by much, but with the ground dug up it was likely the roots weren't going to be happy once they woke up from whatever the ooze did to them.

Then the water didn't stop. All the previous times the water only lasted a short amount of time and yet this time was breaking the pattern. There was something going on and so Jason turned his gaze outward.

That is when he noticed the chaos on the other pseudo islands. While none of the closer areas suffered, that might have just been because they weren't inhabited. Those farther ones also showed signs of worm attacks.

The busted up soil and a slight sheen like a slug or snail trail. It all pointed towards his little island not being the only place that faced an attack. Except for the fact that up until now he hadn't seen these monsters even once. Then again, the water hadn't lasted this long either so while he didn't have enough proof, the two might be connected.

Whatever the reason, Jason has to admit those hydra worms were an interesting monster. While he doesn't want to fight them like that again, they definitely shook things up. Though he also admits that things likely would have ended quite differently if he hadn't been immune to the poison the ooze contains.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

While pondering the hydra worm some more, another thing jumps out at him. All the locations that appear to have had worm activity are spread out and not just randomly. They're all far enough apart that there are at least two pseudo islands between every other location. Jason doubted they had enough brains or even territorial instinct to figure out that placement on their own so it was likely some kind of hard limit based on the roots. He wasn't going to speculate on the matter though as he simply didn't have enough information. Though this left him bored as he waited for the water to go away.

Once the water was gone, Jason decided to pick up the pace. The strange flash floods had been an interesting distraction, but at this point they were just an annoyance. Not enough of an annoyance though to try and jump the rapids. Maybe if nothing had happened he would be willing to try, but one of the kangaroo-ish monsters had shown why not during the back end of the long flood that just happened.

It had been in a group about ten pseudo islands over, when it decided to hop a little closer to Jason. Except if misjudges said jump and the consequences of that mistake were more than just a little fatal. As it passed a little too low over the water, root spikes shot upward, impaling the monsters and arresting its forward momentum. So yeah, no jumping the running water.

Good thing there was only one more extended flood and at the time Jason wasn't on a hydra worm island. Not that leaving the strange root supported not a flood plain meant he was out of danger from the water works. After all, the water had to go somewhere and without the strange plant keeping it contained in those gullies, it spread out.

In this case that seemed to have formed a swamp. A really swampy swamp where each step is a coin flip between shallow muck that will try to steal your boot and deep muck which will try to swallow you whole. Jason was actually fine with this sort of terrain as while his movement skill wasn't quite at the level of walking on water, the ground was a lot more solid than water.

No, his problem with the terrain was the fact it didn't suit Lily. Since Jason didn't know how long they would be stuck in the swamp, even the map he had seen was a little loose on that detail, he decided to instead go around it. Of course from his current position he couldn't really see the edges of the swamp, but at least he knew the general shape of the area.

While of questionable quality this far out, the maps Gregor had shown him shouldn't have been too far off. Though with hindsight going full force, Jason did regret not looking for more maps of the area he would be traveling through.

Still, going off what he remembered, Jason started traveling to the left. There should be a region of hills that held back the swamp in that direction while the other way saw the swamp extend quite a distance. Though the clean line between swamp and not swamp to the left is a little troubling and Jason hopes the straight line has more to do with lazy map makers than actual land formations.

If you find any errors ( broken links, non-standard content, etc.. ), Please let us know < report chapter > so we can fix it as soon as possible.