Skendus, Arvena, and Ortana crossed the portal that they’ve discovered. They were immediately overwhelmed by the exclusive shades of red here at first, and then they made sure to be cautious of every step they took, because they didn't know what to expect here. For all they khey could be overwhelmed by a bunch of Demoles at any sed, and they would've been he wiser, because they couldn't evehe trees apart from the bushes around here. Caution was beyond necessary!

  “Aah, do you smell that?” Arvena asked, after a deep sigh. “Do you smell the mana? This has to be a needle universe, they're so secretive, and very hard to get to!”

  “A needle universe, huh? That's iing, but I 't really smell mana like you .” Skendus admitted, and Ortana was just as helpless.

  “There’s a lot of mana in the air, more than in Valporovus, actually.” She insisted, and theched. “Maybe we stay here for a while? Assuming that we don't get attacked by bugs. My mana pool is being impossible to fill retly, I'm not even halfway there.”

  “I'm not so keen on accumuting mana right now.” Skendus admitted, “It's best to avoid climbing levels until we get blessed by the Church of Ontarum, or else we'll upset those darn gods more than we already have. It paio say it, but I’ve been shooting bolts at the sky yesterday to prevent my mana from accumuting.”

  No one in the group agreed with his method there, they despised it, but they didn’t bhting over this matter, because they were to get blessed by the priest sooner or ter. After that, their individual opinions over mana wouldn't matter as much, as they could all asd through levels regardless.

  Anyway, one could say that they ehis portal less than prepared, as their mana pools were far away from being full. Ortana's pool was only halfway full as well, on the t that she’s been hunting for five days now, it wasn’t a great amount. They could all use the extra mana that this needle universe provided, as they were hunting bugs, after all, on top of looking for Timothy.

  The three of them progressed towards the red forest, they walked for about thirty meters now. Though this pce fused them as much as one would expect, they were still eternally grateful that they weren't being attacked by any random bugs right now, because they didn't know if they could fight them off! They instinctively guessed that every bug in this forest erfectly camoufged, so they were ooes as they walked.

  Eventually they made it to a giant, dead mantis. They almost stepped over its carcass, but its stench helped them figure out what was in front of them. After they discovered its head, they were both amazed, and terrified by how big this mantis actually was!

  “I don't want to cross paths whoever dismembered this puy, this is some psychotic work.” Ortana expressed, as she was sure that Timothy couldn't have killed the mantis. “Don't get me wrong, I dismembered plenty of things before, but our Timmy isn't strong enough to do damage like this, he's just a goofy kid.”

  “Hey, you actually got his name right for once! He won't believe it, haha!” Skendus joked, that was the only thing he focused on.

  One could say that most of their assumptiarding this pce, and Timothy were somewhat accurate, but a couple of their guesses were dead wrong. They weren't the greatest detectives, but this wasn't a big issue, as long as it wouldn't get them killed. They kept moving.

  After they crossed the Giant Mantis, they waress through this universe even further, but then they were stunned, as they noticed a few of creatures that were very muot camoufged, they were dark brown by color! These is were fident with their stride, and slithered towards the team at full speed.

  “Are those snakes?” Arvena asked, she was very fused about what she was seeing here.

  “Snakes aren't ft. Those are tipedes!” Skendus excimed, and after that point, he didn’t bother talking anymore, and attacked.

  Using both of his palms, he started shooting tens of Blunderous Bolts each sed, right towards his target! He has gotten the hang of this new ability over the st few days, and now, he started using it almost instinctively, especially since he hadn't practiced his other new powers that much.

  The bolts strue of the giaipedes, and thankfully, the bolts stopped it on its spot. Skendus didn't mao kill it, and that wasn't surprising, but at least he had slown one of them down for a moment. The two other tipedes were still on the move, however, and they were just a terrifying twenty meters away!

  Although they were all terrified, Ortana and Arvena hadn't been standing throughout this exge either, no. They shot against the tipedes as well, and tried to do as much damage as they could!

  Arvena shot twenty fireballs against them, in a span of two seds! Wheiced that the fireballs weren't hot enough to burn the rock-like heads of the tipedes, she decided to take another course of a. She summohat new ability of hers, and focused it on one, single tipede this time around, rather thah of them.

  Using a few ser shots, she first attacked its head, and then its fat legs. Unsurprisingly, that didn’t kill it either, but she noticed the tipede jitter after she sered one of its many legs, so she decided to work with that clear, but tiny advantage. Arvena bsted about forty Laser Shots from her palms, focused them on a single point oarget’s leg, and gained enough of an advao hear the tipede squirm!

  “Haha!” She celebrated, and saw that tipede back away, with a permaly damaged leg.

  Afterwards, she was about to do the same thing against the only iant ihat stubbornly charged forward, but suddenly, she didn't have to.

  Ortana had followed her example, apparently, and nailed one of these brown fiends against its legs so many times, that it eventually bled out whatever liquid its body held. It made sehat she mao spear it tens of times, including on its legs and sides, because a tipede moved in a slithering manner, it had been exposed to the tless spears that Ortana summoned!

  “You actually killed one of them?!” Skendus asked, he was shocked.

  At the same time he mao scare the third tipede away, because one of his new pave the illusion of a huhunder bolts. The tipede would be scared of the sound, if the ‘fake pain’ hadn't gotten to it already. This was called the Fool's Thunder ability, and it was very useful if one wao put their enemies into shock, both internally, aernally! It was useful enough today.

  Anyway, they went over to look at the carcass afterwards, and as they observed it, they were rag their brains trying to figure out just why an i would grow this big. This was both unnatural, and weird, because they couldn't even picture a dragon being this big, not to mention anything else! A one-hundred foot loipede was difficult to fathom.