Jareth's eyes snapped open.
Looking at the little gap of the sealed hole, he noticed it was still a bit dark.
'I will wait for my neighbors to greet me first.'
He began flexing his fingers, limbs, and body, punching the air and whipping his legs, as he reviewed his plan, hoping his plan would succeed without a hitch.
Minutes flew by when he heard the morning roars.
He halted his action and stared at the sealed hole. 'It's time.'
He walked up to the snake's corpse and pulled it to the center of the room. Then he climbed the snake, halting below the cut section as black mist covered his lower right hand, followed by crimson flame mixing into it.
He swiped his claws against the remaining connected bone and the heavy head rolled with a dull thud.
Jareth hopped down and placed his palm on the snake's body to place it in his arcanist badge but was rejected. He looked at the standing corpse, his eyes filled with regret.
'This would have sold for a very high price.'
Jareth walked to the snake head and squatted.
"Fortunately, the blood looks frozen," he mumbled and stabbed his burning clawed hand into the inverted head.
The frozen blood released sizzling noises and slowly gave way as his hand sank deeper until he could feel the inside of its head.
His hands moved about but Jareth felt nothing; only a hollow space.
Narrowing his eyes, he mulled, 'Did the person or beast that killed it suck its skull and cores? And here I was happy to be able to fortunately access the skull through its neck section to get the core and push to Level 4 in one go'
He searched some more before giving up.
"Fortunately, it's not the main reason I cut it," he muttered, dispersing his flame and placing a palm on the head.
The head vanished into his badge.
He retrieved a black ragged cloth meant for wiping his sword, but which was still new as he hadn't used it, and neatly wrapped it on his face.
Jareth nodded and looked around.
"I'm going to miss this… never!"
Jareth chuckled and walked towards the hole.
When he got to it, he activated [Quagmire] and wrapped his body in a cocoon of violet fog under his control.
With his both hands covered in quintessence claws, he creeped out and carefully climbed down using the wall pittings, dents, and crevices.
Upon reaching the ground, he surveyed his surroundings again.
Standing not too far from the wandering beasts, Jareth regulated his breathing. After a few seconds, he exhaled in relief when they ignored him.
Just as he took ten steps, a beast walked towards him. It tilted its head from left to right with curiosity in its eyes as it approached the moving violet fog.
Jareth paused and cursed inwardly, 'There must always be one idiot that doesn't mind their business! They always die in the trailer of a horror movie, not even making it to the opening scene! Tell me, why would you approach a moving fog?!'
After ranting in his mind, he retrieved the huge head of the snake and held it in front of him.
The black beast with a short snout and a pair of upper protruding fangs walked into the fog, which subtly expanded to engulf it when its head entered the fog while Jareth moved back.
It looked around in the fog with confusion in its eyes.
Jareth said one last prayer and brought the huge snake's head in front of the beast, positioning them face-to-face.
Then he instantly dispersed the violet fog around the beast's head and snake's head, clearing its sight to the snake's head. Its eyes widened at the sudden sight, freezing in place.
The beast, which had just wandered into the fog, was wandering in the violet fog when it suddenly regained its sight again, but was face-to-face with the most horrific thing it has ever seen.
A colossal snake was glaring at it with an intense stare that made its muscles freeze. But after a few seconds without being devoured, it turned and dashed away from the scary moving fog hiding such a monstrosity, trying to lure 'innocent' beasts.
Jareth was stunned at the speed at which the beast scurried away. It didn't stop after escaping the fog, but kept running while squealing.
He dispersed the external wide area the violet fog had covered to conserve his mana.
Holding the snake's head above his head for any other powerful beast that could see through the fog, Jareth didn't dawdle and quickly made way towards his mapped route.
'Hell yeah! Now I look like an exorcist with a crucifix to chase demons.'
He made his way through the beast-infested estate, scaring any curious beast with the snake head. But he tried his best to avoid every beast.
He firmly suppressed the temptation of luring in beasts to hunt, reminding himself that he is still in the middle of a beast horde and his mana is not much.
Jareth soon reached close to the boundary, which separated the inner estate from the outer estate.
The outer estate has beasts scattered around, unlike the inner estate with beasts on every turn, which is why people hunt in the outer perimeters.
'I just had to be smart.'
He stood proudly at the boundary and exhaled.
"Who thinks only fighting out is the way? You're just dumb," he whispered. "You just need a head of a—"
His whisper trailed off when a humongous shadow covered him and stretched forward.
Jareth pivoted around and his pupils dilated at the horrifying figure of a standing colossal blue snake glaring at him above with its huge slit eyes. Its forked tongue flickered in its mouth. It was standing about six times his height with a thick scaled body.
Karma came knocking too quickly.
'I can't escape it! I can't beat it!'
With shaky hands, Jareth stretched his snake's head out of the violet fog, now really looking like a fake exorcist trying to scare a demon with a crucifix.
But the snake shrieked at him in a way that flapped his hair and made him squint, almost blowing his violet fog away if not for his control.
When he stopped and continued glaring at him.
'Wait! It's looking at the snake's head. This one in my hand looks smaller than this other… Don't tell me… fuck me!'