Survival Guide After Accidentally Kissing a Demon - Chapter 342

Chapter 342

For the first time, Beili felt the power of fate.

With the original story’s hero and heroine joining them, she finally saw the black volcano gradually looming larger as the Flying Carpet sped forward.

Even the warped and chaotic flow of time returned to normal.

When they checked their pocket watches again, they found that the hands were moving at their usual speed.

Cyril and Susanna had not experienced the earlier anomalies, so they could not understand what the others meant by time becoming distorted.

Clarence pinned a pocket watch beneath his paw as he explained it to them.

As they spoke, the Flying Carpet accelerated. After flying for quite some time, they arrived above the volcano.

Waves of blistering heat struck them, carrying noxious, acrid fumes.

Beili gazed at the crater, which continuously spewed scorching poisonous gas, and her thoughts involuntarily returned to the original plot she had witnessed in Susanna’s dream memories.

There was a hidden cavern inside the volcano. When the hero and heroine fell into the volcano, they had tumbled into that cavern and accidentally entered the hidden realm where their fortuitous encounter awaited them.

Guiding the Flying Carpet according to her memories of the dream, Beili arrived at the entrance to the hidden cavern.

However, all she saw was a cold, pitch-black rock wall, with no trace of an entrance.

“So we’re supposed to enter through this cave?” Cyril asked first while Beili was still puzzled.

“You can see the hidden cavern here?” Beili asked in surprise.

Cyril nodded. “You can’t?”

“We can,” everyone else answered in unison.

“Then you should go in.”

Beili moved the Flying Carpet closer to the rock wall. “We need several nails and the Fire Seed. Susanna knows what both of them look like.”

“What about you?” Cassius looked at her, concern written across his face.

“I’ll wait here for you.”

Beili answered calmly.

Everyone could see the entrance except her.

Clearly, she was the one this fortuitous encounter did not welcome.

“If you don’t return to this spot…”

Beili trailed off, suddenly realizing the problem.

“Take these first.”

She extended a hand and condensed two black Butterfly Brooches out of Mana, giving one to Cassius and the other to Susanna.

They accepted the Butterfly Brooches.

Clutching his brooch, Cassius glanced at the churning orange-red lava beneath the Flying Carpet and the black poisonous fumes rising from it. His brow furrowed deeply.

“You should wait outside the volcano, Miss Bartholomew. It’s too dangerous here,” he said worriedly.

Was Cassius afraid she might slip into a trance and accidentally fall into the lava?

That was admittedly quite possible.

Beili nodded.

After briefly bidding her farewell, the four of them stepped off the Flying Carpet and disappeared one after another into the pitch-black rock wall.

Susanna was the last to leave.

She looked at Beili as though she wanted to say something, hesitation in her eyes.

“What is it?” Beili asked.

After hesitating for several seconds, Susanna pulled a scrawny rabbit from the pocket of her pink, puffy dress.

“Sister Bartholomew, it might be safer with you.”

“That’s not necessarily true.”

Looking down at the little creature, which was only the size of a fist when curled up, Beili answered honestly.

“I’m worried the hidden cavern won’t let it in…” Susanna whispered. “Its injuries are almost healed. Once we return to Tilisha, we can release it.”

Fine. Considering she was the only one forced to wait outside the cavern, the rabbit really would be safer with her.

Beili had no choice but to take it.
Susanna turned and leaped into the pitch-black stone wall.

Beili was about to leave, but after standing on the Flying Carpet and staring at the wall for several seconds, she slowly reached out.

Before she could even touch it, the heat radiating from its surface made her sleeve curl and nearly burst into flames.

Beili gave up.

She withdrew her hand and directed the Flying Carpet away from the black volcano.

The ground below was too hot, while the smoke and toxic fumes above were too thick.

All she could do was hover in midair, sitting quietly on the Flying Carpet with her knees drawn up as she waited.

The rabbit lay quietly across her lap.

Beili stroked its head, and before long, it closed its eyes and drifted comfortably off to sleep.

A short while later, something seemed to disturb the volcano beside her, and a deep rumbling rose from within.

The entire volcano began to shake.

Cracks split the surrounding ground of black and red rock as the tremors intensified.

Beili’s heart sank.

She tossed the rabbit into the wooden Amber Ring and willed the Flying Carpet above the volcano. Sure enough, the churning magma inside was rising fast.

Before Beili could even determine which section of the stone wall they had entered, the magma surged over the rim amid the thunderous shaking.

She forced herself to remain calm and quickly tried to pinpoint the location.

She had the Morpho Butterflies summon a vast amount of ice and snow in an attempt to calm the erupting volcano, but it was no use.

Magma churned as layers of rock broke away. Beili couldn’t find the entrance in the wall. It looked no different from anything around it.

Her mind was completely blank.

If only the land could be folded like a map, bringing the Far North and Far South together. Then the blizzards of the Far North could cool the erupting volcano.

In that instant, it was the only thought left in her mind.

Then the tornado-like black clouds overhead suddenly began to spin.

She heard the wind howl.

Fist-sized hailstones actually began plummeting from the black clouds. They smashed into the roiling magma, sending droplets spraying everywhere.

But in the very next instant, each hailstone transformed into a gray feather.

The searing orange-red magma solidified.

More and more hailstones fell from the swirling black clouds, striking her head, her shoulders, and the space beside her feet before scattering into weightless gray feathers.

Beili stared in astonishment, her red eyes widening. She could hardly believe what she was seeing.

Then, just as she looked up, the final hailstone struck her squarely in the chest.

Everything she had ever experienced flashed before her eyes.

There was a dull thud.

Her vision went black.

…

Someone seemed to be crying.

Beili was sure of it.

At first, the voice sounded distant. Then it drew closer.

Beili’s consciousness struggled through the sobbing and the haze until she finally woke.

She felt herself being lifted by a pair of icy arms. That body pressed tightly against hers, cold arms wrapped around her.

Then they plunged into a curtain of freezing rain.

Something struck the ground all around them with heavy, muffled thuds, like…

Hail?

The word surfaced in Beili’s mind, but her eyelids were too heavy to open. She heard a boy sobbing.

“I already said… I wanted to stay here with her…”

“Why does she still want to leave me…?”

His voice seemed to drift down from overhead, carrying a hollow echo.

“She doesn’t love me… I’ve always known…”

“All she wants is to get rid of me…”

His voice teetered on the verge of collapse, then turned dark and vicious with his final words.

“Shut up!”

The man’s deep, heavy voice was filled with violent rage and threaded with a hint of hoarseness.