As Sydra falls through the portal, he adjusts his body and creates a sphere of lightning to use as light. Raising the light into the air, he can see that he and Jason are currently inside the Storm Monarch's mouth, and are falling towards a stone platform in the center of its stomach.
"Grab my hand!" Jason shouts as he creates a gust of wind to slow their descent. Grabbing hi shand, Sydra and Jason land in the middle of the platform and look around. Other than the stone platform, and the fleshy walls of Storm Monarch's mouth, there is also a stone archway at the end of the throat.
'Was this thing artificially created?' Sydra wonders as he studies several runes that are on the archway. For some reason, no light goes through it, and when Sydra tosses a lightning sphere inside, the darkness devours it immediately, not giving Sydra a chance to see what is on the other side.
"Should we go through it?" Jason asks, glancing around once more, "There doesn't seem to be anything else inside this place, but there must be a reason we were brought here,"
Turning around, Sydra walks over to the side of the Storm Monarch's mouth and attacks it with as much lightning as he can muster. However, the same lightning that destroyed part of the reinforced courtyard wall has no effect on the fleshy wall in front of him.
'It seems we won't be blowing our way out,' Sydra thinks as he looks more closely at the wall. It was covered in a layer of saliva that had the ability to negate attacks made from aura, and Sydra didn't have his mythical rank daggers on him at the moment.
"I guess we're stuck going through there," Sydra says, making his way over to the archway. Stopping next to the archway, Sydra glances at Jason, who is still in his green armor from the tournament earlier, "Are you ready? We need to be careful in case the other side is a trap,"
"I know," Jason replies, conjuring his two circular blades, "But just waiting here isn't going to get us anywhere,"
Nodding his head, Sydra makes sure that his bone armor is fully intact before turning back to the archway, "Alright, let's do this,"
Together, Sydra and Jason step through the archway, their bodies disappearing into the darkness on the other side. As they pass through, Sydra feels something wet and slimy drape over his body and his bone armor disappears.
"Crap, where did my wind suit go?" Jason asks from beside Sydra, feeling his armor disappear as well. Unable to see anything because of the darkness, both Sydra and Jason stumble about for a few seconds.
"Damn, it looks like the reason my lightning spheres were being dissipated was because of a negation wall," Sydra says, running his hand through his sticky hair, "Whoever set this place up used the saliva of the Storm Monarch to cancel out our auras,"
"Then how are we supposed to see?" Jason asks, running into Sydra's back," You wouldn't have happened to bring a lantern with you, would you?"
"No, but I might have something else that could work," Sydra says, raising his hand in front of his face. Although Sydra was covered in so much saliva that he couldn't send his aura into any of his items, there was one thing he could use, and that was the ring on his finger. Ever since he had put it on, the ring had remained stuck to his finger, not budging an inch no matter how hard he pulled.
'I hope this works,' Sydra thinks, directing some of his aura towards the ring. When the aura reached the ring, it flowed in smoothly, and the green hourglass began to glow. However, the light emitted by the ring was only enough to allow Sydra and Jason to see a few inches around them.
Lifting the ring farther into the air, Sydra walks over to one of the walls and places his hand against it, "It looks like this is the throat of the Storm Monarch, and if we walk down that way we should reach the stomach,"
Turning around, Sydra walked back to the gateway to see if they could get back out if needed, but he found it blocked off by another wall. Sighing, he makes his way back to Jason, who is still looking around the throat.
"I can't believe the throat is this large," Jason says, trying to spot the ceiling, "If it's this big, then what will the stomach look like?"
"Only one way to find out," Sydra says, heading down the throat with Jason following behind him. The two of them spend the next fifteen minutes walking before Sydra holds up his hand to stop Jason from moving. Grabbing Jason's arm, Sydra ducks to the side of the throat and cuts off the aura flowing into the ring, causing the surroundings to go pitch black once more.
"Don't say anything..." Sydra whispers, causing Jason to stop before he asked anything. A few moments pass by before Sydra feels the floor vibrating again. Placing his hand against the floor, Sydra feels it tremble for a few seconds before stopping once more.
This continues on for a few minutes, with the vibrations becoming stronger each passing second. Eventually, they get to the point where it's difficult for Sydra and Jason to keep standing, but before they can sit down a giant worm erupts from the floor in front of them. The worm is mostly grey in color, but it has two large eyes glowing with a yellow brilliance, as well as yellow spikes going down its back.
"What the hell?" Jason shouts, stumbling back as he stares into one of the giant worm's eyes. Hearing him scream, the worm turns its head to look at Jason, an evil grin appearing as it opens its maw full of razor-sharp teeth.
"Run!" Sydra shouts, racing past the worm as it lunges towards Jason. Dodging to the side, Jason rolls across the floor before hopping back onto his feet and quickly catching up to Sydra. Behind them, the worm screeches and finishes tunneling out of its hole before chasing after them.
"At least that worm's eyes are so bright we can see where we're going!" Jason shouts as he starts to pass Sydra. Frowning, Sydra picks up his pace and gets back in front of Jason before responding.
"I told you to be quiet!" Sydra says, glancing back at the worm nipping at Jason's backside, "If you hadn't said anything, we might not be in this mess,"
"I was startled!" Jason shoots back, "What do want me to say?"
Gritting his teeth, Sydra turns back around and focuses on running, his eyes darting back and forth for a way to escape. As he searches, Sydra sees the outline of another tunnel in the wall to his left, but with the speed that their traveling they are going to run straight past it.
"Jason! We need to stop running," Sydra shouts, "There is a tunnel to our left, but we won't make it if we keep going at this speed,"
Unsure if Jason heard him or not, Sydra slams both of his feet into the ground and starts sliding across the wet floor. Reaching out his hand, he grabs onto the wall and swings his body into the tunnel.
"I'm not going to make it!" Jason shouts from outside the tunnel. Whipping around, Sydra runs back to the edge of the tunnel and reaches out his hand, grabbing Jason as he slides past and swinging him into the tunnel.
With Jason safely in the tunnel, Sydra steps back from the edge and watches as the worm rushes past them, a malicious smile on its face as it goes by. Seeing this, Sydra feels a shiver run down his spine, 'Why do I feel like that worm wanted us to come this way?'
"Um, Sydra..." Jason calls out from behind him, "Why is the floor moving?"
With the worm having gone past them and taking its glowing eyes with it, Sydra directs his aura back into the ring and points it towards the wiggling floor, "Well that can't be good,"
Suddenly, the ground beneath their feet opens up again, and Sydra finds himself sliding down a slimy tunnel, filled with wiggling worms smaller than the one that chased them here. Luckily, these worms can't open their mouths wide enough to bite him, but they could still nip at him.
Pulling his unprotected hands away from the tunnel walls, Sydra straightens out his body so that he will slide easier. This allows him to increase his speed, all the way until the end of the tunnel, where he slides to a stop inside a dark room.
Standing up, Sydra holds up the ring to see what's inside the room, but before he can see anything, Jason slides out of the tunnel and knocks him over. Untangling himself from Jason, Sydra tries to stand back up, but he freezes when a bright yellow light shines down on him.
Slowly turning around, Sydra's eyes become wide as a giant yellow eye peers at him, 'So... that's why it was smiling,'