Neo felt satisfied as the bird cried.
He tied it above the mimicked flames before he walked toward the tree in the center of the farm.
The mimicked flames weren't strong enough to kill Timothy, but they would terrify the bird for centuries to come.
The other two ostriches didn't interrupt him.
If their eldest and fastest sibling couldn't stop Neo, then they could not do it either.
They merely watched, their large eyes filled with silent resignation.
Neo plucked an apple from the tree before returning to the starting point.
"You did it," Kane said with mixed emotions, his gaze shifting between Neo and the restrained bird.
"You don't look happy."
"The goal of the training was to teach you teamwork, but you brute-forced it," Kane replied. "Still, good work. If you can handle the birds alone, you should be a lot safer inside the Abyss of Nightmares."
While Neo talked with Kane, he noticed Percival staring at him.
"What is it? Want me to help you complete the training?"
"I can do it myself."
Percival slung the hammer over his shoulder and returned to the training.
Neo chuckled at his attitude.
He wasn't worried about Percival.
At the rate he was growing, he should be able to complete the training within the next few days.
"You can go back now," Kane said. "We have two more days before we meet up with the Grand Expedition. Use this time to learn the Concealment Spell I gave you.
Kane passed a piece of paper to him.
"Language Spell. We get a lot of immigrants in Tartarus, and everyone has different languages. This Spell changes your words into the 'Tartarus Unified Language'."
"What about the interpretation?"
Everyone would speak in the same language thanks to the Spell.
However, they needed to learn the language to understand its meaning.
"The Spell has an in-built interpreter that converts the language into pure thoughts, and allows you to understand them."
After talking with Kane, Neo entered the forest.
The trees loomed tall, their twisted branches forming a canopy that blocked most of the sunlight.
The air was thick with the scent of earth and distant, rustling leaves.
Suddenly, he heard a voice.
Neo instantly expanded the range of his senses to the limit.
Thanatos was a name anyone in Tartarus should not know.
He searched around but found no one.
The voice had been familiar yet different.
Neo couldn't place a finger on where he had heard it before.
Neo's thoughts stopped when he noticed the sun in the sky.
"Sunshine, did you call out my name right now?" he asked bluntly.
The Spirit should not remember Neo.
The timeline had been changed, and Sunshine never met Thanatos.
The golden sun remained silent, acting as if it was an inanimate object.
There was no response.
Neo could only shake his head and return to his task.
The dense foliage rustled as he zipped through the forest at high speed, the wind whipping against his face.
'I need to talk to Olivia and ask for her help to heal Elizabeth.'
Neo could sense Olivia and Nicola inside the house from hundreds of kilometers away.
He was confident Olivia would help him.
But he couldn't ask about it in front of Nicolas.
The old man seemed like a hardheaded guy, and Neo had insulted his authority by publicly shaming his disciple.
Even if Neo hadn't done that, Nicolas was one of the demigods who were Elizabeth's enemy.
He would not want her to be healed.
Neo needed to wait until Olivia was alone before approaching her.
Since he couldn't do that now, he focused on his other main task.
"This place should be good enough."
Neo stopped at an inconspicuous aura.
The clearing was quiet, with only the occasional rustling of leaves breaking the silence.
"Velkaria, come out."
His shadows expanded and spat a single maggot out.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Oh, you can talk now?"
"Yes, I learned your world's language."
"No, I meant to ask, how can you talk without a mouth?"
"This body has an organ for it. Can't you see my tiny, little, beautiful mouth?" she replied smugly.
"…Just talk with thought," Neo said, not outright saying a worm talking looked creepy.
He had expected Velkaria to say she could compress air with some Spell and talk with it. Not this.
Velkaria guessed his thoughts.
Though she saw no reason to obey his command.
Just then, a caterpillar rolled out of Neo's pocket.
"Is it just me, or did your pet just look at me and ask you if I'm its lunch?" Velkaria asked while sweating.
After Neo broke through multiple ranks, Beelzebub was strengthened as well.
He was now stronger than her.
Knowing the little glutton, she was worried she couldn't escape if he tried to eat her.
"He is saying he always wanted to try something from his same species. That's why he wants to eat you."
"We are not the same species! We just look alike!" Velkaria shouted, stunned and horrified. "And if we were from the same species, eating me would've been cannibalism!"
Velkaria choked when she heard Beelzebub's question.
"No, cannibalism isn't something to eat. It means…." She looked around, trying to decide the best words that would stop Beelzebub. "It means a person you should never eat. Yeah, that's what it means."
Beelzebub said something similar to 'is that so?' and jumped down from Neo's pocket.
The ground beneath him was covered in soft moss, cushioning his movements as he dragged himself over to Velkaria.
While both were worms, Velkaria was not even half the size of Beelzebub — Beelzebub was much more pleasant to the eye.
He could down her with a single gulp.
Watching her closely, Beelzebub started to salivate.
She swiftly transformed into a floating eyeball.
The flew around and hide behind Neo, trying to use him as a shield.
'I ran away because you looked like you were going to eat me!'