Chapter 323: Shadow trials[6]

Above them, Xander, Lucian, Cassius, and Edmund descended rapidly along the rock faces.

The remaining contestants had either been eliminated by security purges or were holding positions in the upper tiers to lock in their smaller scores.

?Xander moved like a falling drop of ink, leaping from shadow to shadow with frightening speed.

Instead of targeting the sentinels guarding the descent paths, he was using his shadow blades to strike the environmental control switches on the canyon walls, locking down the path behind him to slow down Lucian and Cassius.

?"Tsk. Annoying," Cassius roared as a heavy iron blast door slammed down in front of his path.

Without slowing, Cassius slammed his fist into the center of the door.

BOOM!

?The reinforced metal buckled inward, tearing off its hinges. Cassius charged through the dust, but the delay had cost him vital seconds.

?Lucian, anticipating Xander’s sabotage, didn’t use the primary descent paths at all. He used a pair of grappling cables attached to his vambraces, dropping vertically through the void, completely ignoring the ledges.

?Samantha reached the floor of the Abyssal Basin first, landing in a low crouch on the smooth, polished obsidian floor.

?The chamber was massive—an ancient, vaulted hall supported by towering pillars of black stone. In the center lay a circular pool of viscous, liquid obsidian.

Floating three feet above the surface of the liquid was the Abyssal Prime Seal, enclosed inside a shimmering, triple-layered spherical barrier.

Surrounding the pool were four heavy, tripod-mounted automated combat sentinels—Abyssal Units equipped with heavy kinetic cannons, suppressive null-field generators, and omnidirectional threat sensors.

ABYSSAL PRIME EXTRACTION REQUIREMENTS

1. NEUTRALIZE / BYPASS ABYSSAL SENTINELS (0/4)

2. LOWER TRIPLE-LAYER BARRIER VIA CONTROL NODES (0/3)

3. MAINTAIN MANUAL OVERRIDE ON PRIME PEDESTAL FOR 15 SECONDS

Three control nodes," Warren said, landing silently beside her. "And four heavy units. Doing this alone is impossible before the time limit expires."

?"Then we don’t do it alone," Samantha said, her eyes sweeping the room.

?Before they could plan further, Xander dropped from the ceiling rafters, landing lightly on top of one of the control node pedestals twenty meters to their left.

?"Thanks for clearing the way, speedbirds!" Xander grinned, slamming his hand onto Node One.

?[NODE 1 OVERRIDE INITIATED: XANDER GRAY]

?The moment Xander activated the node, the four Abyssal Sentinels instantly whirred to life. Their central lenses flared with blinding golden light, and all eight heavy kinetic cannons swung toward Xander’s pedestal.

"Whoa—okay, that’s heavy suppression!" Xander yelped, leaping backward just as a barrage of high-density kinetic slugs pulverized the stone pedestal he had been standing on a microsecond prior.

?The primary barrier around the Abyssal Prime Seal flickered, its outer layer dissolving.

?[BARRIER INTEGRITY: 66%]

?"He lowered the first layer, but he triggered the defense mesh!" Warren noted.

He immediately thrust both hands forward.

A massive, swirling vortex of pressurized wind erupted around the two eastern sentinels, throwing off their aiming sensors and forcing their kinetic cannons to discharge wildly into the ceiling.

?"Samantha, take Node Two!" Warren shouted, his face tightening as he managed the immense pressure of holding two abyssal units at bay simultaneously.

"I’ll hold the suppression field!"

?Samantha dashed toward the second node pedestal on the right side of the chamber.

?As she ran, Lucian materialized out of the shadows along the perimeter, his daggers drawn.

Instead of attacking Samantha, he was sprinting directly for Node Three.

Lucian!" Xander called out from the far side, dodging another volley of kinetic fire.

"Don’t touch Node Three yet! The secondary purge system activates if all three nodes are triggered simultaneously!"

?Lucian didn’t slow down. "It’s a calculated risk. The trial ends in four minutes. We don’t have time."

?Lucian slammed his hand flat onto Node Three.

?[NODE 3 OVERRIDE INITIATED: LUCIAN ASH]

[BARRIER INTEGRITY: 33%]

?The chamber shook violently. The liquid obsidian in the central pool began to bubble violently, rising like dark mercury as a massive, central null-field dome expanded outward from the Prime pedestal.

[CRITICAL ALERT: EXTREME CONCURRENT OVERRIDE DETECTED]

[ABYSSAL PURGE PROTOCOL ENGAGED]

[NULL-FIELD DOME EXPANDING - TALENT AND UMBRALIS SUPPRESSION: ACTIVE]

The moment the dark dome touched Warren, his wind vortex collapsed instantly.

He stumbled back, gasping as his elemental Talent was forcibly severed by the suppressive field.

Suddenly he felt powerless and weak, more so than he’d ever felt.

"What the..."

?On the other side of the room, Xander’s shadow blades dissolved into harmless smoke.

"Crap!"

A series of curses and shouts rang out through the darkness.

Lucian’s grappling lines locked up as their internal electrical systems shorted out.

?The four Abyssal Sentinels, entirely unaffected by the null-field, turned their heavy cannons toward the center of the room.

?Without their abilities, the contestants were suddenly trapped in a high-stakes kill zone with four fully operational, heavily armored war machines.

?Samantha felt the dark wave of the null-field sweep over her.

Her internal Umbralis stuttered. The darkness in her vision flickered, threatening to collapse into normal, blind reality.

?Then, the Tenebris spear in her hand reacted.

?The lusterless, unfinished shaft pulsed with a deep thrum.

It didn’t fight the null-field. Instead, it absorbed it. The dark mineral metal drank in the suppressive energy, converting the external nullifying wave into a dense, cold resonance that flowed directly into Samantha’s hands.

?Her vision was restored instantly. The darkness deepened, her eyes gazing through it with clarity.

?Samantha stood tall in the center of the null-field, the only contestant in the entire cavern whose strength hadn’t been stripped away.

?Warren looked up from the stone floor, his eyes wide with rare shock as he saw Samantha moving with full, unhindered speed through the suppression zone.

?"Her weapon..." Warren whispered, his voice hoarse. "It’s operating outside the trial’s energy parameters..."

"I’ll be damned," Xander whispered.

?Samantha looked toward the central pool, where the final layer of the barrier was flickering.

?Node Two was still unclaimed.

?She shifted her stance, gripping the lustrous spear with both hands as the four heavy sentinels locked their weapons directly onto her.