Chapter 72: Help

Thomas sprinted through the dissolving, blackened remains of the rotting wood, his boots slamming hard against the semi-dry ground as he cleared the collapsing inner tunnel.

The foul smell of the melted tar hung heavy in his nostrils, but his focus never wavered from the path ahead. The moment they burst into the wider cavern throat, Thomas turned his head sharply toward the High-blood prodigy, his voice carrying an absolute, sharp authority.

"Julian! Now! Collapse the space surrounding the cavern!" Thomas shouted.

Julian didn’t hesitate. But before he could trigger the pocket of red gravity, a deafening, metallic screech tore through the stone vault. Subject 4314 had violently torn right through the overlapping barriers of Julian’s initial trap, its multi-jointed insect legs fracturing the ground as it came dashing toward the entrance with terrifying, insane speed.

"Crumble!" Julian roared anyway, driving his hand downward.

The physical space directly between the cavern interior and the outside world violently buckled and collapsed inward. A massive, roaring vacuum of spatial pressure slammed shut right over the beast’s front guards, trapping its colossal lizard torso in a localized compression lock.

"Let’s move! We have to rescue the others!" Julian rasped out, his silver-rimmed glasses catching the fading purple light as he quickly turned his back on the monster. "The beast won’t be stuck for long! All though it is merely a Grade A beast, it is way ancient, and its mana density is far deeper than ours. It hasn’t been taking us serious this entire time, Thomas!"

Thomas nodded tightly, filing the terrifying reality to the back f his mind.

The moment the beast was sealed off from its external root network, the illusions outside violently broke. As they ran out of the cavern mouth, the thick, suffocating grey fog receded for a short minute, pulling back like a dying wave. The sudden clarity revealed the true reality of the uncharted territory. It was a completely barren, dry, and dead land as far as their eyes could see, stripped entirely of its life force by centuries of the monster’s siphoning.

But the window was incredibly small. By the time Thomas and Julian made it back to where Thomas had left the others, the heavy grey fog was already starting to aggressively fill the area again, the dark whispers faintly clicking in the air currents.

They dropped down onto the semi-dry ground. Both girls had passed out from the ordeal, their faces pale and they were covered in swamp muck. Only Ryan was barely awake, propping himself up on one elbow.

"Guys... what the hell is happening?" Ryan asked, his voice shaking.

"Can’t talk. Will explain later," Thomas said. "Can you run?"

Ryan took a ragged breath and forced himself to his feet. "Yeah."

"Good. Let’s go," Julian said cleanly.

Julian smoothly picked up Lina in his arms, using a tiny drift of his remaining mana to stabilize her weight. Thomas bent down and carefully picked up Mina, securing her against his chest before turning his heels toward the boundary of the marsh.

Together, the three freshmen made a desperate, high-speed dash for it across the dead muddy earth, racing against the rapidly thickening white wall before it could swallow their sightlines completely.

BOOM—!!!

They hadn’t even covered half the distance when Subject 4314’s massive mana signature violently flared from the mountainside behind them. The immense spiritual explosion sent violent, terrifying tremors throbbing through the semi-dry ground, causing the rocks to crack and ripple under their boots as the ancient monster broke completely free from its spatial cage.

"Don’t look back! Just run!" Thomas yelled, his boots pounding the dirt as they pushed their bodies to the absolute limit.

They sprinted blindly through the gathering grey mist for three intense, agonizing minutes until they finally crossed the visible border, leaving the barren uncharted land behind and slamming back into the wet, dark foliage of the known marshland.But their escape didn’t lead to safety.

They had run for only a few minutes into the trees when a group of powerful figures suddenly stepped straight out of the fog, blocking their path entirely. Thomas skidded on his heels, his dark eyes wide open as he recognized the people. Standing at the front of the line were Instructor Cross, Instructor Sterling, and two other senior academy Instructors. And right behind them, their golden cloak fluttering eerily in the damp wind, stood one of the creepy, hooded deacons from the Holy Church.

"Halt!" Instructor Sterling barked loudly, his precise voice carrying an immense, cold weight as his eyes scanned their muddied uniforms and the unconscious girls. "We were actively tracing your last known location through the runetech network."

Instructor Cross stepped forward, his scarred face twisting into a furious, unyielding scowl as his gaze locked onto Thomas. "Why the hell did your group chose too ignore a warning and enter an uncharted land?!"

Thomas didn’t flinch under the administrative pressure. He kept his face perfectly hard and smooth as glass, his voice carrying an unrefined, level grit as he gave his calculated answer.

"We were rushing off to save Julian, Instructor," Thomas said flatly. "He was violently taken right out of the muck by the ancient mana beast that is overseeing the uncharted lands. We had no choice but to pursue."

Julian stood rigidly beside him, remaining entirely silent as the instructors and the creepy deacon turned their suffocating gazes toward the dark horizon.

"Such dense mana," Instructor Sterling spoke slowly, his voice laced with a little bit of fear as the heavy tremors beneath their boots grew more violent.

"Let us return to the campsite quickly."

"We won’t make it."

It was the same creepy, hollow voice of the deacon that had been constantly gazing at Thomas ever since they were on the Dragonling making their way to the marshlands.

Everyone turned on their heels to face the deacon. The rest of his face was completely obscured by the heavy golden hood of his cloak, leaving only his creepy, ever present smile to be seen under the dim light of the swamp canopy. The sight of that cold grin in the middle of the dark forest sent a sharp chill straight down the spines of the students.

"What do you mean by that?!" one of the other two instructors asked.

The deacon didn’t answer with words. Slowly, he raised a single pale arm from beneath his golden garments and pointed his finger back toward the dark horizon of the uncharted land.

Thomas followed his gaze through the trees. Breaking straight through the grey fog and rapidly approaching the boundary at an insane velocity were thousands of thick, bleeding black roots, tearing the dead earth apart as Subject 4314 aggressively expanded its domain to hunt them down.