Chapter 497: Fire
The distant crackle and boom of the Universal Tree’s forces as they finally began to sweep through the planet was all the encouragement Felix needed to move. Miria had said the other side of the portal was on fire, but Felix still had a lot more confidence in surviving being in the middle of an inferno compared to surviving a fight with enemies that might literally have over one hundred grades of stats.
As he dove through the portal, he was met with the roar and crackle of heat. Felix quickly realized that this wasn’t just fire - there was the distinct scent of something in the air. Something metallic and filled with essence. It smelled almost like blood, but the fact that Felix could feel the essence radiating through the air meant that his other senses might be completely wrong. Regardless of what was happening, it was obviously magical.
It was equally obvious that the area wasn’t as hot as it should be for a dense jungle caught in the midst of a wildfire. The area was still hot - but it was closer to an incredibly hot sauna than an outright all-encompassing flame. However, it was heating up by the moment. Felix got the feeling that even if the heat was manageable right now, it wouldn’t be in another few minutes. He glanced at Miria.
<How is your essence for maintaining the gate?> He asked, as a few more people dashed through the portal and started to gag and shudder under the wave of heat and acrid stench of the flames.
<I feel terrible, but I can keep it open for long enough,> said Miria. <At the very least, I think a few clans can get through. I have no idea how to fix the fire, though, and I can barely concentrate. Can you three figure it out?>
Felix frowned. He could really feel the strain in Miria’s mind through the communication bracelet. It felt like she was trying to speak while running a marathon - every single one of her words dripped with exhaustion and fatigue.
<Got it. You focus on keeping the portal up - we’ll look for a way to put out the fire or deal with it!> said Sallia.
<Thank you,> said Miria, before her attention returned to keeping the portal intact. Felix felt a moment of awe as he realized that Miria was keeping her focus almost entirely on the portal despite the ridiculous heat - he certainly would have had a harder time keeping his focus on delicate, complex magic when caught in the middle of an inferno. Then again, he was still fully flesh and blood, whereas Miria was half concept-of-hope. Perhaps that had something to do with her incredible focus. He shook his head. Now wasn’t the time to ask questions. It was the time for action.
<I’ll take a look first, and see if I can figure out where we can run that might be fire free,> said Sallia. She began to use barriers as a way to create ‘footholds’ in midair, and then she began leaping higher and higher into the air. After several seconds of ascending higher, Sallia stopped, looked around, and then dropped back towards the earth.
“We’re surrounded by volcanoes,” said Sallia, not bothering to use the communication bracelets. “We’re basically right in the center of a ring of them. One of them is erupting as we speak. The heat is cooking the plants and the area pretty fast, but if we’re still around in a few minutes, even our magic won’t be able to keep us alive. I have zero confidence in surviving a swim in lava. Luckily, so far the worst of the heat hasn’t reached us yet.
Felix felt the urge to throw something at the portal. Of all the places they could have landed, they had teleported right into the middle of a volcano eruption? Talk about terrible luck.
Then, Felix noticed a few anomalies.
First of all, gasses. Volcanoes and fires both usually emitted a variety of poisonous gas into their surroundings - in theory, they should have been half-dead already just from breathing the air around them. Sure, Miria probably would have healed them - but Felix hadn’t noticed Miria doing anything of the sort.
<Miria, are you healing us right now?>
<No. Why?>
<Just testing. Thank you.> Felix nodded. So neither the lava nor the fire were emitting toxic gasses, even though those were some of the most lethal aspects of an uncontrolled blaze.
Second, the heat was really much lower than it should have been. Even though the fire hadn’t quite reached them yet, they were still close enough to the flames that they should have felt far worse than ‘uncomfortably hot.’ This made no sense.
Third, the plants were somehow still doing just fine. Several of the plants had been on fire since the moment they got here - but Felix didn’t notice the fire spreading or consuming the leaves like fuel. It almost looked like the leaves were just fine, despite being on fire. This was the most unusual thing of all - after all, most thin plant leaves disappeared in seconds after being lit on fire, but these things had been burning for a few minutes straight without any change in size, weight, or appearance.
“Do these plants seem strange to you?” asked Felix.
“Now that you mention it, they do,” said Anise. “I also notice the lack of toxic gasses in the air. It still doesn’t smell great, but I’m not coughing, and I don’t see any smoke.”
“What are you thinking?” asked Sallia.
“Maybe these plants contain some kind of special substance or magic that makes them immune to the fire? If so, we could extract it and use it for ourselves,” said Felix. He started to feel a glimmer of excitement at the thought. If his speculation was correct, it was definitely a situation where his abilities would prove invaluable for the group. He had also never tried extracting chemical or magical substances from plants before. The prospect of giving it a shot was actually quite exciting, now that he thought about it.
Felix rushed over to one of the burning plants, and tried to grab it. Then, he winced as it burned his hand. Whatever these plants were doing to survive this ridiculous heat, it was clear that they weren’t much cooler than the average object that had caught fire. He focused, and tried to figure out whether there were any magical properties to the plant leaves.
He quickly realized that these leaves were a bit more unusual than they appeared to be. Rather than cooling themselves using magic or chemistry, the way he had expected, the leaves were more like little embodiments of fire. They weren’t being harmed by the fire - far from it. These leaves were basically magical sources of flames themselves. It was likely that these plants would die if they stopped being on fire - somehow, they were directly using the flames as nourishment, the way a regular plant would use water and soil to nourish itself. Felix had never seen such an unusual plant.
That was interesting, but it was definitely a dead end for keeping everyone alive when the lava reached them. Felix was definitely noticing a temperature spike as the minutes ticked by, even though the flames in their surroundings weren’t actually chewing through the foliage. It was probably from the lava getting closer to them.
“My idea is a bust. These plants are some kind of fire elementals, or something of the sort. Nothing that can be applied to humans,” said Felix. “Is there any way to get out of the area before the lava hits us?”
“It’s still quite far away, but I doubt we can move the portal again. I also doubt we can actually outrun the lava. It looks almost like we’re in the middle of a giant bowl, and the lava is flowing directly towards us.” Sallia frowned. “Anise, any chances you can use some kind of shelter spell to redirect, halt, or cool down the lava?”
“I probably can. That should slow it down, but I doubt I have the essence to compete with an erupting volcano. It’ll chew through my essence too fast.”
“Then we need to find a way to escape. Blocking it is useless, and I can’t think of a way to survive the lava itself. Even if the fire is proving less of a threat than expected, the lava will still melt us if we don’t move,” said Felix.
“Let me check again,” said Sallia. She leapt back into the sky, and this time, when she came down, she had a peculiar expression on her face. “I found something, but I have no idea what it is.”
“Oh?” said Felix.
“It looks like a giant hole in the ground. I saw a few specks of dirt floating on top of it, though. It looks almost like a giant shielding spell?”
Felix only thought about it for a moment, before he nodded. Normally, he would have liked to probe the situation more, gather more information, and figure out whether the shield was controlled by a hostile monster or spellcaster first. However, they only had a few minutes before the lava reached them, and then the already-hot environment would turn truly deadly. They needed to figure out a place to run to now, and a magic shield sounded like a promising start.
“Let’s check it out,” he said. The three of them dashed towards the cavity Sallia had seen. It didn’t take them long to arrive.
There, underneath the soil, they saw something truly unexpected. A few hundred meters below the earth, there was a giant cavern that seemed to stretch in all directions without end. Some kind of force field kept anything from entering the cavern, enforcing an artificial ‘ceiling’ that couldn’t be seen with the naked eye.
Farther below their feet, there was a massive ocean that seemed to stretch in all directions without end. There were several islands in that sea, many of which were covered in flowers or fog of varying colors. The closest island had an entire city parked on it, although it was like no city he had ever seen before. The entire city looked like it had been made by plant people. Houses existed, but they were made out of walls of flowers, ferns, and roots. The entire city looked like a disorganized mess, at least from their current perspective - though Felix could see certain grid-like patterns of certain colors of flowers within the city. He had no idea what any of the colors or chaos meant, but it all spoke of intentionality and purpose when crafting the city. Dozens of embers lit up the city, as if embers weren’t rare or difficult to manage in this plane at all. There must have been at least a thousand Embers situated in the area, and none of them were fighting or trying to consume each other - they simply sat there and obediently lit up the city.
Felix tried poking the invisible barrier, and realized that his hand could pass right through it. He frowned, and tried throwing a rock at the barrier - only for the rock to bounce off of the invisible ceiling that sat beneath their feet. Felix blinked in surprise.
The barrier seemed to reject all inorganic things, but it seemed to allow them to pass through it just fine?
He didn’t entirely understand the purpose behind the barrier, but for now, he was certain that they had at least found a place to take shelter before the disaster swept over them. He just hoped that the inhabitants of the city were friendly.