Chapter 54: Mission Accomplished
"Caleb!!" Ava yelled as she arrived too late at the location of their disappearance.
She falls on her knees and goes eerily quiet while Ariana and the rest of the heroes run over, screaming out for Erica.
"What... what just happened ?!" Broddy in particular was hyperventilating. He was just preparing to make his move on Caleb, accidentally striking him with the full force of his power while battling the monsters, as instructed by Jacob. Only for both his target and his girlfriend to be swept up and disappear before their eyes.
"No. Erica!" He yelled in a broken voice before literally going berserk and punching at the walls at the site of both their disappearance.
"Calm down, everyone.." The knight commander, immensely surprised by this turn of events, walked up to try to calm the audience, but a strangely calm yet dangerously commanding voice cut through her words.
"Shut up."
Ava, still kneeling and being held by Ariana, suddenly spoke. But the intensity in her words and the bloodlust in her eyes as she looked up silenced the whole crowd of heroes at once, and even her friend Ariana had to back off immediately, genuinely scared by this change.
She felt this was no longer her friend speaking. And all the heroes immediately felt the change. The knight commander whom the bloodlust was directed at felt chills run down her spine.
’What the hell is she ?’
She had only felt this reduced on a fundamental level from a lower-level being when she had first seen that item box hero. But his own suppression was almost calming and strangely familiar, not weaponized. Whereas, Ava made her feel like she was in actual danger.
’What ?’
’So it’s not just Andrew and that weird box hero who’s dangerous.... This one might even be worse."
By all rights. Azaria should be able to slap all three of them to oblivion now that they are so weak.
But she couldn’t with the other heroes present as witnesses, and she can’t kill all the heroes either. They needed to remain alive for now. Only the dangerous ones can be killed.
More importantly, she couldn’t act on her own without orders.
’So many damn rules.’ Azaraia cursed in her mind.
"Where is Caleb ?" Ava’s next words hit her with that same consuming bloodlust.
Obviously, Ava was blaming her for what had just happened, since she was to blame. She made no mention of any traps. In fact, there shouldn’t be any traps as far as Azaria was aware.
It was also her job to keep them all safe, and she had failed, and she knew that, and the now obvious accusatory glances from the other heroes now adjusting to Ava’s bloodlust say the same.
"Relax, Heroes. This seems to be a sort of teleportation trap; though, I have never seen anything like it before. ..."
Azaria uttered, gathering her composure as she moved closer to inspect the now-dissipated marking, but the weird part was that she couldn’t feel any trace of mana in the scene, nor any demonic energy.
A situation which should be impossible, but those two had just disappeared, certainly a skill must have been used.
Unless....
Azaria shook her head of her spiraling thoughts. Refocusing, she continued....
"They must have been teleported by the dungeon somehow to one of the lower floors, they might just be below us even.."
Azaria felt the wind move past her.
Her. A paragon realm being, almost missed when it happened, but she still saw. Ava, with speeds almost triple her previous momentum, was charging ahead deeper into the dungeon as ice wolves screamed in dying wails.
The other Heroes, now only realizing what had happened, didn’t bother to rationalize how Ava had suddenly become so fast, and all immediately joined in the massacre that ensued.
The knight commander, who’s supposed to clear the way now that things have gone out of hand, didn’t even get a chance to act.
Ava was like a goddess of death as she darted through the space with her twin daggers. Laying waste to any monster that so much as breathed in her path.
She wasn’t gathering experience; she was just spiraling downwards into the dungeon.
Right behind her, taking out the stranglers were the other heroes, all battling passionately as if infected by the hurricane leading them.
Though while the others slaughtered the monsters with the intention of rescuing their friends, Jacob’s expression was twisted as he tried to keep up with Ava, looking ahead at her with a complicated expression on his face.
Before long, they reached the second floor. And after dispatching all the ice wolves present, they came upon the boss of that floor. A higher-level gobin.
The goblin died without even knowing what had passed him. He only felt the wind.
Ava zapped around the floor, but there was no sign of Caleb and Erica. She continued on, going down to the lower floors. The others joined her.
Somewhere else. One hundredth floor of the deep underground in the catacombs of permafrost, where the temperature was especially chilling.
A large minotaur was repeatedly ramming his large hammer on a shimmering golden barrier.
The minautur had been on its usual patrol, and had already forgotten the unpleasant human that had come to disturb its peace just two days ago...
When that same human suddenly appeared once again inside his territory, this time bringing along with him another human, who looked to be passed out on the floor.
Erica, whose being was too fragile to handle a spatial movement that was based in pure runic language, had immediately passed out the moment the vortex swallowed her.
Now she lay on the cold ground of the enclosed space, while Zorat knelt before her with an evil grin. Completely ignoring the rambunctious minautur.
Zorat quickly changed his expression to one of worry when he noticed Erica blinking her eyes open.
"Caleb ?...what happened... I remember..." she mumbled as she tried to sit up, already feeling the intense cold sipping into her, while Zorat helped her up kindly.
"I remember there was that ... strange markings..." Erica paused as she heard repeated banging from somewhere.
Turning to look just behind Zorat, she at first brushed her eyes with the back of her right hand to confirm she was, in fact, seeing what she thought she was.
Confirming the giant raging Minautur monster, who was literally breathing flames and looking in their direction with burning killing intent, while repeatedly smashing the barrier with a giant axe, was actually real.
Erica let out a soul-deep scream before completely passing out again.
mission accomplished....
well.... almost. hehehe