Chapter 60: Inside
"If we don’t do anything right now, there won’t be anything left of us in a few minutes!" The scarred man shouted from his position in the crowd, doing his best to be heard.
People at the very front and centre of the gathering clenched their jaws and tried to dig their heels into the dead earth. Shields were raised sideways to stop the crush. A few strength type Awakened even turned around and began pressing their palms against the membrane to stop the people behind them from being flattened into paste under the pressure.
But it was pointless. There were too many bodies in too little space.
Rohan felt it all around him now: the heat of other bodies, the smell of sweat, dirt and blood. Elane tightly squeezed in against his chest, and he had to unsummon his spear and shield her with his arms to stop her from being completely crushed to a point where she couldn’t breathe; otherwise, she’d have become the first victim to this crazy stampede.
His teeth grounded together. Rohan hated this feeling.
This helpless, compressed, ugly mess where strength and skill barely mattered because there was no room for either of them.
A few minutes passed and the crowd was now little more than a wall of flesh and equipment jammed up against the lair’s sealed entrance, with more bodies still being forced backward every second.
Two support Awakened at the very rear had unfortunately been crushed, killed by the weight of their own comrades. Many others were close to receiving that same death sentence.
"Move!" Someone bellowed in sheer terror, his words coming out more like a heave than a coherent shout. "I can’t breathe!"
The scarred man was still shouting from somewhere near the centre.
"Front line, attack! Why aren’t you attacking already, you bastards!"
His plan to take command and control over the situation amounted to very little.
"We can’t you fuck! There’s no room for that anymore. If it weren’t for your stubborn orders we would have attacked much sooner. Now look what situation we’re in!"
Rohan was fine, relatively speaking. Those around him had it much harder than he did, partly because instead of pushing up against soft skin or malleable clothing, they had to squeeze against Rohan’s hardened armour.
The moment he shifted his head to get a glance at the front line, he, along with every other Awakened, suddenly tumbled over into a chaotic heap.
’What?’
Rohan darted to his feet before anything else. Looking around, everyone appeared to be just as confused as each other.
’What just happened?’
He immediately suspected the horde of Spike Beasts. They were the reason everyone was in this mess after all. Had they finally gone and done it? Did they finally attack?
No, they hadn’t. It turned out they kept up the slow march forwards despite what just happened to the crowd of Awakened.
’Wait a minute, how was there even any room for us to fall over? Not just one or two of us either, but every single person.’
His gaze darted around, looking for Norm and the others.
That’s when he saw it.
Or rather, didn’t see it.
"Where did the membrane go!?"
His words caught the attention of many other Awakened, who all looked towards the entrance of the lair in unison.
"It’s gone!"
"What the fuck!?"
That tough, near impenetrable membrane that covered the entrance to the Elite’s lair since the very first time the gate was opened up to the public had vanished.
With no sound, crack, or any dramatic shatter like you’d expect. There wasn’t even a trace of any debris where it used to be.
’Is their goal to herd us inside the lair now? Or was it that from the very beginning? There’s just no way any of this is a coincidence. Whoever is behind it all has to be the reason the membrane just disappeared.’
Rohan’s own balance disappeared beneath him a second later, forcing him back to the ground. Elane slammed on top of him, and someone behind him screamed as their feet were crushed under the weight of a several hundred pound hunk of meat and equipment fell on top of him.
"God damnit!"
Curses slipped out of his lips as he watched the Awakened scramble over each other to reach the inside of the lair. They acted more like beasts than beasts themselves just to taste the freedom that lay ahead.
’These idiots! That’s exactly what they want us to do!’
Rohan wanted to force everyone back into a rational state, but that was impossible in this situation.
In their eyes, they’d just been saved by the mysterious disappearance of the membrane blocking the lair. Now all that stood between them and escaping this dreadful gate was the single Elite waiting to be slaughtered.
’There’s something far worse than an Elite waiting in there...’
Rohan wasn’t 100% certain of that, but his gut feeling said so, and he trusted his gut more than the actions of the other Awakened.
"Come on, Rohan, let’s go!"
Elane tried dragging him along with all the other Awakened rushing inside the lair but found it quite a task to endure while he was encased in his Firestone Skin.
Rohan hesitated, looking back at the lines upon lines of Spike Beasts that had just reached the entrance of the lair themselves.
If he just steamrolled straight into the horde, he could make it out of this place. His extremely sturdy Firestone Skin would protect against any potential retaliation from the beasts, and he could focus solely on making it through.
...But he couldn’t convince himself to do that.
Aside from having to abandon Elane and the others and almost certainly leaving them to die, what would it achieve?
’I’d just be outside, with nothing left to do but rot in this godforsaken gate. The only chance of salvation lies inside.’
He couldn’t quite bring himself to act on this foolish idea that might save him a few extra days of life.
It might even enable him to take the massive horde of Spike Beasts out strategically with them focused on the other Awakened, but everyone would have long died before the horde would be taken out.
Sighing in condemnation, he let Elane pull him deeper inside the lair with her.
Their lives depended on their next actions.