Chapter 130: Buried
Once, as a girl, many years ago on Earth, I’d visited a nearby tourist location: a cave. The tour guides had taken us deep through narrow caverns and twisted tunnels, explaining the various limestone and stalactite formations. Then, as we reached the zenith of the tour, they cut the lights and plunged us into darkness. It was a blackness so whole and complete it was suffocating, and I remember screaming in fear for the lights to come back on.
Those moments in the dark were nothing compared to the excruciating terror of the darkness that enveloped us now. Although the darkness held no mysteries to me, I squeezed my eyes shut anyway. The tremendous weight of the earth pressed in on us from all directions, straining the Earthen Walls to their breaking point, filling the air with suffocating pressure. I poured all my mana into the barriers, unable to spare so much as a thought for anything else.
Three seconds. That was how long it took for Soltair to summon a Divine Star. By that point, the shifting of the earth had settled, relieving much of my stress, but our predicament was obvious. We huddled in a ten-foot cube of air amid a sea of stone, with as much as a quarter mile separating us from the surface.
Soltair sighed, collapsing onto a nearby rock. "Is everyone alright?"
His words echoed hollowly through the cave, and we all nodded. Trithe sat beside him, tucking her knees beneath her chin and leaning up against him. Fyren leaned up against the wall, arms crossed, and eyed the hero intently.
"Did anyone see what happened?" he asked.
Trithe raised her head, glancing up at the ceiling before speaking. "It was hard to see, but I think the cultists got caught up in the shockwave and died."
"So that’s what happened. Damn it!" Fyren cursed. "What a weakling. Why bother seeking a power you can’t control?"
"At least the dragon’s free," I said softly.