Chapter 56. Surface Battle
Rhys bent, extending one leg, then the other, stretching out his limbs. He bounced in place, shaking himself out. When he was good and warmed up, he knelt, then leaped off the ground. From left wall to right, bouncing across the relatively narrow well, Rhys climbed up one jump at a time back to the surface.
The sounds of battle echoed down the well, growing louder as he climbed. He kicked off the wall horizontally and spent one jump just to be sure he’d pop out on the far side from battle, then kicked off the wall and leaped up onto the surface.
Ernesto and Aquari dueled nearby. They were both holding back, but the forest had been flattened for hundreds of feet in all directions, and in some places, deep gashes tore far into the woods, cutting apart the trees and earth alike, even splitting boulders. At his new Tier 2, Rhys could tell that the battle was utterly beyond him. Now that he was a higher Tier, he was more able to sense mana, and from the emanations he sensed from Aquari and Ernesto, they were each at least two tiers above him; in other words, Tier 4 or higher.
Aquari glanced at him, then turned to Ernesto. “Give it up. Your ‘foul well’ is empty, and nothing remains in its depths. It no longer contains whatever you sought within.”
Ernesto paused. He pointed his sword at Aquari. “Then I’ll slaughter the boy and take it from him.”
“In front of the entire Alliance?” Aquari asked.
“Huh?” Rhys said.
She nodded at him. “I apologize for arriving late. I was busy investigating a nearby armada. It turned out to be from the Alliance, and called on Infinite Constellation School by a certain nameless professorial individual.” She cast a dead stare at Ernesto.
“Damn. You work fast,” Rhys commented to Ernesto. He’d mentioned pivoting to blaming Infinite Constellation School for the crime of happening to have a foul well on its property as if he’d only done so today, but the Alliance was already on its way?
“He fired off an emergency beacon shortly before you arrived. I was there when the Alliance received the signal. I asked them to wait, so that I could handle the internal affairs of my school myself. If I hadn’t…” she cast a meaningful look at Rhys.
I wouldn’t have had the time to peacefully absorb all that trash, Rhys realized. He nodded gratefully to Aquari. If not for her intervention, he would have simply been interrupted by the Alliance and likely taken in for questioning at best, or outright killed at worst.
“Still, to have an Alliance armada waiting for your signal? Purple Dawn Academy has expanded its influence more than I was aware,” Aquari commented.