The platform cracked before breaking down completely. It happened so quickly that no one could react in time. One second, they were standing on solid ground and the next they were plummeting through 200 feet of air. If the fall did not kill them, then the Shadows down there would definitely finish the job. The knights were flailing their hands to try to use any abilities they had to stop their fall.
It was Eric who finally managed to save the day. Halfway through the fall, he used his wind walls to suspend them in the air. However, it only lasted for a moment before the wall broke down from the combined weight of 21 people. Yet, it managed to stop their growing momentum. Now they were no longer falling to their deaths.
As they approached the bottom of the chasm, the High Priestess’s staff did its job and repelled any Shades or Shadows near their landing area. A few of the weaker knights broke some of their bones once they landed, but otherwise, they were fine.
The pain from the fall was enough to bring Cal back to sanity. The buzz in his ears quietened down to just some background noise and his vision was clearing up. The headache was still there, but it was manageable now. The voices stopped talking and the call was no longer as domineering. He had also regained control over his legs.
“W-What’s going on?” he said in a shaky and tired voice. Looking around he saw that they were surrounded by enemies on all sides. ‘Why did we fall? Was that an explosion?’
“Are you back with us, Cal?” Sergeant Ved asked. “What happened to you?”
“I don’t know. My body just stopped listening to me. Why are we down here?”
“The platform broke. We don’t know how, but judging from the noise it must have been some kind of explosion. Can you move now?”
“Yes, sir. How will we get out of here?”
“I was hoping you had the answer to that,” Sergeant Ved sighed. He then turned to the High Priestess and asked. “How long can you maintain the barrier, your excellency?”
“Two minutes. My mana is draining rapidly. There are too many of them,” she replied in exhaustion.
Cal looked around and saw that all the Shades and Shadows were rushing into the barrier without any regard for their lives. They had already realized its weakness; as long as they threw enough bodies, the barrier would break from overconsumption of the High Priestess’s mana.
Suddenly, he noticed a bolt of violet lightning hitting one of the adult Shades far away from the barrier. It came from the large black rock in the middle of the chasm. After it touched the adult Shade, the Shade started twitching violently and its whole body started to melt. What was left behind was a 5-foot-tall Shadow. Cal was shocked after seeing that. ‘So, that’s why there are so many of them in the abyss.’
As he was staring at the new Shadow, one of the 10-meter-tall Shadows reached the barrier. Cal wasn’t even sure if he should call it a Shadow anymore. It was too big.
The Titan—Cal named—materialized a huge war hammer made of darkness on its hands. In front of it, he felt like he was an ant. It slammed the hammer on the barrier and managed to make it all the way through to the other side before it was pushed back. The war hammer was completely unharmed, unlike the previous times when the barrier was attacked by a weapon.
The High Priestess went to her knees after the blow. She was bleeding from her mouth and sweating buckets.
“YOUR EXCELLENCY!!” Sergeant Ved yelled in worry.
“I’m…f-fine Ved,” she gasped.
Sergeant Ved knew she was not. The last attack must have overextended her mana reserves. Any more and she would rupture her mana circuits. He surveyed his surrounding and judged that their situation was hopeless. Thus, he made his decision with determination.
“This is the end, your excellency,” he said in a serious tone.
“NO!! It's not. We can still salvage this,” she cried out.
“Look around, your excellency. There is no way out of this. We are surrounded on all sides. Even if we manage to clear a way out, we can’t climb 200 feet before being killed. And you don’t have any mana for us to search for another escape route,” he explained in a somber tone and stared at her.
“I won’t do it Ved. I won’t leave you to your deaths. I won’t be able to live with myself if just abandon you guys to save my life,” she said as tears rolled down her cheeks. “We will all go back, or we will die together.”
“YOUR EXCELLENCY AURELIA!!” he shouted in anger. “Stop being childish and reckless!! The day you became the High Priestess your life no longer belonged to you. You are too important and irreplaceable to die in a place like this. The church cannot lose you.”
The Titan hit the barrier again. This time the barrier went out for a second before coming back. Aurelia was severely bleeding internally now and on the brink of consciousness. Some of the quicker Shadows managed to enter before the barrier closed down. The knights held them back, but it was a losing battle.
“There is no time, your excellency. Start drawing the runes and activate your necklace NOW, while we can still hold them back,” Ved said. His voice almost sounded like an order. He saw that the High Priestess was still showing signs of hesitation.
“Please, your excellency,” he pleaded. “The knights templar were trained to sacrifice their lives for the Lord if it was ever necessary. Please do not let our sacrifice go to waste. Please return. If not to save your life, then to inform the Cardinal Council about what’s happening here. I don’t know what that large shard is, but you know don’t you? It is your responsibility now to stop it from spreading.”
Aurelia had to bitterly agree with what he said. The shard was too dangerous to be left alone. One of the saints must take care of it as soon as possible. But they had to be informed of its existence first. She swallowed her previous arguments and pointed to Cal, “What about him? He didn’t ask for any of this. Do I have to sacrifice an innocent to save myself?”
“He knew the risks when he came here,” Sergeant Ved replied though he sounded ashamed.
He then turned to Cal and said, “I’m sorry, Cal. I wish I could save you as well, but the return necklace only works on her excellency. I hope you can forgive us in the afterlife. Please don’t blame her excellency.”
He then addressed Aurelia again, “I know it’s a bitter pill to swallow, your excellency, but it must be done. Start drawing the runes please.”
“I can’t maintain the barrier if I draw the runes,” she said and sniffed back her tears.
“Then give it to me. I will maintain the barrier for as long as it takes for you to draw the runes.”
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“NO!! You won’t last a minute before you are possessed!”
“I will die either way. If a minute can buy you time to draw the runes, then I will gladly be possessed,” Sergeant Ved said with conviction.
Aurelia could not hold back her tears anymore. She saw his determination and nodded her head.
Sergeant Ved addressed his knights before taking the staff, “KNIGHTS!! The time has come for you to answer the Lord’s call! Do not fret, for what awaits us beyond is his divine kingdom. Lay down your lives for her excellency. Make sure she gets out of this place alive at any cost!! WE WILL FULFILL OUR DUTIES!!”
“WE WILL FULFILL OUR DUTIES!!” they all shouted in unison and attacked the Shadows with newfound strength.
“Now, your excellency. Give it to me. I will set up the barrier,” he told the High Priestess.
Aurelia handed over the staff and immediately started drawing the runes with a shaky hand.
The barrier went down when the staff left her hand. Sergeant Ved quickly took it in his hand and the barrier was back within a few seconds. Unlike the High Priestess, Sergeant Ved did not have any light runes on the edges of his irises when he activated the staff.
More Shadows and Shades entered the barrier again before it was re-established. A few knights had already lost their lives. Sergeant Ved couldn’t even stand properly as he was fighting back against the possession.
Cal looked at the pandemonium with the same listless expression that he always bore. He didn’t have a hint of fear even though he was at death's door. ‘So, this is how I die. I hope there is no afterlife. I don’t want to live through my memories for eternity.’
He saw the knights die one after another. Some were impaled by spears and arrows, some were slowly being corrupted and turned against their comrades, and some were surrounded by Shades and torn apart, and yet those left alive didn’t falter for a moment. They surrounded the High Priestess and made sure nothing touched her. He saw the High Priestess finish drawing her runes and take out her necklace. But it was too late.
The barrier fell. Sergeant Ved was no more. Something else took his place.
“HA HA HA HA. I am back!!” Sergeant Ved laughed loudly. “Finally, it’s been too long!! Get ready you mongrels I will have my revenge now that I am free.”
He then saw where he was and shouted in fear, “W-What in the hell is going on here!? Where the fuck am….”
That was all he managed to say before the Titan squashed him with its war hammer. The knights were soon overwhelmed without the barrier.
Cal fought against a few Shades, but he knew it was pointless. He turned back to the High Priestess to see if she had managed to finish whatever she was doing.
“V-Ved—” she sounded heartbroken “—I will avenge you,” she said in a pained voice.
Then she turned back to the rune and placed the necklace in the middle. The rune started glowing brightly like the one she made inside the tent at the entrance of the mine. One of the Shadows managed to move passed the remaining knights and reach her. It pierced her stomach with a spear. A dark arrow also shot into her left thigh. Aurelia screamed in pain, but she did not stop. The bright light now covered her entire body.
The Titan pulled back its war hammer and was about to hit the High Priestess, yet, before it could reach her, she was already gone. She glanced at Cal before disappearing and mouthed ‘I’m sorry’ to him.
‘Like that could solve anything,’ Cal sighed tiredly. ‘It was a long run. I guess death finally caught up to me. I had dodged it long enough…….I should have died in that forest.’
And yet his body did not stop moving. He tackled a Shadow and sent out a full-powered laser into its body. Used his hands to disintegrate the Shades. Kept fighting even though his body was covered in wounds.
‘Huh? I thought I gave up. Why is my body moving on its own? Why do I fight?’ he asked himself in bewilderment. ‘Why? Am I scared? Of what?’
And then, he saw her. A young girl from his memories. She had blond hair and brown eyes. She didn’t look a day older than 13 and had a crescent birthmark on her neck. An arrow had pierced her heart and she was dying. She glanced at him with a haggard look and said in disapproval, “You promised me, Cal.”
“Sarah…” he said out loud though there was no one around. The knights were all dead by now.
Cal was surrounded. The Titan was coming for him.
‘I’m sorry Sarah. It just hurts so much every day, that I didn’t want to survive anymore. But I can’t break our promise now. I won’t give up. Dying is too easy of a punishment for me.’
He jumped up and threw his sword high up in the air. Then he pulled himself up. In the air so he could better analyze his situation. Most of the Shades and Shadows were concentrated around his position. Thus, the rest of the chasm was much more sparsely populated. He then turned to the black rock and estimated the distance from his position.
‘That rock is my only chance at survival. I don’t know if it will kill me or help me, but I will take that chance over certain death,’ he decided.
He grabbed his sword and threw it again towards the rock. He landed a few meters away from the group of Shades and Shadows that had encircled him previously. Then he ran with all his might.
He was chased from all sides. Many shot arrows and spears at him. There were a couple of Shadows ahead of him as well. They attacked him with dark swords. Cal parried one but was too slow to deal with the other. He instinctively raised his hand to block the attack. He knew he could not absorb dark mana, but if he did not stop that attack then it would stab his heart.
The sword cleanly severed his left arm. Blood gushed out of it like a fountain. Cal gritted his teeth and ran past them. He didn’t want to waste a moment. As he got closer to the rock, the voices returned.
‘Yes, my child. Come to me. Only I can save you from them. Come and receive my powers. You will be invulnerable,’ the voices said. They sounded overjoyed.
Cal stopped for a moment because of the agonizing headache. And it cost him dearly. His back was skewered by arrows, one of the spears thrown had also taken off a chunk of flesh from his abdomen.
He quickly got back his bearings and started running again. The Shadows were only a few feet behind him now. Cal was almost out of mana.
He threw his sword once more to close the distance quicker. He zoomed towards the rock and increased the gap between the Shadows chasing him once more. He looked ahead and saw only one more Shadow and adolescent Shade standing in his path to the rock. He grabbed his sword and attack the Shadow in front of him. He made one final laser attack which cut off the Shadow’s right leg. Then he lunged and tried to take off its head. But the Shadow quickly created a shield and blocked his attack. Cal’s sword broke after it hit the shield.
‘FUCK!’ he cursed.
He dropped the sword and kicked the Shadow to move it away from his path. He sprinted ahead after clearing the way. Only the adolescent Shade was left.
Cal's hand turned darker as he used it to stab through the Shade's chest and absorbed all the mana out of its flamestones.
The rock was only five feet ahead of him now. He was lucky it was giving off the violet light, otherwise, he would have long died from the Shadows’ dark manipulation abilities.
‘Only a little more now,’ he told himself.
Yet he did not make it. He had wasted too much time fighting the Shadow. And all the blood loss slowed him down considerably. A huge blade went through his right thigh and separated his leg from his body.
He lost his footing and fell down. He was drenched in his own blood. He turned his head and stared defiantly at the Titan that cut off his leg with the blade.
He tried to crawl with his right hand, without success. The Shadows slowed down and stopped chasing him. They started to surround him from behind and didn’t attack right away. Cal realized that they were mocking him. But he couldn’t do anything about it now. His vision was turning darker, and he was losing his consciousness.
The Shadows were done surrounding him and came forward to finish him off.
Before losing his life Cal made one last effort. He reached out his right hand and slammed it in front of him. The Shadows were confused by what he was doing, but Cal pulled his arm back and threw something towards the black rock with all the force he could muster.
The next moment his body zoomed past the encirclement and reached the black rock. He had used the flamestone dropped by the adolescent Shade as an anchor for his ability. He turned his head back to his tormentors and said, “I win.”
The Shadows were enraged and ran towards him, yet Cal was faster. He touched the black rock with his right hand like this life depended on it—which it did. The moment his hand made contact with the rock; time stopped working. All the Shades and Shadows around him were frozen and did not even move an inch. Black spiderweb-like cracks crawled up his right hand from the rock and spread to every part of his body. The whites of his eyes turned black, and his violet irises started glowing.
His right hand sank into the rock and his body was slowly pulled inside. Cal didn’t have the energy to resist the pull. He had overextended his body and was no longer conscious.
Time began to move again when Cal’s body disappeared into the rock.
Something seemed to have been triggered within all the creatures around the black rock. They all started thrashing around even though their prey was gone. They had lost all their inhibitions and turned mad. A lot of them started to climb up the chasm and moved away from the heart of the abyss to look for any prey they could find.
Cal didn’t know it now, but what he did had forever changed the situation in the deep mines.