CHAPTER 22 – ESCAPING THE VOID
Julia and her elite guards quickly ran over to Johnny who was now bleeding all over the ground. “You can’t die on me!” She yelled at Johnny as she, Margaret, and Qin tried to treat Johnny. Cleo and Lisa stood by on guard.
Julia gave the others orders while she tried to slow his bleeding.
“Margaret, I'm going to need to pull out that metal shard. Qin, I’ll need you to bandage him up after I seal up the wound.”
Margaret didn't hesitate to remove the piece of shrapnel. More blood poured out but it slowed to a crawl thanks to Julia’s healing. Ten minutes passed with Julia’s healing magic taking effect. Johnny had stopped bleeding with Qin quickly taking bandages from Julia to cover anything that couldn't be treated for now.
“Well I'll need to get a better look at his condition when we get out of here.” Julia said looking at Johnny’s poor state. The chatter was interrupted by a new voice. Everyone turned with a jump to see the humanoid rift eater standing with a disappointed look on his face.
“Congratulations on the win,” The beast sighed sarcastically.
“Since Johnny won, blahblahblah, here is the void core he wins.” The beast said in a even more sarcastic tone as he handed the void core to Julia. Julia stood there frozen with shock. She grabbed the core, while Qin and Margaret still worked on healing Johnny.
“Never held an intact void core before. Better to keep this one intact for studying purposes,” Julia said with amazement looking at it. The core was the size of a basketball. It swirled in dark purple energy. She cautiously put the core into the passenger seat of the prototype.
Julia then turned back to face the humanoid rift eater. Who was now sulking with frustration, wondering why it was just standing there and not attacking them. The beast stood for a while before it fell lump on the ground in surprise. Everyone eyed him with unease lying there.
A few moments passed when the beast let out a blast of dark malevolent energy. It caused every to stagger backwards. The beast climbed back to his feet covered in a shroud of dark swirling energy. Its eyes were glowing a bright dark purple. The beast opened its mouth to speak in an ancient hoarse voice.
“Mortal fools you think you can beat me. This is my domain. The creator may have had his turn, but now it is mine.” The beast charged at Johnny with its mouth wide open. It charged for Johnny’s neck.
He didn’t even get close as a magic throwing knife pierced him between the eyes. The beast howled in agony as it stumbled ripping the knife from its head. “It will take more than a silly knife to kill me.” The beast mocked bleeding inky liquid out of its head.
“I got this.” Yelled Cleo as she threw another knife. The beast caught the knife with a hand. It grinned with a sharp smile.
Lisa used the distraction from Cleo to kick the beast from behind in the back in suprise knocking him to the ground. The beast let out a grunt of pain rolling onto its back trying to get up. Cleo quickly pounced on the fallen beast before it could stand back up. She turning her hands into long daggers as she pierced the beast's heart and head. The humanoid rift eater dissolved into an inky liquid leaving an uneatthly howl as it disolved. All that was left was the beast’s core.
The group stood around uneasily debatinv on what to do. Julia pulled Johnny next to the prototype so he was away from danger.
“I could contact Orion to send a rescue party,” Julia sighed, getting ready to use her armband that communicated with him.
“So we just stand her and wait, then?” Lisa complained in frustration kicking the beast’s core. The core rolled fast next to Johnny brushing up on his leg coming to a stop. The core slowly began to dissolve into Johnny’s body as the others looked on in confusion. “What is going on?” Asked Qin as the core fragment in Johnny’s head glowed dimly.
Albert then appeared out of nowhere right in front of Julia blinking in and out of existence. She jumped back with a start. “Johnny needs more of those beast cores to get the prototype going. I was able to appear from just the little essence that he had absorbed.” Albert concluded to Julia on what she needed to do next. Unfortunately, there weren’t any other rift eaters around to get core essence from. That all changed within the next moment…
The whole ground began to shake. “FOOLS, YOU THINK KILLING THE BEAST WOULD GET RID OF ME SO EASILY? I WILL MAKE SURE YOU SUFFER THE MOST PAIN YOU EVER HAD. I WILL NOT LET YOU LEAVE HERE ALIVE!” An old and powerful voice boomed as the ground shook. The void portal then began to change, The void had changed from a race track to an endless black void with inky ponds and foul smelling air.
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“We are so dead. We can't breathe that stuff or we will die,” cried Qin as she realized they wouldn’t be able to breathe the toxic air. The group preyed in there heads silently taking in one last breath hoping their deities granted them a pleasant afterlife. The girls held their breaths until they couldn't any longer. They released all at the same time to die together. Julia was the first to inhale. The girls closed their eyes taking in the toxic air, but nothing happened after a few breaths. The girls opened their eyes to see the necklaces Johnny had given them began to glow a radiant white. They all stood for a moment of shock, before sighing with relief.
That all changed when the inky ponds started to bubble. Rift eaters started to form by the thousands. They came in all varieties. Some had wings that could fly. Others were bipedal. While most just ran on all fours.
Julia knew then and there this may as well be their last stand looking at the approaching doom. She looked over at Johnny. She was determined to save Johnny if it cost her and the elites their lives. It was her responsibility as a Warden to save him. Champions were few far and inbetween.
She needed to formulate a plan and fast. She talked to the others knowing if they could try to drive the prototype out with Johnny in one of the passenger seats. It could only fit two of them in the form of the phantom. Luckily, Albert overheard the conversation and offered to help.
Albert offered to drive the prototype with Johnny in the driver seat and turning it back into the humvee for all of them to fit in. The unfortunate part of the plan was they needed beast cores to get the prototype going again. Albert would help again by absorbing any of the beast cores that dropped. He told Julia he would need ten thousand cores to get the prototype fully enhanced with each core having a 0.01% essence value.
Julia quickly gave the others the details on the plan, along with orders.
“We’ll only collect what comes are way, but for now we just need to make it back to the portal. Everyone take up your positions.” With that the five of them broke off.
Qin grabbed Johnny, getting him into the prototype and took up the rear. She dropped him into the driver’s seat heading for her position. She ran by Magaret on her way, who handed her swords she could use to turn into extra summons. Qin wanted to save what mana she could. She reached her position throwing down the swords on the ground. They immediately became cybernetic dragons taking into tte sky after rift eaters.
Lisa assisted Albert in collecting the rift eater cores. Margaret joined up with Qin for air support against airborne rift eaters. Cleo took the lead position in front to scout for any traps or approaching enemies. Julia took the driver’s side. They waited for the mass of rift eaters to come.
Everyone was ready when the first wave approached. Julia ordered everyone to form up as the rift eaters tried to attack. Everything was pure chaos. Julia launched dozens of spells at the rift eaters. Margaret pelted the swarm with blades from her wings. Cleo turned her arms into shuriken launchers as she began piercing rift eaters at breakneck speed. Lisa focused on the rift eaters that were pinned and finished them. Qin was blasting any rift eaters with her radiant skeleton dragon wings. While her cybernetic summons continued to rip others apart.
Soon rift beast cores were dropping by the dozens. As the first wave was beaten. They had gained around two hundred cores from the fight. Albert alerted the prototype was up to 2%.
They kept on fighting wave after wave of rift eaters with the hours dragging on. The group was getting tired and fatigued. Julia wasn’t sure they were going to make it and sent a second urgent message to Orion from an arm band she had.
The group had suffered injuries from fighting. Julia was able to use her healing magic on the void essence so no one would lose any body parts.
Julia had a real concern for Qin though. The dragoniod went berserk when she got to a certain fatigue level. She checked in on Qin and the dragoniod said she would be fine. Qin unfortunately hit her limit with her next few attacks.
Seeing this Julia ordered everyone inside of the prototype. Except for Qin who was now lost going berserk. Everyone complained of cramming in the vehicle with not enough space. They all looked like a bunch of sardines packed in an airtight can. Qin was blasting everything in sight. Her summons had disappeared when she went into berserk mode. She was using her skeleton wings as a plasma cannon that fired radiant energy nonstop uncontrollably. Her attacks became bigger and more powerful with each passing attack. One struck the prototype’s frame. It bounced off harmlessly vaporizing a mob of rift eaters.
Soon cores were dropping not by the hundreds but by the thousands. A warning popped up on the terminal. Albert alerted the core was eating too much essence. The core was overloaded with 200% essence and climbing. Julia tried to warn Qin who was still in a berserk stage. She finally collapsed to the ground after releasing the last of her energy.
Julia told everyone to shield their eyes from Qin’s last attack that was called Judgement Day. Nothing of void essence would survive this brutal attack. Everyone shielded their eyes with a power blast. It caused every rift eater in the surrounding arra to be instantly vaporized. Qin now fell face first into the ground.
With all the action going on Julia hadn’t noticed they were five hundred feet away from the portal. All the rift eaters nearby had been killed with many more running far in the distance. More began to spawn in the nearby pools of ink with all of them heading for Qin.
Julia ordered everyone to get out and run for Qin from being claimed by rift eaters. Unfortunately, the rift eaters made it first. They all dog piled on Qin as they began to bite at her limp body Julia screamed in rage as she and the others desperately blasted away the rift eaters. Soon the others were overwhelmed as they too collapsed from exhaustion from countless hours of fighting. Julia was the last one standing looking over to see the portal was one hundred feet away. She cried out knowing this was the end. The rift eaters soon overtook her. The last thing she saw before collapsing from exhaustion was a blinding light and a loud boom.