They walked as fast as they could.

Nar walked up front. He had managed to recover a good quarter of his aura, but his feet still dragged across the floor and his mind was still a jumble of half put together thoughts.

Cen was certain that his state was a result of him draining his external aura like he had done, and he felt inclined to agree.

Weird. Unexplainable. Unknown. Powerful.

These were the best words he could use to describe his aura.

While he had wondered about the usefulness of his stamina in his current state, as an auramancer, it had never occurred to him that depleting his external aura would have such an impactful effect on him. He had been basically rendered useless until he recovered. Even now, back a quarter full in his aura bar, he had still not made a full recovery.

Perhaps his aura was not the boundless power he had expected it to be. It seemed that there were limits, and that they were seemingly as heavy as the ones his stamina had imposed upon him before.

He couldn’t risk running out again. By the end, he had even started hallucinating and imaging voices. The depletion of his aura had hit him hard.

However, that wasn’t the only thought stumbling about within his foggy brain.

His aura had kept him alive.

It had won the clash with the enemy’s aether powered electricity.

He had won against magic.

That huge machine had used magic against him, and he had used his aura to protect himself. And he had seen the smoke rising from its mouth. He had felt the wires falling around him, loose and defeated. His aura had defeated magic.

No matter what he told himself, he just couldn’t convince himself that that the enormous thing he had faced had been weak. He couldn’t. They had been forced to flee from it after all. And that made his clash with its magic all the more significant. Perhaps his crazy theory about aura and aether being at the same level wasn’t so crazy after all.

For fuck’s sake! His aura had even damaged that corridor! Something that not even Cen’s [Aura Projectile]s had managed to achieve so far.

Perhaps, it had just been a matter of him lacking enough aura to beat the thing. Perhaps, if he had committed himself to a single, all out [Aura Strike], like it had occurred to him during the fight, he could have beaten it by himself!

Maybe he just needed more aura. Maybe he just needed to understand it better. To use it better!

Maybe, if I just had a little bit more…

And that brought him to the third thought rampaging through his mind. Rel.

She had saved him. She had used or done something he had never seen. Her arrow had nearly brought the whole corridor down on them!

It had been power beyond what he thought possible for them, Climbers. It had been real strength. The kind that had defeated the massive enemy in one hit. One single arrow!

Had she been hiding her strength all this time? He doubted that. If Rel had been capable of such she would have used and abused it. She would have left them all behind and ran to the surface, driven by her Yearning.

No. The red arrow was something new. And considering her state, and all the blood on her clothes, he worried how she had come about such power, and what it had cost her.

While he considered these thoughts, the rest of the party silently followed behind him.

Except for one person.

“Are you okay?” Viy asked Mul.

“Ah… Yes. I-I’m okay,” the brawler stammered coyly.

“That’s good.”

“Yeah… Hmm. You don’t need to keep asking, you know?” Mul said, awkwardly.

“No. I do,” she said, her voice sounding absolutely serious about it. “Nar, how about you?”

“Uh… Same as before. Just-just a bit tired,” he stammered, taken by surprise.

“Just hang in there, we’ll be stopping soon,” Viy said. “Then you can do some more [Meditation]. I bet you’ll be fine by tomorrow!”

“Uh… Yes. I’m sure I will.”

“Good. Good. Hey, Tuk. How are you feeling?”

Nar released a breath he didn’t know he had been holding.

Something had happened to Viy.

He was pretty sure that she felt guilty for Tuk being captured and taken away. In a way, it had perhaps, somewhat been her fault. After all, she had run out without a plan, forcing them all to run after her to protect her.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

There was not something new to her outbreaks. What was new however, was how she had reacted to that latest one. And none of them were quite sure how to deal with it, worried that the wrong word might send her spiraling down, back to where she had been languishing for months.

He was happy for her though. They all were. Happy to see her be herself again. Speak, laugh, even make jokes, which was something she had never done before.

While Tuk chatted happily with her, Nar wondered if the ring tosser was happy that he had been captured. It had worked out surprisingly well for her. But did that mean that Viy was fine now? Or was it all just skin deep, and the problem yet remained, beneath the surface, ready to blow up again?

I guess we just have to wait and see, Nar thought.

For now, he could enjoy watching Mul squirm, unsure and terrified of every single word that came out of his mouth.

Next to Tuk, Kur carried Rel on his back. The archer had recovered much of her HP, literally returning from the brink of death. But she hadn’t woken up yet. And they didn’t have the time for her to do so. There were only 9 days till the deadline.

They had no idea where they were, if they were on the path they were supposed to, or by how much their detour had set them back by. Every second counted now if they didn’t want to be left stuck in the B-Nex for Crystal knew how long.

Next to him, Cen walked with a concentrated frown.

She didn’t look down, or defeated anymore. She was thinking deeply about something, and Nar guessed that it was about aura.

Always aura. Always the big question. The decider of their fates, lives and paths.

He was tired of having it rolling around his mind, back and forth, never resolved, always popping up when he least expected it, and also when he least needed it to.

One day he would figure it out. One day. And hopefully that day would be very soon.

Behind the center of the party came Jul and Gad. Gad had actually suffered much more damage than any of them had first realized. The first, surprise blow by the big enemy had drained half of her HP. And that last electric brush had sapped another quarter.

Even with her tank [Constitution], she had been hurt badly, and they had barely slept, having to rush if they had any hope of making it in time. So Kur had placed her at the back, guarded by Jul’s senses and the entire party, so that she could slowly heal, even as they ran towards their goal.

Nar wasn’t in any ideal shape either, but he was in much better condition than Gad, and he had happily taken the front. And Viy had been quick to assure him that she would not let anything happen to him.

Given how he had seen her fight, he genuinely had no doubts about it.

“Do you want me to carry her for a bit?” he heard Tuk ask.

“No. I can’t make you tired in case we need to fight. For me, this is the best way I can help,” Kur replied.

“Man…”

“I’m not putting myself down, Tuk,” Kur stopped him. “I know the best way to contribute, don’t worry. And besides, I think it's about time that we take a break. Everyone, let’s stop here.”

“I can keep going,” Gad said, despite the sweat pouring down the sides of her face and neck, and the out of control pace of her breathing.

Kur shook his head. “We all can, but look at our state. We’re half dead like this, and both of our tanks are barely hanging in there. You need to sleep, and Nar needs to recover his aura. So we’ll stop here. Four hours. Then we keep going. Try to sleep if you can.”

With a lot of sore groans, the party eased down to the floor, taking up most of the narrow corridor they found themselves in.

Jul helped him lower Rel to the floor.

“Jul, can you watch over us? I’ll stay with you,” Kur asked.

“Of course!”

Nar stared at Rel for a moment. She was breathing slowly, with a light wheeze to it. She was pale and sweating despite her HP recovering.

All the things she did back there… She was in control. She won. But… That means it’s near the end.

Rel was probably barely hanging on.

Although no one had mentioned it, he was pretty sure that getting Rel out in time probably weighed on everyone's mind much more than actually getting out did. At least, it did for him.

His dad would’ve been proud. He had fought it. He had resisted it. But he was fully one of them now, dedicated to getting them all out. Just like his dad had told him to, again and again.

“Nar?” Cen called him.

“Yes?”

“I would like to talk. Whenever you’re free.” she said.

Her face looked grim, but she had a new look shining in her eyes. A new determination. Perhaps, she had made her choice. Maybe this time it would be final.

“Of course. As soon as I’m done with my [Meditation].”

“No, no! Take your time. You need to recover!” Cen said. “Focus on that. Just… After. Whenever.”

Nar nodded and she walked away.

With another look at Rel, he closed his eyes and triggered his [Meditation].

*********

“Nar?”

Someone shook him.

The distraction shattered him out of his [Meditation] and he looked around, groggily.

“We have to go,” Jul said.

“Is it time already?” he asked, surprised.

“Yeah. We have to keep going.”

Nar nodded and rubbed his eyes.

“How is she?”

“I… Don’t know. Not good. We need to hurry,” Jul said.

“Yeah…”

He got up, noticing that he was the last one to do so.

“I slept,” Gad said, approaching him. “I’ll go first.”

“Are you sure?”

“I’m fine now,” Gad said. “Still a bit banged up, but I’m ready. You watch our backs. I never felt like I did a good job at that.”

Nar squeezed her shoulder. “Hey. Don’t say that. You do it better than I do.”

A hint of a smile touched her lips. “Yeah, I do. I just wanted to make you feel better.”

Nar took his hand back. “Wow.”

Gad chuckled and walked away, retaking her spot at the head of the formation.

The rest of them fell into place behind her, and they got underway again.

He checked how much aura he had gained and saw that it was just a bit over half.

It’s recovering really slowly. Is that also because I almost emptied it?

If he was suffering all those consequences, and the damn bar hadn’t even touched zero, he didn’t want to imagine what would happen if it did.

“Hey, have you checked your gains yet?” Jul asked him.

She had stayed behind to walk with him, taking what was now Rel’s spot. She had probably decided that Viy would watch over Gad and that she could watch over him instead.

“Oh. I forgot. I didn’t have time yesterday,” he said.

“Why don’t you check them now? I’ll keep an eye out for you.”

“Are you sure? You’re already watching for everything else around us.”

She smiled. “Trust me. It’s nothing to me.”

Nar snorted. “Just how much do you have in those sense attributes, anyways?”

Her smile turned into a grin. “I have a lot.”

“Damn.”

“Go on, check it out. The gains were good, which is surprising. When we killed that first, small enemy, there were no gains at all.”

Nar shook his head, not even attempting to extract any meaning or reasoning from it.

“It’s the Climb,” he said, with a shrug. “I’ve given up trying to understand anything.”

With that said, Nar turned his UI visible, and focused on his notifications.

He had seen that he had gained two new levels, but he had been so wrecked, he had just pushed the window away without actually reading it.

Now, a list of the past ten notifications showed up, and he focused on the most recent. Surprisingly, it did not show the experience points gained for their fight. Like Nar had just told Jul, he didn’t question it anymore, but all the same, it was a shame, he was curious to know how much he had gained from that giant thing.