"Arghhhh!..." Jurgen grunted, before started coughing after inhaling a lot of black ashes that came from underground along with the lava that blasted the ceilings away. He slowly got up and looked around him.
'If I wasn't fast enough, even for a second, that would've killed me.' Luckily, he was able to protect himself by coating his body with [Mana art 15: Blessed protection] or the lava might've completely melted his body. But even with mana protecting him, some part of his skin suffered some minor burns from the lava that made contact with his body.
While busy finding out what happened inside the large room full of smoke and ashes, Jurgen lost sight of his comrades. The last thing he heard were screams of terror before a strong shockwave separated him from everyone. He couldn't see anyone, and as the black smokes slowly vanish, he came to behold such a horrifying scene.
With only a few clothings visible, he could hardly recognize some people from the royal military and from the guild lying on the ground, almost unrecognizable. Their bodies and skins were as black as coal as they were burned alive by the lava. Some were probably barely breathing and some were unfortunately dead. Soon enough, the room reeked with blood as Jurgen inhaled the air from the atmosphere while staring at the corpses of his comrades, hearing their silent screams ringing through his ears.
The old man pitifully looked at his deceased comrades and the only thing he felt was guilt. If he was fast enough he could've protected them much sooner, and now, some of his allies are nowhere to be seen and he could only imagine the worst, until he heard a faint cry coming from somewhere behind him, close to the right.
At that moment, the smokes and dusts are already cleared out and Jurgen could already see everything around him. He quickly turned and looked for the origin of the cry that seemingly belongs to a woman. After a few glances around, he finally saw a figure sitting next to a person who's lying on the ground.
'Who's that?' Jurgen could hardly recognize them but he was sure that they were survivors so he quickly approached them. Walking towards them felt like an eternity as the woman's cry became louder every second. Soon enough, he heard some grunts and another cry that surely belongs to a man that Jurgen could barely recognize the voice. He was having second thoughts before he finally reached them and saw their faces.
The first thing he noticed was the blonde hair of a woman that were died black because of the ashes. Her head was looking down at a man as she continued to let out some feeble cry. It was Mira who's crying and the person beside her lying on the ground was Bernard. The man on the ground was fatally wounded and have suffered some severe burns on the right side of hiss body from neck to left upper leg.
It was a shocking scene and Jurgen almost puked from the sight that is disturbing to behold. He could see Bernard's eyes half close and was watering, probably, because of extreme pain he was trying to endure. His clothes were turn apart by the extreme heat of lava, and his skin was as dark as the ashes around them. He's probably in the worst situation and was about to cross the line between life and death, which Jurgen finds quite depressing.
"What... the hell happened?"
It took sometime before Jurgen managed to give a reaction and it almost startled Mira after hearing him.
She quickly turned her head, slowly wiping the tears on her eyes. She took a deep breath and answered with a trembling voice: "G-Great Jurgen... Bernard is... Bernard is... he's dying." While on her knees, grasping Jurgen's left leg with force and desperation, her tears started falling from her pale brown eyes. "P-Please... help him... he needs to go home... he needs to live... he wanted to live longer... please... just please—save him..."
Soon, her voice became cry and it sounded like a scream to Jurgen's ears. Upon seeing the poor woman on her knees and the man lying miserably on his back, Jurgen couldn't give them anything but pity. His conscience was telling him to help but he knows that he can't. Looking around him, it seems like the entire support unit, especially the healers, were completely wiped out by the destructive lava.
At that moment, Jurgen felt nothing but shame and regret that he couldn't help his comrades from the brink of death. 'If I was just fast enough, I could've —' Thoughts flooded his mind and was tormented by negative emotions. It suddenly felt suffocating to breath and the air inside started to burn through his skin. Then suddenly, a fleeting idea occured to his mind and he didn't even hesitated to try it.
Jurgen quickly went near the two and put his right hand onto Bernard's burnt arm. He slid his hand all the way to the other burned areas while channeling his mana through his palm and freezing the burnt skin in the process. This is the best he could do to decrease the pain and suffering that Bernard was experiencing. Freezing the burnt wounds would also help to keep his flesh and blood preserved for later treatments. Jurgen really hoped to keep him alive, until the end of the raid and at that time, he was eager and desperate to retreat for the sake of keeping him alive.
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However, upon looking around him, he saw nothing but boulders of rocks and rubbles blocking their way out. He couldn't see Johan and Jagger around which is more worrying for him. It was like he was lifting the entire party members on his shoulders.
While his eyes are wandering through the fairly lightened room, suddenly...
"BAM!.... BAM!..."
Jurgen heard a sound of footsteps impacting the ground . The sound got even louder every second until the ground started to pulsate slightly every time it occurs as if an overwhelming mana was resonating below. Meanwhile, the old man was looking into the darker part of the room where the sound was supposed to originate but he couldn't see anything because of how dark it is.
"What the heck is that?!" Mira exclaimed, staring at the same thing Jurgen was looking at. It seemed like she was able to perceive something that Jurgen wasn't able to sense.
At first Jurgen thought that Mira was just anxious, perhaps because of mental trauma. However, he soon felt an overwhelming presence in that wide room. Full of bloodlust and intense killing intent that could possibly harm them. Then, Jurgen realized that it was coming from the direction where the gigantic door was supposed to be located.
"CREEEEEEEAAAAAAAK!"
Soon, they heard a loud and violent creaking noise coming from that direction indicating that the giant door was being forcibly flipped open. It was followed by a sudden breeze of hot air that suffocated their lungs for a mere second.
"HAHAHAHAHAHA!....."
The sound was quickly followed by a hysterical laugh that echoed through the wide room and caused shivers down their spine.
For Jurgen it was a familiar voice of a man that he, probably, met somewhere or recently. He could hardly remember it but the most important thing is that he saw a human figure walking from the shadows with red eyes glowing and piercing through the darkness. It was a man that Jurgen could barely recognize.
"Abandon hope!... abandon hope!..." The man's voice raised everytime he utter the same word repeatedly. Then he went and screamed, "Abandon hope... you fools who dared to enter this place! The gods will soon plunder everything from this land." The voice was ear shattering and full of rage and resentments. Upon finishing the word, the unknown man's presence suddenly vanished along with the intense pressure inside that room and caused Jurgen to cautiously looked around while still watching Mira and Bernard from the corner of his eyes. 'What the hell? It really disappeared suddenly. Who exactly was that?'
A few questions occured to his mind before two crimson-colored spherical object glowed from a distance, a few meters above the ground. He soon realized that those were gigantic eyes and were fiercely staring down at them with burning gaze.
An alarm immediately went off inside Jurgen's head, telling him to get out of the way and his feet are screaming at him to move. But his eyes were left staring at the creature fixedly with mouth slightly ajar in awe. "Shit, Am I seeing things or something?"
"I'm pretty sure those aren't illusions." Mira anxiously gazed at the darker room inside the giant opened door that was filled with roughly hundreds of flamy crimson eyes, fiercely piercing through the darkness.
On the other hand, Jurgen took the initiative and stepped forward. He could hardly recognize those monsters but they surely resembles a monster that Grey already fought just recently: the emberman. Although he wasn't sure since he could only see its glowing eyes and not the entire part of its body, he eagerly moved forward to try and stop them from moving out of that door.
"If all these monsters got out, it'll be the end of the Hotstone village." Jurgen desperately pulled a cylindrical glass bottle from his right pocket that contains a blue liquid inside. "Mira... carry Bernard with your wind magic and escape from this place."
"What about you?" Mira hesitatingly looked at Jurgen and gazed at Bernard who's in the worse condition. She was having a hard time deciding whether to abandon the old man or to stay and help him fight those monsters. Even if she did escape, she highly doubt that she would be able to get out with all those giant boulders of rocks blocking their way. "I can't just leave you here."
Jurgen didn't respond and proceeded to open the cylindrical bottle while staring at it anxiously. 'This potion can increase the activation time of my spirit mark for about 15 minutes. It will put some strain on my body afterwards but I have to worry about that later. Right now, their survival is my priority.' After awhile of thinking, he quickly turned the bottle upside down above his ajar mouth, gulping down every last drop of the potion. "Get out of here. As the person in charge of this raid, that's my order."
"But Great Jurgen—"
While Mira tried to disagree, she was interrupted by a flaming sharp and long object that suddenly flew towards her and was swiftly caught by Jurgen's bare hands. The hot and flaming sword was thrown at them by the monsters and they could clearly see them marching towards their way.
"Dug your way out of this place already. Don't be stubborn." Jurgen was getting impatient as he tossed the hot sword in his hand away from him and pulled his own sword. "I'll take care of things from here, so you guys don't have to worry." He smiled with assurance before he walked to meet the monsters burning gazes while stepping onto the hot trail of ashes left on the ground, ignoring the hot corpses of his comrades behind him.
Left with no other choice, the only thing Mira did was follow his orders. Using her spared magic, she carefully lifted her comrade's body using the warm air. Without looking behind, she flew out aimlessly through the wide room, hoping to find an exit route. Her mind was filled with worry and anxiousness as she ventured through the unknown caverns of the dungeon, looking for the way out.
Meanwhile, Jurgen waited for them to get away far enough before he carelessly emitted a huge amount of mana from his old body. Soon, a light blue menacing aura enveloped his body as he approached the monsters he would be fighting. "I guess they got away far enough." He grinned while fiercely looking at the flamy monsters.