Chapter 5 - The Floating Rock

Far above the sky, a red haired horned woman looked at the chaos below her.

“Was this necessary?” She asked the glowing man beside her. “We could just locate the boy and kill him. Why involve the innocent?”

The man who was made of blue light made another group of light swords and dropped it to another part of the school before looking back at the red-headed woman, “I am only a construct, Madam Shiela. I only follow my master's orders.”

Madam Shiela gave an irritated snort, “Where is your master now? This pity carnage would not happen if he was only competent. I should have known he was not fit to hold the Locating Bar.”

“My master is still on the other side of this world and trying his best to arrive at this place, Madam. He could only send his constructs in the meantime to eliminate the target.”

“But where is the target? We could have spared killing these barless humans if not for his mistake.”

“You also know Madam that my master had no control over the World Travelling Bar. Though, my master could still locate that the Firstborn was in this area. With the given time, it is imperative we eliminate all known individuals in the area to avoid complications.”

“Inefficient. By the time he arrives here, we’ll probably be back in our world.” She sighed. “It should be up to me again, to find a solution to his ineptitudes. I don’t want to kill these poor creatures but I have no choice but to do this— for mankind,” she said in a forlorn voice as if she was pained to see such tragedy happening below her. Her face must have shown a compassionate expression but she was smirking inside.

This was a momentous opportunity for her. She was here now and not the other nine Islanders. It should be her destiny to be the only one in the vicinity of the Last Firstborn. She would not miss this opportunity.

But she did not do things in haste. She was recording every move she made. It was her glory to showcase to all the kingdoms that existed how she saved their lives by eliminating the Last Firstborn all by herself.

She would let Arman’s constructs attacked first as she did not want to tarnish her name by killing barless humans. No one in their right mind would criticize her for killing these worthless humans, but she had pride. It was beneath her to be this inefficient in eliminating a single human that she had to resort to killing everyone she sees. That was the way of the barbarians.

But now that the Arman’s rock and light constructs had already made their moves, it was the perfect time to show hers.

She did not care if the Firstborn was already killed by the constructs. When the Firstborn was killed, everyone would know. There would be signs. It worked in her favor that no one knows what the Firstborn looked like. She could pick any random humans below, paint them as the last Firstborn and no one would know better.

She had to let the constructs make carnage first before she interfered. She called it a selfless endeavor, to end the sufferings of these creatures once and for all.

“This is the way of a Goddess,” she whispered to herself.

She closed her eyes and instantly a lavender light glowed within her. When she opened her eyes again, a giant tentacled creature the size of a ten story building appeared above her.

It was one of her basic summons. A simple Acid Octopus Bar that could spit tons of gallons of acidic ink capable of melting down any object including living things.

It should be enough to do the deed.

The light construct looked at his light blades and the rocks that the rock construct, who was nowhere to be seen, had made and thought they were puny in comparison to the woman’s ink summon.

He needed to ask his master to upgrade him when they went back.

He stopped throwing his sword lights and watched the octopus eject ink from its mouth to form a giant blanket of acidic ink on top of it.

He had seen this octopus in action before. It could release tremendous amounts of ink that could even cover kilometers in area. He did not have to do anything and the whole school would be totally covered by the acidic ink.

He slowly went to the side and gathered his sword lights to get out of the way. He ordered the young light constructs around him to follow him, but he found out one of them was missing.

“You’re missing one,” he said to them. But looking at the already gigantic ink blanket that was still growing above them, he put the missing light construct out of his mind and flashed to the other side of the school.

***

Mill desperately pushed his body to the wall of students surrounding a tree with a Thousand Island symbol in it. The wall of students, though, were not keen on his approach. They pushed him back, keeping him away from the tree that somehow had made them survive all the chaos.

He initially thought he had to shelter himself on one of the trees dotting in the park. It was then that he noticed a particular tree, the tree in the image Hiko had sent to him, and the students who were still alive below it.

It was a stark difference to all the bodies lying everywhere in the park. Everywhere looked like a hurricane of death had just passed by, but on that huge tree, time seemed to stand still, sheltering everyone below it.

But the students would not let him even step nearer from the closest branches’ reach. His desperation led him to force his way into the wall of students. But he was only one and there were at least fifty of them.

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“Let me in,” he shouted at them.

All throughout his tussle with the students, he noticed that the sky was slowly darkening and with it, the dread in him also grew, as if something terrible was about to happen.

He trusted this instinct and pushed his body towards three male students in front of him with more vigor.

“Stop it Mr. Janitor!” A female student at the back shouted back at him. “This is not a place for you.”

Other students also tried to grab him but Mill went wild and pushed and grabbed and bit and kicked anyone who stood in his way. Despite all his efforts he was still pushed back out and thrown to the ground.

There were no rocks and light blades falling anymore from the sky but he knew something more terrible was coming.

“I just want to be near the tree,” he begged. “Why can’t you just let me in? There’s still a lot of space around.”

He was starting to get furious at the students' behavior. It was obvious something was going on with the tree.

People were dying around them but they did not even consider letting anyone in the tree. There were still a lot of spaces for a lot of people to stay in it.

Did they not see all the corpses lying around? Those were human lives but all they did was stay uncaring below the tree. Some of them even had excited and happy expressions on their faces.

Mill might not be a hero, but if he had the means to save someone, then he would do it.

Mill stood up and pushed himself to the wall of students again. Another grappling session happened but this time, the students were having problems keeping him away. During his altercation with them, some of the remaining lucky survivors like Mill also saw the peculiarities of the tree and the unscathed student below it.

As they saw Mill insisting on going to the tree, they quickly figured something was special with it. With the rocks falling and lights that sliced anyone it touched, it was easy for anyone to hold on a straw that could save them.

They fought to go in and begged the students to let them but the students were steadfast on their decision not to let them in.

They kept pushing the survivors out, insisting everyone except the Donieses Calling Club members were allowed to the tree.

But they underestimated the desperation these survivors had. It caused fistfights and even rock throwings.

“Don’t let them in. We are already almost ready. There’s only limited space left. If you don’t want your places taken, stop them,” someone shouted.

It was all commotion but it eased Mill’s obstruction. There were only three students blocking Mill’s way but they all looked determined in keeping him out.

He grappled with them again. Three versus one.

He pulled one of the student's arms to the ground and at the same time kicked the back of its legs. The student tumbled to the ground and Mill took the opportunity to push himself to the space between the two left. Before he pushed himself through the open space, the two students pincered his body with their own while the student who was on the ground stood up and pulled his right leg back.

Mill pulled his right leg and with his much superior strength, pushed it outwards, effectively kicking the student away.

He clawed the belly of the guy on his right and squeezed his hands causing the guy to shout and loosened his hold on him. His area of space increased and he leveraged his arm to swing backwards to the guy on his left. The guy on his left met his swing with his shoulder and it gave Mill the opportunity to squirm his upper torso and arms, and accidentally elbowed the face of the guy on his right.

Mill might not have any training with any fighting arts, but street fighting was not foreign to him. You just had to hit and pray your body was tough enough to take unavoidable beatings. His experience paid off this time.

He had just pushed them away when a loud grating voice reverberated on top of them. It was so sudden and loud that it caused all of them to stop moving.

“There you are,” the voice said. It was such a simple statement, but it brought chills to anyone who heard it.

For a second there, Mill could not move his body from a sudden bout of fear. It was the same with the other students. It was as if something stuck their whole body and made their breathing hard.

Mill forced himself to look up and was shocked to see a rough looking rock floating in the sky ten meters above the tree.

He thought he was imagining it but then the voice came again and it was coming from the rock.

“Let’s make this quick,” it said.

Mill did not know how but he felt the faceless rock was talking to him. He could feel chills running on his skin as if the rock was looking at him.

His hunches were proven right when dozens of fist-sized rocks materialized around the rock and then they were launched on where he was standing.

He immediately dived to the direction of the tree and seconds later he felt stones hitting the area behind him. He thought he had evaded it when a rock grazed his left arm with so much force that it pushed him to the side.

A part of the scrubs he was wearing was scraped off like a cheese in a grater together with some of the surface of his flesh.

It was just a simple graze. If the rock had hit him straight on his arms, he did not know if it would still be attached to his body.

“Ahhh!” A female student shrieked near Mill as the student’s torso in front of her had just exploded into blood and flesh when hit by the speeding rocks.

Another student also screamed in pain as half of his leg was hit by the rocks turning it into a mangled mess with the rock still lodged into it.

“It’s weird,” the rock said, intrigued. “Something was interfering with my rocks.”

The rock did the equivalent of a shrug which looked more like a rock shaking and then another volley of rocks materialized around it and shot to Mill’s direction again.

Mill scrambled towards the tree while still looking behind him. The students around the tree had already ran away from him seeing the rocks following him.

To Mill’s surprise, just like what the rock said, the rocks coming in his direction visibly slowed the closer it got to the tree. But from the force and velocity it was traveling, he was sure it could still injure him badly.

But it still gave him a split second as well as the opportunity to evade a meter away from the area it was going to hit.

He continued running, keeping more distance from the rock’s destination but he did not hear any sound of impact. He looked back and saw the rocks levitating a meter away from the ground.

He heard a chuckle and the levitating rocks moved again but this time vertically towards his way.

His soul left his body and with the suddenness of the situation he was only able to make a single step when the rocks painfully hit him in the back, pushing him face first forward to the ground.

He groaned from the pain and subconsciously felt his back with his hands for injury, but he was surprised to find his scrubs in the back intact. It still felt hurt to the touch but he was glad it was only a blunt force. Somehow, with the change of trajectory, it also decreased the force of the rocks.

Mill thought it was simple physics. Even if supernatural powers exist, they should still follow the laws of gravity, especially a stone. A falling rock with an acted force should have a lot of force especially with the gravity pulling it below. But stopping a rock mid air and then changing its direction vertically to the ground would lessen its force, and would be just simply levitating.

He also had to factor the effects of the tree. Which was still a mystery to him.

Mill forced his aching body to face upwards and heard the rock grunting in disappointment. But Mill knew he was still in a dire situation. Right on time, another batch of rocks materialized around it but this time, it was shaped like a chisel.

To make matters worse, the chisel rocks were still multiplying in huge amounts. It doubled, tripled and increased more to a number that Mill’s dread vanished and was replaced by a twisted humor.

“You should have come sooner,” Mill whispered. “I could have spared myself with all that hard work. With that number of stones, I could have built a mansion for myself.”

His humor though did not stop the rocks from shooting towards him.