The entire cave vibrated with the intensity of the beasts' screams. They all screamed together as though they were one body.
Atticus didn't have to think about his next course of action. His body had already started moving before he knew it.
Atticus ran.
He didn't run back; he ran forward. There was no way he would risk getting into a dead end, especially if he wasn't sure he could leave the chasm anytime he wanted.
Atticus moved like a lightning bolt inside the cave. He was utilizing multiple abilities all at once to reach this speed. He was using Aerokinesis, Burst, Lightning Augmentation, and the air molecules all together.
His focus was only on moving forward and escaping.
Unfortunately, the roar of the beast had awakened every slumbering beast in the cave. Atticus was moving fast, but they soon saw what he was trying to do.
The beasts released a low growl before lunging towards Atticus from all directions, claws blazing. His path forward and backward was covered in an instant.
Atticus maintained form and speed, the light molecules gathering into a small ball in front of him.
They coalesced and coalesced until it increased in size, pulsating with uncontained power. In the next instant, a beam of light, intense and devastating, shot through the cluster of beasts in front of him.
The path was immediately cleared, and Atticus wasted not a single second before shooting through the gap.
His hand held his sheathed katana tightly, and any beast that got too close would find itself cut into pieces.
'I can't keep this up,'
Atticus knew that this was only temporary. He was currently using a lot of his powers at the same time in order to run, and it didn't even feel like their numbers were dwindling. In fact, it was as though they had even increased.
He was already beginning to run out of luck. Earlier, the cave had been a simple straight line, but as he went in deeper, he started seeing different paths leading to different areas. What was worse, they were all filled with the same beasts!
However, if he kept this up for too long, he would eventually become exhausted. He had to act fast.
Atticus's mind worked quickly. There were multiple actions he could take at this point, but they were each dangerous in their own right.
'I have to stop being indecisive,'
Being indecisive, especially in dangerous situations like this, was a death sentence, and he knew that well.
He finally narrowed in on one thought and acted quickly. He split his focus and used an aspect of his perception he had been neglecting recently: his hearing and smell.
As he passed through each path, Atticus listened in for any sound that wasn't a growling beast. He also tried to catch any other scent.
He ended up having to close his eyes in order to intensify the effect; however, his hand holding his katana moved like lightning around him, cutting down any beast that tried to come close.
Minutes passed, and Atticus heard something!
'The sound of… water falling!'
Atticus was elated and abruptly swerved toward the right where he had heard it coming from. Fire molecules surrounded his whole body as he suddenly erupted into a blaze before shooting forward, bursting through the cluster of beasts and appearing outside the cave like a flaming rocket.
The cave had been at the top of a waterfall, and the path in front of the waterfall had already turned into a river. Atticus manipulated the fire molecules and landed gently at the edge of the river.
'They just keep pouring out,' he thought as he observed the never-ending stream of beasts exiting the cave.
Even though he had basically left the cave, the beasts still kept on pouring out without any signs of stopping.
'They're making too much noise, I better leave,'
Just as Atticus was about to turn, he froze. He was still fully using his perception and he caught multiple powerful presences heading toward this direction!
What was worse, they were at least Master+ rank!
Beasts were inherently more powerful than humans, although Atticus couldn't be considered a normal human at this point, a Master+ rank beast wasn't something he could just breeze through.
Atticus turned towards the river and immediately dived in. He took control over the water molecules around him and kept on descending. Surprisingly, the river was deeper than he thought.
'They can't swim,' he thought with relief as he saw the beasts from the caves struggling to stay afloat, their heavy bodies floundering in the water.
However, his delight didn't last. Out of nowhere, a massive shadow darted through the water with terrifying speed.
Before Atticus could react, the shadow engulfed one of the struggling beasts in a single, horrifyingly swift motion. The water churned violently, stained with blood, and the beast was gone.
Atticus's eyes were wide open, his body frozen in one place despite being inside water.
'Fuck,'
Atticus was getting tired of thinking that word. He felt like the universe was against him! The number of things happening was just numerous!
Atticus calmed down his beating heart and then calmly thought about his situation.
'There's a strong beast in the water. Judging from its speed, I can only barely react if I'm expecting its attack. But it looks like there's only one. The beasts outside the water are numerous plus I'd be out in the open. Let's just hope this beast is territorial,'
Atticus thought rapidly. If the beast was territorial, then he wouldn't have to worry about there being more of it in the area. That could be his only saving grace.
'What rotten luck,'
This was one of the terrible things about the abyss. The beasts that emerged from it were always of different kinds that the humans had never seen before. He had no idea the type of beast he was going to encounter.
A lot of the darkness beasts, as Atticus had decided to call them, had sunk down with many still sinking. Looking at each of them, Atticus suddenly had an idea.
He swam a bit farther away from the group and stopped while keeping his eyes peeled on each darkness beast. He also made sure to spread out the water molecules around him to detect any movement.
Then he killed his presence as much as possible and waited.
Soon enough, the beast attacked once more, but this time, Atticus was ready.