The first thing Nero did after entering the trench was not to explore up ahead, but was to spread his Frostburn to the walls, checking for any hidden cards. Just as he expected, several cards revealed themselves under the fury of his flames.
Eldrim cards themselves were not so durable, and could easily be destroyed - the very reason they were usually kept in grimoires when they weren’t in use. Nero showed no restraint in freezing the cards and began running through the trench, freezing many traps along the way.
The trench, which was actually one of the most difficult obstacles of the course, was thus cleared easily by Nero with his team close behind. At the end of the course was a rope ladder which Nero climbed first, entering through a hole into a room.
There were four, independent pedestals in the room, indicating that all four of the cadets needed to step on one each before the room revealed what obstacle it actually held. Just to be safe, Nero burned all the walls while the others came, and still managed to burn a couple of invisible cards.
"Damn, that was cold!" Brad exclaimed when he climbed up into the room, rubbing his hands as he did. Yet no one responded to him. Instead, everyone was looking around the room warily.
"No point in waiting, let’s take our places," said Rorik. "Stay ready to face anything."
Nero walked up to one of the pedestals and burned it as well, yet nothing happened.
"I’ve already eliminated a couple of trap cards in the room, but I can’t be sure of what else to expect from here," he said.
The four took their places, and for a moment nothing happened. Just as Nero was beginning to think that they might have missed something, the pedestals began to descend, while the hole they came through sealed itself.
"Well that’s always a good sign," Brad said sarcastically, vocalising everyone’s feelings.
The wall right in front of them fell forward, revealing a long path while behind them a dark brown gas began to fill the room.
Without waiting a moment, Nero threw his Frostburn into the gas to see if he could neutralise it, yet something unexpected happened. Upon contact with the brown gas, the flame was entirely extinguished without putting up any resistance.
"Run to the other side, that’s Hazelsleep gas," Rorik said, going pale. "It can completely neutralise aether - including our internal aether. Just contacting it will be enough to lose out a tremendous amount of aether."
Nero had never heard of this Hazelsleep gas, but he believed Rorik. This was the first thing he’d ever encountered that immediately and without the slightest delay neutralised his flames, so he could only imagine how powerful it actually was.
The group began to run, but predictably the hallway was filled with trap cards. The challenge, this time however, wasn’t that the traps were aiming for them, but they were all aiming for the vase!
Rorik tried to dodge and keep the vase covered, but there were too many attacks, making it hard to avoid them all. What’s worse was that Rorik suffered the attacks while trying to protect the vase.
"Nero catch! Keep passing the vase along!" Rorik yelled as he threw the vase, making a tough choice. Even if the vase suffered a few attacks, it would be able to tolerate it as long as the seal was maintained. At least this way the pressure wouldn’t be on any one specific of them.
Almost immediately, the vase was hit by an attack, though Nero managed to catch it anyway. The attack let him know that the seal could endure quite a number of such attacks without breaking, but the issue was that every time the seal suffered an attack, it absorbed a certain amount of aether from within Nero to maintain the seal. While he could maintain this for a while, he wasn’t sure if the others could as well.
"This might not work," Nero said calmly as he threw the vase towards Harvey, hinting at Rorik to think or something else.
Yet before Rorik could think of another solution, they were faced with a new, different problem! The end of the hall was a dead end! There was nowhere else for them to go!
For a moment, dread got a hold of Brad and Harvey when they saw the dead end, and Rorik was stunned as well. But he recovered quick enough. He could not see a solution but...
"Do you have any ideas," Rorik said, looking towards Nero.
"The wall on the end has a different texture than the walls. I’m not sure, but we may be able to ram our way through it," Nero said, pointing towards the end.
He approved of Rorik’s decision to ask, for it was not shameful to seek answers from someone who may have them. He had been surprised by the dead end as well, but he was too used to analysing the situation so instead of being shocked, he began to search for a solution.
"Here, take this damned thing!" Brad suddenly screamed and threw the vase towards Rorik. The moment Harvey had given it to him, Brad had suffered an attack right in the face, causing his nose to break and start bleeding.
Out of the whole group, he seemed to have the worst luck as he kept getting hurt the worst. Or maybe he was the least skilled.
Rorik grabbed the vase and felt the integrity of its seal before making a bold decision.
"Everyone, use Collective Momentum on the vase," Rorik said, even as he began using the card himself. Protected by the seal, the vase could actually serve as the best battering ram that they had. Without any weapons, this was the only thing that they could make use of - unless they wanted to make use of their own bodies!
Nero subtly nodded as he activated Collective Momentum, making sure not to stop using Severed Seal in the meantime. The others were only a half a beat later than Nero.
In truth, the moment Nero and Rorik used Collective Momentum, it was enough to launch the vase but Rorik waited till the other two used it as well just to be safe. Then, he aimed the vase and let it launch at the wall, praying that he hadn’t made a mistake.
The vase shot out of Rorik’s hands like a rocket, slamming into the wall at the end at the blink of an eye. As it turned out... the wall at the end wasn’t so strong, and the momentum of the vase ripped the whole wall out before it shattered into pieces!
At the same time, Nero and Rorik who were maintaining a seal on the vase felt a huge drain on their aether. Nero could still handle it, but the sudden drain of aether caused Harvey to wobble, and fall over. The good thing was that the attacks in the hallways stopped, but the bad thing was that the seal on the vase was about to dissipate!
Rorik, almost as if anticipating what happened, used Severed Seal on the distant vase, replacing Harvey to keep the seal going.
"I see the finish line. We can do this," said Rorik, reassuring the group. "Nero, help Harvey. Let’s quickly retrieve the vase before something happens - watch out for traps!"
Nero helped Harvey, who felt very unstable even on his own feet, run and keep up with the group while they ran towards the vase. Nero didn’t comment, but without him running ahead to scout for traps, chances were high that they might fall for a last minute trap.
The deadliest time was when victory was in sight, and that was exactly when they couldn’t drop their guard. Despite knowing that, he didn’t speak. This was a learning opportunity for Rorik, as well as a chance for him to prove himself.
As soon as they ran out of the hallway, they were faced with a field of barbed wire, and a small crawl space underneath it for them to crawl through. The vase had fallen on the ground on the other side of the wire.
There was no need for words. Rorik summed a Rising platform above the barbed wire, but that would hardly be enough for them to cross the whole thing. Nero created another platform after that, and Brad, without needing instructions, ran at full speed and leaped over the wire onto Rorik’s platform. Without stopping, he continued to leap forward at full speed and managed to reach Nero’s platform, after which he managed to cross the wire after another leap.
While he had managed to make those jumps, Rorik and Harvey would not be able to. They lacked Brad’s speed, not to mention that Harvey was not in the condition to be running. With no solution that he could think of, he prepared to crawl from underneath, but Nero stopped him.