The barrier finally came down, signalling the start of the Convergence Maze. Most students instantly dashed into the maze without much thought.
This time, the students were not the run-of-the-mill kind, they were the cream of the crop and while not entirely so, they all had confidence in their abilities.
Abigail began the first scan without being prompted and once the layout of their path became clear in the lens, the group took deep breaths to settle any lingering nerves. Their lives were on the line, and there was no way they were going to jeopardize that.
"Alright, let's go," Alex said and Ross nodded and dashed forward quickly being followed by the rest. As their vanguard, it was his job to make sure he spotted any danger before it became too late. His guard was raised to the maximum, and his fire ability was on the ready.
As they made their way through the labyrinth, observed the surrounding walls. The walls were just as grey and dark as their starting point, and they couldn't see any end to the height of the walls. It was like it gradually disappeared as it went high.
Additionally, the walls had a metallic sheen to them as well as straight lines that showed the walls being joined together and could be split apart. The floors also had similar marks like rectangular shapes that showed the path followed when the walls shifted.
Overall, the labyrinth space was spacious enough for twenty or more people to move side by side, providing a lot of room for swinging their weapons.
It was clear the labyrinth was huge, but they had no need for that as they had ample speed to cover large distances.
What mattered to them was to find their way out to the top and hope they didn't fall into any traps or encounter void creatures. But such a possibility was extremely low if not outright impossible. The labyrinth was crawling with void creatures.
Ross suddenly took a sharp left followed by the others. So far, only a few minutes had passed, and they were still at the edges of their starting point.
They had no idea when the maze walls would start moving, but they hoped it wouldn't be when they were a long way from the next turn.
Julia glanced behind her to observe Alex. She smiled sweetly at him when he turned his attention to her. Alex replied with a similar expression before Julia turned her attention forward once again.
Their little exchange was of course noticed by Abigail, but she had no words to say to them. After all, it was none of her business.
SCREECH!!
BOOOM! BOOM!
Suddenly, Ross came to a stop quickly and the rest did the same. That screech they just heard was from void creatures, and they could still hear their screeches. Additionally, they could also hear the sound of explosions ringing in the distance.
They were only a few hundred metres away from their next turn, but the path they had to take seemed busy and was crawling with void creatures.
"Let's approach quietly and observe for now," Ross said and they nodded in agreement before slowly jogging in the direction the noise was coming from.
Sometime later, they got to the edge of the next turn and looked over, and just as predicted, there was a group of four students fighting seven void creatures.
The creatures were floating above the ground and had varying appearances. Some looked like large round balls with numerous tentacles, others looked like beasts with claws and fangs. Whatever appearances these creatures had, each of them had different attributes.
They moved haphazardly and made use of their attributes to attack the students whenever they could. There was no pattern to their movements and only sought to destroy and devour the students.
Luckily for the students facing these creatures, their speed and attacking power were superior and were dealing massive damage to the void creatures. To a normal person, it would only look like blurry images of being moving at extreme speeds.
If they were in the real world, the level of destruction their fighting could have brought had the potential of levelling a small city multiple times over. But in this small space, the attacks did nothing to the walls.
"Looks like they're handling it fine," Abigail muttered, her bow nocked with an arrow and ready to fire when required.
Alex had his spear in his right hand and Julia had her cold sword. They made sure to stay out of sight and not circulate any mana. After all, these creatures were drawn to the usage of mana.
"We have to move before more creatures show up or the walls move." Alex expressed his intentions as he looked behind to see if there was anything or anyone approaching.
"Yeah, but the only way forward is through that corridor. We can make quick work of them and leave but that would put those students in danger" Ross replied and explained their dilemma.
While the students were winning, they hadn't eliminated one of the void creatures yet. And the longer they took, the chances of them drawing in more void creatures.
Julia listened to their words with a slight frown. She did not like the delay and since they had to move as soon as possible, she decided to take matters into her own hands. She could care less about the other students as her only priority was moving forward with her Alex.
Instantly, the others watched as Julia dashed forward at insane speeds and covered a distance of several hundred metres in a few seconds! "Shit!" Alex cussed and ran after her. The other two not wanting to be left behind, chased after them.
As Julia approached the fight, she infused her mana into her sword, and this quickly caught the attention of the void creatures. Alex caught up with Julia in the next second but said nothing and infused his spear with his 'mana' as well.
Three of those creatures departed from the rest and moved towards the approaching duo.
"Take the one on your left and I'll handle the other two." Alex started and noticed Julia nod her head in agreement.
"Awesome." He muttered and explosively increased his speed. In an instant, Alex was before the first creature, the spear in his right hand launched forward for a thrusting attack.