Chapter 1014: Racing Against Time
Sunders swiftly created the inter-plane tunnel before Angor could think of any good idea.
Defeated, he copied Sunders’ example and jumped into the tunnel, head-lowered—only to almost get himself killed.
Not long after he took a few steps into the tunnel did he see Sunders’ expression getting awfully horrid.
With a forceful pull, Sunders grasped his collar and dragged him back.
Angor lost his balance and tumbled in the zero-gravity tunnel. When he managed to steady his body and look clearly, he saw the space in front of him... gone.
Like a mirror, the gloomy space just ahead of them shattered into small pieces and disappeared, leaving a giant, chaotic dimensional vortex blocking their way.
Angor looked back only to see that every direction was now occupied by vortexes that exerted either repelling or pulling force everywhere. One wrong move would cause them to fall into the deadly forces and get torn apart.
Sunders spoke without moving his head, “We must go back. Now.”
Step by step, Sunders carefully calculated their next safest move and squeezed through the dimensional traps weaved by the dancing vortexes. They had to move fast. If the vortexes connected with each other and became one giant aggregation of gravity, they would no longer have a chance to get out.
Angor felt his mind going blank as he tiptoed along the path of doom where he could almost see the hands from hell trying to grasp his ankles and drag him to his grave.
By each passing second, their already narrow path would get slightly chipped away, further exposing them to destruction.
In order not to end up as a lost soul wandering in this forsaken dimension for eternity, Angor made sure he copied every of Sunders’ moves down to every inch.
In a matter of seconds, Sunders’ shoulders were drenched by sweat when his mind was strained too much.
“Are you okay?” Sunders’ voice still sounded plain and even impassive despite his condition.
Angor nodded.
“Good. Assist me.”
Sunders found it impossible to do the path-finding and keep off the harassment of the gravity energy around them at the same time. He didn’t have enough stamina for the job.
“Use your sequence of gravity to shield us when I do the calculation. Do you best if you want to live.”
Angor agreed without a second thought. If something distracted Sunders and messed up their course, they would both die for sure.
He chanted Spirit Mantra, ejected his soul, and immediately engulfed their position with a barrier made out of gravity energy. It was the same trick used by Toby earlier to fend off the snakes. However, the biting snakes were nothing compared to the force of the dimensional vortexes. Almost instantly, Angor felt dizzy as his soul energy was being rapidly drained.
Sunders fully concentrated on his mental work, which allowed them to move just a little faster. But the situation didn’t look safe yet. Angor felt as if he were a helpless kite in the middle of a great storm, with only one single string keeping him in place. When the gravity barrier exhausted his soul energy, which would probably be soon, he would be a lost cause.
The terrible condition on his soul was slowly reflected by his body, which began to bleed through the eyes and the ears.
Even so, Angor dared not lower his guard.
The sequence of gravity was a wonderful power, but he, as an apprentice, didn’t have what it took to maintain such a large output for long. He knew he could keep on for ten seconds, or twenty, at best. Yet the entrance through which they came was still some distance away.
The terrible sense of death was never so close to him.
“Five, four... I—I can’t—”
Before Angor lost hope and sentenced himself to death, Sunders finally called out to him.
“Move, now!”
Sunders picked up his speed, grabbed Angor’s arm, and dashed toward the exit, even though Angor couldn’t really tell what was going on around him.
The vortexes were finally drawn to each other and caused a huge explosion that totally annihilated the temporary dimension into nothingness.
Sunders managed to drag Angor’s bloodied form out of the tunnel at the last moment, just as the power of the explosion almost reached their backs.
The entrance, which was made possible by the Section Ephemera, showed a blinding flash of light as if to curse its prey. But no matter how dangerous the explosion was, it could not escape through the tunnel and reach the outside because the “consciousness” of the Abyss wouldn’t allow it.
Like an extinguished candle, the entrance shrank smaller and fizzed out of existence.
The cave returned to be peaceful and quiet. An outsider who came here at this moment wouldn’t find anything wrong apart from the mixed smell of sweat and blood.
While Angor was still struggling on the ground like a stranded fish, Sunders had erased every last trace of the distress they suffered and was ready to attend an evening bouquet using that perfect gentlemanly look.
But not everything could be repaired. At least Sunders still look slightly exhausted after the ordeal.
“Good job, indeed.” The gentleman’s low voice sounded almost alluring when he was tired.
Angor flipped himself over and chuckled. This was pretty much the only reaction he could use after escaping death.
When he felt comforted enough to think of other matters, he found his head overwhelmed by both joy and confusion.
They spent a while in silence since neither of them felt like moving.
A moment later, Angor believed he was good enough to get out of his “dead fish mode” and slowly sat up.
“Whatever was that, professor? Did the inter-plane tunnel fail?”
Sunders glanced at him. “Before we talk, you should wash up first.”
Angor checked his body and wrinkled his nose as a strong odor hit him.
“Oops...” He quickly cast Cleanse and showered his body from head to toe.
“And your hair.”
Using more water, Angor repaired his greasy hair that looked like a bird’s nest.
“Ahem. Sir, did that happen because the dimension around here is actually bad?”
“No, the dimension around the Windsay Valley is fine. Something went wrong with the tunnel. But I can’t tell the nature of the problem. I never encountered such a thing before. We may try again later and see whether that was purely an accident.”
“We’re doing that again??” Angor found this idea to be terrible. He now had two reasons not to return to the wizarding world so fast.
Sunders simply said yes. Both he and Greya agreed before that using Section Ephemera for inter-plane travel shouldn’t be so dangerous. Personally, he would believe that the same thing wouldn’t occur for a second time.
“Now that I think about it, we’ve been unluckily running into more problems than expected ever since we left the Overwatch Base. Let’s rest for the day. Get yourself to top condition, and we’ll make more plans tomorrow.”