Now that the choice had been taken from their hands they felt relieved, even if it ant they had to endure another week of exploration under harsh conditions. As desperate as they were to go back to the safety and comfort of their hos, they all knew what was at stake.
Coming back from such an exploration was an extraordinary feat and it promised fitting reward. After all, securing an orichalcum vein could be enough to change the tides of war against cryptids, or at least make their own city safer. However, Ethan had other plans.
"You can do whatever you want, but we're not crossing the next rainbow. Even if those cryptids are waiting outside, you've all said they won't move unless they're bothered."
"Yes, but that doesn't an there won't be other dangers. Besides, we'll need all the help we can get to clear this dungeon." Jon said in a very uncharacteristic humble way, almost as if he was asking for a favor.
"I'm not saying we'll go back now, we'll remain here securing the gate and waiting for the rest of my n to arrive."
Even though Ethan's plan seed logical and it could potentially increase their success rate, Uriel felt sothing shady was going on. There was sothing unsettling about the colonel's smile, a small telltale gesture in the corner of his eyes that was eerily similar to Mark's whenever he was plotting sothing sketchy.
Nevertheless, he couldn't think of any reason to oppose though now he felt cornered.
On one side, there was Jon's weird attitude when they reached the alleged ergency exit and on the other, there was Ethan and his obvious scheming. Though nothing changed the fact that his own faction had the advantage in numbers and that whatever Ethan tried to pull would most likely end in failure by either Jon or Nika as they were both supposedly strong enough to take him down.
After a short rest and a quick al, the group advanced towards the next island and once they set foot in it they were able to confirm it was actually spinning.
"After you pointed out that the islands were spinning I made so calculations and found out the outer ring spins at a 24 hour cycle and, judging by the increase in speed in the second island my guess is it's about a 12 hour cycle." dusa inford. Find more to read at My Virtual Library Empire
"Did you do all the math in your head?" Uriel asked with an amused expression on his face.
"Of course!"
"That's pretty impressive!"
dusa blushed up to her ears after being complinted by Uriel and completely ignored Sam when he started complaining about how much more useful her ability was than his eidetic mory.
The second ring had fewer creatures than the first one, though the weakest among them was of the monster rank and there were so entity level cryptids hidden among them. Most of them were weak and easy to deal with in a one on one confrontation, but on a group things were very different.
Monster cryptids were resistant to regular ammunition and entities were almost immune. Even Sam's interdiate rifle was only able to bruise them up and the group ended up relying a lot on Jon's strength.
His physical prowess was evidently on another level as even the strongest entity level cryptids received heavy damage by his fists. Unfortunately for the group, that didn't apply to armored enemies and that was when dusa's trait outshadowed everybody else's.
They didn't need to kill every single cryptid they t and were content with leaving them behind, everyone but Uriel who kept looking back thinking on the possible reward for reaching the ten entity level flux orb mark.
'I may beco a heavenly rank or unlock new functions on the museum.' He was so excited about it he couldn't help but regret leaving the entities behind.
"You have that look on your face again." dusa said lowering her gaze with a saddened expression.
"What look?"
"It's like you're sad but you're trying really hard not to show it. It's the sa face you make everyti you look at after what happened back then. Are you still mad at ?" She took his hand.
For a mont, Uriel had no idea what she was talking about. He was just minding his own business and more than sadness, he was just being greedy.
'Am I actually sad? I don't know what's going on anymore.' Uriel questioned himself.
He had gone through a lot more than any regular person on the last few days. Pain, suffering and fear were the constant of his exploration but he believed the good things that ca to happen were a lot more important. However, dusa's concern about him made him pry deeper into his emotions and he realized sothing odd.
Those feelings were not coming from him at all.
Uriel closed his eyes out of instinct and he could sense a strange presence coming from the general direction of the island at the middle, though it was quite different to that of a cryptids or anything else he ever felt before.
Because he was focusing all his attention towards that presence, he failed to notice dusa's face tearing up in silent pain.
After a short while the group resud their walk while trying to avoid entity level cryptids as much as they could and after a couple hours passed they mastered stealth into a form of art. Sam would spot the cryptids before they showed up, dusa would stun them and everyone would walk around them.
When that didn't work, Nika would lure them out and Jon attacked from behind. It was ti consuming, but also very effective. It may have been a faster process if Uriel lent his Thunderbolt Iron sword to the holy rank hunter, but due to his resentnt towards him he decided not to do it.
Besides, even if they were cooperating for the ti being, he didn't forget the fact that they were still from opposing factions.
"This is it, we made it!" Jon celebrated by taking a gulp from his flask but the rest of the group didn't share his excitent.
Judging by the islands setup, where the first one was filled with beast rank cryptids and the second one with monster rank ones, they could only assu the last island had to guarded by entity level cryptids, which didn't bode well with the exhausted hunters and their limited ammunition.
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