"Theo..."
It was nothing more than a weak voice struggling to cut away from all the tiny noises made by the nearby trees and their leaves moving in the wind.
The woods within the periter of Theo's claim were already unusually silent—likely a result of the ongoing waves of challengers scaring everything and anything alive away from the area, leaving behind nothing but the immovable plants.
Still, even those plants appeared to be frozen, sohow minimizing how much they moved around or how much noise they produced, as if everything that was biologically alive could only seek hope in completely eradicating its presence.
And yet, even in this near-perfect silence, this voice, this damned voice...
'Tsk...'
As much as Theo wanted to investigate more, as much as he wanted to delve deeper into the feeling this faint voice awakened inside of him, as much as he wanted to figure out just how the heck this girl knew his na...
There was no ti for any of that.
And so, rather than addressing the call, Theo rely squinted his eyes.
"If you want to live, jump."
His tone was harsh and cold, but not completely devoid of emotions. And, contrary to his own expectations, rather than arguing, trying to strike up a conversation, calling him again, or doing anything else...
The strangers actually followed his order and, to the best of their ability, jumped.
So did so right away, their faces betraying just how terrified they were. Others needed a mont to shake off their fear and follow the order.
Even the one injured guy sohow managed to ignore his pain and leap up despite leaving a bloody trail in the air because of doing so.
Ultimately, not even the girl who had just called out to him dared to oppose Theo's order, obediently jumping as ordered.
'Now, let's hope I ti it right,' Theo thought, twisting his wrist behind his back as he attempted to remove the layer of ground directly beneath the group— as big as the volu allowed while making sure everyone would land within the hole.
'Faster!'
Tracking with his eyes how all of those strangers started to fall down, Theo couldn't help but start getting worried.
Even though the progress of the excavation took rely the greater part of a single second... to jump high enough to stay above the ground for that ti, especially when one was injured, was no small feat.
Pop
By heaven's grace, Theo managed to remove the layer of ground before the injured soldier ended up falling on it and thus risking losing the bottommost inch of his healthy foot in the removal process.
Instead, the whole group just ended up falling down the hole Theo had just made.
Obviously, not touching the ground upon their descent was the very last thing any of them expected.
Thankfully enough, however, while most of them quickly started to flail their arms and so even shouted in fear... no one decided to be stupid enough to try to retaliate.
'Trace of consciousness be damned, I'm not risking my life for so random quest when I'm already risking so damn much!'
The group fell, crashing into the soft earth of Theo's newly made hole.
But even now, this still wasn't enough.
Not when Theo could already see the air turning still from the overwhelming power of whatever it was that would visit him upon the beginning of the third and last wave.
"Jump!"
Giving the group barely any ti to recover from the fall, Theo shouted his order again.
And as disgruntled, confused, and outright desperate as those people could be... they still did as Theo desired, jumping up with all their might...
Only to then end up falling another few ters deeper than they were originally supposed to.
[1:29]
'Fuck.'
By now, Theo was out of ti. And yet...
His job here wasn't done.
"JUMP!"
Struggling to decide between gritting his teeth and calling out, Theo ended up using a much louder voice than intended. Still, as long as it got those strangers even deeper underground...
By now, it was only thanks to his elevated position on the pillar that Theo could even see the ground he wished to excavate.
And as soon as the green overlay disappeared along with the ground he desired to excavate, Theo turned around... and ran.
'Now, for the last bit...' Aiming with just the very corner of his eye, he twisted his universal tool to the construction setting before covering the hole with a grate made out of iron bars and then adding a slab of concrete right in the sa spot where the iron bars already existed.
"Now, you better pray whatever is coming won't bother to go this way," Theo whispered as he removed the pedestal he stood upon when encountering the group, only to then fully commit to nothing more than running for his life.
[47]
[46]
[45]
Seconds passed by much faster than Theo would have liked.
Obviously, it wasn't ti's fault, rely the misconception created by Theo's hurry as he ran directly through the woods, caring not to stop to take even a single look at the corpse of a monster he had gunned down nearby.
[9]
[8]
[7]
By the ti Theo reached the gate of his inner ring, the tir had already gone down to just a single digit. And by now...
Theo didn't exactly need the tir anymore, not with the overwhelmingly powerful sense of dread perating through the air... a sense of dread that he found annoyingly familiar.
"Of course, it has to be that bastard," Theo cursed as the gate closed behind him while he already rushed up the spiral stairs of his control tower, arriving on the observation floor with a re three seconds to spare.
But Theo dared not to spare those three seconds, manually adjusting the aim of his guns before unleashing a salvo an entire two seconds before his system could officially pick up on the monster's presence.
[2]
For a fraction of a second, the initial noise caused by the blasting of the guns turned into perfect silence as the shells traveled through the air, all aid at the sa spot, all aid in the direction where this overwhelming sense of pressure was the strongest.
[1]
"Jump!"
Callane froze for but a single instant.
'What? How? Did he not recognize ? Is it really Theo, or am I mistaken? What if he... changed?'
Those and a thousand other thoughts coursed through the girl's mind.
Her body, however, sensing the coming of a dread unlike anything she had felt or seen before, simply listened to the command.
And so, her knees caved in for but a fraction of a second, only for her muscles to then decompress, sending her flying nearly one and a half... no, two ters up!
When it ca to physical fitness, only Theo's dead brother could match her, still losing out when it ca to stamina or the ability to apply a greater range of his total power in a single mont.
Surprisingly, however, Callane's rcenaries didn't fare that much worse than her, each easily reaching one and a half ters in height, with the sole exception of the injured rcenary who only managed to jump about a single ter up.
Still, considering how one of his legs had pretty much lost all of its function... it was still an impressive feat!
What wasn't impressive but outright tragic, and no different from a betrayal, was when upon landing, Callane's feet found nothing but air.
'Don't tell ...!'
For a mont, her eyes locked on Theo's face...
Only to recognize the one expression she was extrely used to seeing.
A face full of extre focus.
This single instant, the one fra of ti where she saw Theo's expression, seemingly stretched out into infinity, locking Callane out of this weird and dangerous situation.
A lock that ended as her lips slightly curved up, forming a small, gentle smile not many in the whole wide world were privileged enough to ever see.
'So it's Theo, alright.'
Callane breathed out... and then her body struck the soft, slightly moist ground.
'Huh?'
Even though she had already assud Theo hadn't dropped her down so sort of deadly pitfall trap, to et with the ground so relatively soon...
'What's that? Two ters? Three?' Callane thought as she looked up, quickly locating the edge of the hole.
"Jump!"
Hearing the order again, Callane didn't hesitate, instantly jumping up... only, once again, for the ground to literally vanish from below her, causing her to drop several ters further down than where she had jumped from.
And then...
"JUMP!"
By the ti Callane landed for the third ti, she had already tensed her body, ready to jump—for whatever reason—again...
But the fourth order never ca.
Instead, after but a second or two of waiting, the hole she found herself in suddenly turned all shadowy when a tal grate suddenly appeared above them... only to then turn pitch black.
"Young Lady!"
One of the rcenaries whispered with so much intensity that his whisper instantly turned into a hardly muffled shout.
"I'm alright," Callane hissed back, instantly lowering her voice when she started to connect the dots.
'We would only be in the way of his fight with what's coming, so...'
The mont Callane reached this logical observation, she felt a painful bite down at the bottom of her stomach.
For so reason, even forming a thought that displayed just how powerless she was to actually help Theo hurt her more than straining her body to unleash her perfect strike from before!
"How is everyone?" Callane then asked, pushing her dire thoughts aside as she rushed to fulfill her duties as the leader of this stupid expedition.
"We will live," one of the rcenaries quickly replied. "But Pancho..."
Even in the pitch-black darkness, Callane could feel the man shaking his head.
"Well, he will live too, but his leg..."
THUD!
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