Everyone was grouped into groups of ten, but there were still significantly fewer people than there was the previous day.
Zeel estimated the number and grew appalled by what exactly happened.
"There was no unauthorized battle, so you just need to guess what happened," Gabriella told the group.
"The people with ten people still in their group are the elite. Those with fewer people show that a power struggle for leadership led to the elimination of some people," Gabriella rationalized.
Aurolana sighed "We are lucky to have powerful people in our group, or I would have done the same – culling the weak. They are not a threat to the leaders, but can easily be threatened for information,"
Tria asked "Why did we talk about our abilities in the Hall yesterday then? Wouldn't that be contradictory?"
Xak shook his head "We only said what we wanted them to hear. And even if they know, the smart people will always assume not to know anything until they truly find out,"
Zeel stared at Xak and asked "You do not come from this Universe. Your kind usually thrive in Magic Universes and there is no magic in the air here, and your soul has not learned to produce it yet,"
Xak nodded "I came to Universe 0 to get access to a Magic Universe – they are hard to find,"
"yeah, there are only three known Magic Universes in existence,"
"Well yeah, I came to gain merit so I could be given access to one, but this happened," Xak answered.
Tak patted Xak's shoulder slightly attempting to cheer him up, but Tak's strength was too great. The ground beneath Xak's feet cracked as his knees buckled.
"Maybe, just one finger next time?" Xak pleaded.
"Haha, my bad," Tak apologized sincerely causing the entire team to laugh apart from Zeel.
The joke brought the team closer together but Zeel was not on the same spectrum as everyone else.
Zeel stopped walking and began to hyperventilate, he had never felt a sense of dread this intense before.
He stared at the ground at the Golden Pathway that had started to turn red. Not only his Pathway but the Pathways of everyone.
Zeel could not understand, he could feel the danger, it was palpable but undetectable at the same time.
It was the first time Zeel felt anything uncertain in his life, it was a nasty feeling – a feeling that made him panic.
It was as if knowing your wife is cheating but also not being entirely sure, but you were still in denial at the same time.
The feeling was too complex for Zeel to identify but at the very least he could tell that something was wrong.
Aurolana and the others had noticed the peculiarity and rushed to Zeel's side.
"Zeel, what's happening?" Gabriella grabbed his shoulders and shook him.
She never thought she could see Zeel freeze up.
Xak, Tak, and Kal immediately heightened their guards. Ruri, Dena, and Tria also went into high alert but could not find anything particularly wrong at the moment.
While Zeel was still slightly out of it, Ciara began to giggle happily.
She looked at everyone and smiled widely.
"Boom! Boom! Boom!" Ciara imitated explosion sounds with her mouth.
"Ciara, stop your nonsense, we are trying to stay calm here," Ruri yelled.
"Wait!" Aurolana commanded and looked at the paths beneath their feet.
Zeel smiled bitterly and said "Boom!"
*Boom*
*Boom*
*BOOOOM*
The next moment, a massive explosion rang out on the planet. The explosion was massive enough to toss everyone in different directions.
Ciara managed to grab onto Zeel quickly but she had underestimated the explosion due to her playful attitude.
This specific explosion housed a CJammer, which meant that abilities could not be used to block the gravitational waves of the explosion.
CJammers slowed the activation of abilities by a couple of nanoseconds, but that was a long time in battle.
In some cases, it halted abilities entirely. This was one such case as these children had never encountered Jammers before.
Everyone scattered and fell into the Abyss that had appeared below. As the strongest bodies in the group, Tak and Dena did not suffer much damage from the explosion.
Their bodies were innately strong, so the duo quickly grabbed the other members.
Tak managed to grab Xak and Kal immediately before falling down. Dena grabbed Tria and shielded her.
Dena could not find Ruri since she had already merged into the shadows prior to the explosion of the bomb.
Lucky for Ruri, the abyss below opened at the same time as the explosion. This granted her enough darkness to warp into her own shadow and enter the abyss.
Zeel was defenseless and Ciara was pierced by some shrapnel during their descent.
The moment Ciara was about to be lost in the abyss, Ruri appeared and grasped her body before shrinking back into the shadows.
Zeel knew that he was also pierced by some shrapnel. The shrapnel that remained in his body was preventing him from using his techno-abilities.
Still, he needed a way to survive, so he did the only thing he could.
Zeel prayed 'Aurolana, Aurolana, I am falling. Listen to my voice and find me,'
Zeel just finished the prayer and a space distortion occurred above his body with Gabriella's hand sticking out.
Zeel immediately took her hand and felt his body pulled through multiple warps.
Aurolana opened her wings as Zeel, Tak, Xak, Tria, Kal, and Dena appeared through multiple warps in the air.
Aurolana was surprised that Gabriella could perform a maneuver so complex as pulling multiple people through multiple warps simultaneously.
The moment Aurolana opened her wings, she realized that they could not fly at all. Her wings were large and wide but still worked with energy that was disrupted by the CJammer.
Seeing the situation, everyone got ready to collide harshly with the ground.
Despite their appearance, they were still kids falling thousands of feet into an abyss.
Tak and Dena would survive no doubt but they did not yet have the ability to alter their bodies to disperse the shock of those they fell with.
Seeing things were getting dicey, and also feeling similar dread to what he felt before, Zeel surmised that the bottom was filled with just as much CJammers as the top.
Zeel exerted his cyber-lines as they wiggled under his skin like snakes.
The Cyber-lines were overloading but Zeel had little choice, the next moment he grabbed Kal and forcefully ripped through the synapses that governed his brain.
Zeel gave a single command 'say Activate!'.
The moment Kal received the mental command, he shouted in a weird language while pointing at Zeel "Activate!"
Strange energy surrounded Zeel's body as his inert nanites had woken up for a couple of nanoseconds.
A couple of nanoseconds were all Zeel needed to estimate their falling trajectory and alter the material of the spot they would land.
The ground Zeel pointed became bouncy and then hard again, and continued to oscillate between these two states until the moment of impact.
At this moment, Zeel had done all he could and had to hope that they landed when the ground was bouncy.
*Plap*
*Plap*
Everyone fell onto the ground in a huge stadium.
They had impacted the ground at the moment of bounciness but still sustained small damages since the ground shifted to solid immediately after.
Not wasting time to take care of his bleeding left hand, Zeel shouted to Aurolana "Everyone stay still, the guys falling need to land safely or we will die down here,"
Aurolana immediately got the drift since they were the first to make it down thanks to Gabriella's warp ability.
Here is another chapter...
Sorry about the limited uploads, been busy with life and everything else.
I am so tired and bored...
I wish I could write more, but alas... life must be lived all the time...
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