บท 23: Geared Enough
Activating the Gift without much waste of time — the time that seemed not to exist — Max's conclusion was that the name "Spider Vision" underestimates the abilities of his Gift. Originally, he was the one who named it so.
He could see things beyond the way how the Gift normally functions in the Void Realm, and also, he could clearly see the confusing connection between the two realms.
Through the vision, he found himself still inside the black hole. Walls and the bottom of the hole were represented by black traces of lines that resembled the lines of a pencil — his body was also in the same form.
The vision normally allowed a 360° view in the form of black and white vibrations, therefore he could see the entire hole from the above: The tracing lines of the thirty dead Blue Forces, plus Armless, and the five Electeds standing at the border line of the big hole.
Max immediately ran to the walls of the big hole right beneath where Armless was standing, keeping aside the excitement of learning something new about his Gift. He then started crawling his way up like a mountain climber.
Surprisingly, it took little effort to navigate up his way through the hole. It was more like flying by pushing down his limbs on the mountain's surface.
★★★
In the other realm, Armless and the five Electeds were still deciding whether to go down or not. If they were to turn around and leave, how would they explain to Gold that the Vampire Slave who was to tell Lucas to bring him his golds suicided himself for almost no reason?
Most likely, Gold was not going to tolerate such stupidity and therefore trouble would be inevitable for them.
Having braced themselves to jump down, some few curses here and there from her fellows, Armless heard someone panting while saying, "Woman, is that ya willing to kill yaself for my sake?"
Turning her head to see the person talking, she didn't believe her eyes.
Confused and startled, "Maximus?" Armless called before sharing bewildered looks with the five Electeds that even in extreme confusion were silent.
"How? I saw you jumped in here, haven't you? How come..." Her eyes darted back and forth in the darkness between the black hole and the lying Vampire.
Max raised both his thumb in approval of her statement. "Yeah ah did, but please," Bringing off his body to sit up, he spoke in between heavy breathings: "don't ask all the whys and hows behind the miracles. What happened to their heads?"
Not even looking at the dead bodies, "It does matter? mind sharing how you came out of that big hole? It's impossible for you to just come out, you jumped in here, I mean..." Armless came and squatted next to Max. Her deceiving calmness still weaved in her words but her amazement at seeing him just popping out of nowhere was hardly stamped down by that trait of hers.
A minute passed but Max didn't say anything.
"Miracles happen once or twice in a lifetime." was Max's full-clad explanation. He gave the five Electeds standing tall on him a brief glance, ascertained by his guess that they could really not speak, or maybe they had to be some kind of golems since none of them expressed his awe at what he just did.
Since Max didn't want to share his mysterious popping, who was Armless to force him to do it?
A little while later, the excitement in the air had died, everyone seemed to be in the order of continuing the journey to the red dot. Nevertheless, Max was not fully recovered from the fright he went through when he jumped and the shock of learning about the Void Realm existing was not gone, either.
'Too many to tell Penelope.'
"Why were they difficult to be dealt with?" The Vampire pointed at the headless bodies of the two Blue Forces. He could deal with all the miraculous unexpected disclosures after he had found Evelyn.
"I think it's either you are too weak or they belonged to the Sak tribe." Armless had a quick look at the two dead bodies. "It'll be preferable for us to meet Robert than for him to meet us. He had learned about us. Can you keep on with this? Should we retreat?" Her expression looks caring regarding Max's well being.
Max grunted, being deeply in pain, that vibrates within his chest. "We've done a lot. No quitting." he said and took his hands to blocking the blood he was losing. The persistent Werewolf had done to him so many damage that he felt like anyone who simply beheaded him gave him a fast death.
'What is wrong with my thoughts? Beheading is nothing like a fast death.'
Looking away from Max's red glowing eyes that indicated he greatly needed human blood, Armless moved away from him and shifted to the Hunch form in order to grow her arms. Not slowly nor fast, her flesh and bones were weaved into existence.
The transformation to the other forms always makes it hard to distinguish the genders, unlike the Hunch form which still preserved some of the human appearance.
Done transforming, she searched within and brought out a green fluid from her little pouch hanging around her neck before coming back to Max.
"Which is?" Max questioned in collecting the small glass bottle.
"Take. Blood clotting enhancer." Her caring eyes searched for the Vampire Slave's eyes. "Maximus, we either quit now or keep moving right now." she stated firmly.
'Should I trust the content? Why not, it's not like she can kill me.'
Max opened the bottle with his teeth and gulped down its content. The liquid happened to be seriously bitter, disgusting in texture and warmer than it should be, maybe.
"Quitting? It sounds weak to my ears. Am tired of talking, we should move through the tunnels, let's see what more it hides than the big hole. I'm geared enough for it all."
"Curiosity kills." Armless warned as she offered to support Max, who placed his arm around her neck, all of them walking away from the wide black hole. She couldn't resist shaking her head in amusement because it has been a very long time since she met someone like Max.
They soon started to match over dead Blue Forces. In the mean time, Max did his best to not look at their frozen eyes. He didn't want to feel bad. They tried to stop him from getting Evelyn and therefore they deserved to die.
The Werewolves shifted into the five different forms they desired. Shifting into the five forms was one of the facts as to why they don't use weapons to fight their enemies, unlike the Vampires.
Moving through the dead lying bodies, sorrowfully, 'But is killing these people worth it just because of Evelyn? What have I done?' Max wondered. However, unlike the real him, such thoughts were for only a short period of time.
The blue smoke Penelope commanded to enter Max's body at Warriors was not only tainting his decisions making, but his personality of softness as well. He had become a robot with a single goal in mind.
Either way, he was now in more serious trouble with Robert for being part of those who killed this many Blue Forces.
Greater revenge by the vengeful Werewolf would be on its way by the time the news of the deaths of his comrades spreads around.
It was time for some action.
The seven of them wasted no time in running into a secret cavity that only a few knew about, few such as Armless.
Being at the evolutionary stage of a Diurnal Vampire, Max hardly kept up to the speed Armless put on show. "Where is this narrow pit taking us?" he asked as the distance seemed never ending.
Being in human form, Armless thoughtlessly said: "River of Origin."
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