AK - The Alchemy Kingdom

Chapter 122: Into the beasts’ maw

Year 3, Fall, First Month, Second Week.

It was used to smelling prey from far, it could even distinguish its taste by the smell. The silver wolf sniffed the air again before licking its lips, he smelled prey, not a big one or the tastiest, but prey nonetheless. It waited for the prey to approach, to deliver its delicious self to its maw, but the prey never appeared. Confused, the silver wolf sniffed again. The prey had changed directions and was now leaving, it tried to smell-track the prey through its domain but failed to catch it before it crossed to another beasts domain. It growled with anger.

Samia leaned on the branch, trying to recover her breath while taking the locator to check on the other close beasts. She would make sure to choose another path and never again get close to the silver wolf. Sometimes a beast would notice her presence but they never narrowed her location enough to hunt her through the forest, not until now. The next beast was only 300 meters east so she decided to take a break.

Although the Council insisted to send the two other shadows with her, she strongly refused. Her subordinates were well trained but couldnt keep up if her speed, if they were present in the silver wolfs situation, she couldnt guarantee they would have escaped, which proved her decision to come alone was right. Time for resting was quickly over, she sent a message back to the camp before resuming her mission.

Using a HQ energy crystal didnt improve her concealment, apparently, this was the limit of the property. However, the crystal helped increase the reach of her communicator, which she didnt have discovered the limit yet. Two days zigzagging through the MT beasts and she still hadnt reached the energy vein. By her estimations, she was 40 something kilometers from their camp, so she should be finding it soon.

Actually, Samia had another good indication the vein was close, the environmental energy had become so dense that she had to stop every two hours to rest inside of portable barrier and detoxify the excess energy. She just hoped these countermeasures would be enough to keep her body healthy long enough for the return.

Two hours later, Samia had to stop again, but this time, the situation was even more complicated. The readings pointed beasts in all directions and great numbers. She wasnt as good at reading it as the operators but she was capable enough to estimate more than a hundred MT beasts in on kilometer radius, practically a village of MT beasts. From now on, the locator might not even be helpful since she would meet beasts at every 50 meters.

So, for the last time, until she reached the vein, Samia reported back to the camp before moving forward. Unfortunately, she couldnt move carelessly anymore, so her pace was reduced almost five times. The situation was getting increasingly dangerous, the beasts or pack of beasts were smelling her and trying to hunt her. Apparently, the beasts also became stronger closer to the vein.

With much tension and difficulty, three hours later, Samia finally found the energy vein. Identifying it was as easy as finding the sun in the sky, from the dozen possibilities Karl told her, this energy vein was thankfully one of the easily identified ones. The physical and visible phenomenon was impossible to be missed, the energy was pouring madly from a white glowing rift, slightly above the ground. The dense energy was visible even a few hundred meters from the rift, making layers in the air.

Fortunately, the vein wasnt forming any elemental environment in the surroundings, which in Karls words, would be problematic for them. Although elemental environments were great sources of materials, what they were looking for was raw magic energy, just waiting to be harnessed and used in their Alchemy designs. Samia also took notice of the surrounding area, confirming that not a single beast was too close to the rift.

In the end, the worse challenge would be crossing the last two kilometers which were infested with beasts. The shadow circled the vein from all sides, taking notice of beasts, mountains and rivers around it. Now, it was time to go back and prepare for their last journey.

***

Maybe we should reconsider this Youre taking half of the Council

Omero looked distressedly at the team that was leaving for the most dangerous and important mission of their lives. His Diana, the last of his family, refused to listen to him and stay. He was used to setting her off, but somehow this mission felt different, with a taste of dread and uneasiness.

The other families felt something similar, some even cried. However, time to part has come. This might even be their last encounter but the names of the eight would never be forgotten.

***

Through the tattered light-blue barrier, they could see the magnificent spectacle of energy dancing through the air before being pushed into the world, where it would give life to magic and wonder. If it wasnt for the earth spikes colling against the barrier and the wind blades testing its resistance by sending waves of uncertainty through it, their attention would forever be kept hostage by the energy vein hundreds of meters from them.

The beasts, on the other hand, didnt seem to care about the Originly phenomenon and just continued to throw dozens of elemental attacks against them. Diana crouched to check on the wounded Toni, who had got his right arm and shoulder smashed when blocking an earth attack that appeared out of nowhere. She said a word of thanks to Tael, who despite being cut and bruised all over was forcing himself to stay awake while using the portable healing tool on his friend, before taking the almost destroyed shield and going to Karl.

She tested the Array, which quickly activated a solid blue barrier, and breathed a sigh of relief, at least they could still use it to block some attacks. Karl stared at his friends' situation and muttered an apology before turning his attention to the vein, even right now, especially right now, he couldnt give up. Just a little longer, he prayed for them to resist just a little longer. Dianas hand, firmly pressing his shoulder, brought some needed comfort and confidence.

Are you sure?

She said it without much energy in her voice. He turned to her and forced a smile.

Lets do it.

The others also nodded and prepared themselves for their last stand. Samia approached the almost fainting Tael and passed him the portable barrier. Tael couldnt help but use his dull eyes to look for wounds on the girl, surprisingly, he found none. The shadow was probably the only one without them.

With weapons and tools on hand, the survivors stood at the border of the barrier, which appeared to be getting thinner by the time. They looked at each other and said together for strength:

Lets do it!

Their boots slid through the ground, leaving dust from the wind pushing effect, as they moved forward faster than ever. The first attack came from above to their left, two wind birds from the Origin-forsaken flock reacted faster than they expected. Fortunately, a Wind Shield materialized and easily blocked the attack at the cost of taking their wind Mage, who had to stay behind to block the subsequent attacks.

Out of nowhere, a big yellow feline beast jumped to block their path, but the spear demoness, nickname proudly wore by Sania, dashed even faster to engage the beast while the rest went around it. Samia made a move to go to her sisters aid but was blocked by Lew, who didnt hesitate to leave the main group to support the girl. The maniac attacker was dancing around the beast striking madly and ignoring the clawings which accumulated on her body.

The rest continued to run forward without looking back, ignoring all screams and sounds of fight. Then, time seemed to slow down, Karl and Diana looked at each other, the huntress silently said Im sorry before dashing sideways to block an earth attack that Karl didnt even notice was coming. He saw the explosion of dirt collide with the blue barrier and push Diana back, but he couldnt keep looking, he couldnt hesitate.

The energy vein was now less than one hundred meters from the desperate runners. Karl looked at the vague silhouette beside him and spoke to the concealed girl:

Please, take me as far as you can then leave the rest to me!

He didnt need to ask her anything as they were all ready to sacrifice themselves to get him there. Karl barely saw something attacking them, but he could tell it wasnt a single beast. However, the shadows flicked around him and nothing barred his way. Unfortunately, now he was alone.

Screams, earth dragging sounds, metal clashing, everything disappeared from Karls perception as neared the vein. The dense energy even slowed his movements, he felt it trying to invade his body, the pressure made his head hurt and the sickness was growing inside him, but he pushed forward nonetheless. This was it, he was there, finally.

Karl kept going until he couldnt move further, then he threw the wooden circle that was already shining because of the dense energy powering its Arrays. He stepped inside the circle, hoping it would be enough to keep the energy at bay, but it was as efficient as an ant trying to push a mountain. He ignored the tools inefficiency and started to organize and connect the other arrays around him. If they also didnt work

But then, he started to feel light-headed, the energy was suppressing him to an unbearable level. He fell to his knees. His vision started to become white, and the last thing he saw was a big circle forming above him