Alison’s Declaration

As the Spectralian group pondered about Giselle and Alison's words, Sophia quickly noticed an anomaly amongst all the confusion the Spectralian group had.

'The swordsman, the shield warrior and the druid-like mage. Their expressions are calm as if they expected things to turn out this way. Something is wrong.' Sophia didn't know why, but the expressions on Will, Achilles and Lyra made her feel uncomfortable. Due to her grudge against Will, her attention had mostly been focused on him, allowing her to quickly notice how calm he and the other two were.

By this point, the entire Spectralian camp was together minus Lydia and Palmer, who were a few hundred meters away, focusing on Palmer's teleportation circle.

"Look ladies, I don't know why you have to be dicks about this. Whatever danger is coming will affect you too. So, don't you think it would benefit all of us if we worked together? I don't know about you, but I enjoy breathing. I'm sure you do too, no?" The fact that Will was picking his nose as he spoke made his plea seem incredibly insincere. It was at this point that the others also started to suspect that something was off about the Peerless Dao Master Trio.

'Why are Solitary and his friends so calm? Does he know something we do not?'

Even though Mercedes had been given control over the expedition, Peerless still held the reigns. Peerless definitely had been given more information by Hercules himself. So it would not be too surprising that his subordinates would know something.

This time, it was Lisa who replied, "There is no need to explain anything to people that are about to become a group of corpses soon." Lisa converted some of the metallic plates from her Valkyrie's Guard into platforms for the other ladies to climb onto. After they got on, the four ladies floated into the skies above. Natasha wanted to attack, but at the same time, she hesitated because she wanted to know what they were talking about. Anything that could cause a veteran Frozen Asgard maiden like Lisa was not a subject to be taken lightly.

Natasha was still hesitating on what to do when she heard Will's voice, "Natasha, there is no need to fight these wenches. We need to save our strength for the upcoming challenge."

"Brother Solitary, can you explain what you mean by this?" Gianluigi could not help but enquire. Any situation that made Natasha de Ligt hesitate was not to be made light of.

Unexpectedly, it was not Will's voice that everyone heard, but the voice of the distant Palmer.

"This isn't good. Lady Natasha, we have a problem!"

After shouting, Palmer placed a hand on Lydia and teleported himself to the others' position. He instantly arrived next to Natasha in a split second.

Alison's eyes narrowed as she marvelled at how quickly Palmer teleported. She was also a spatial mage well known for her teleportation skills, but when it came to speed, she paled to the dual space and light element Palmer.

"I can't draw the teleportation circle anymore."

Palmer's words were met with solemn expressions and Natasha signalled for him to explain himself with her eyes.

"I was just about to finish, but since the skeleton appeared, the Dragon Force caused the space around to destabilize. Not only that but since the scream earlier, the space around us has been experiencing an abnormal increase in negative energy. As you all know, the more polarized space is, the harder it is to cast any spell related to space. Space-type skills and magic need neutrality. This space is now so negative that the earlier calculations I did for the teleportation spell have become useless."

 Thanks to the knowledge he received from Wodin, Will had a much better understanding of the basics of magic and understood where Palmer was coming from. The Space element worked best when yin and yang were in harmony. If one energy was stronger than the other, the caster would need to put in more effort to cast the skill or spell.

Will was yin in terms of nature, this became worse after his body had gone through multiple transformations that made his nature more negative. This made it much more difficult for him to use any space-related skills and was the reason he refrained from using them often.

'Even though I have the Space Gate, unlocking it in the future is going to be quite the challenge.' Sighed Will as he thought about his future. 

"If the space maintained a consistent level of polarity I could just draw the circle from scratch to account for the change, but the negative energy concentration is increasing at an alarming rate. With my low level of skill, the combination of the Dragon Force, destabilized space and increased negative charge has made it impossible for me to act. It would not be an exaggeration that no one under level 100 can utilize complex space-related skills in such an environment."

Palmer sounded as if he was arrogant by saying these words, but he represented the peak of spatial element mastery under level 100 in Middle Worlds. He had the right to speak like this.

"The appearance of the skeleton is causing disturbances? Hhmm I can understand this because Fafnir was a yin-type beast." Chimed Lydia.

"It's not the dragon." Lyra's words caused the others to tilt their heads in confusion.

"Earlier when I cast Call of the Forest, I did resonate with Fafnir's corpse to a certain degree. Fafnir was a dragon of the Metal and water element, making it easier for me to resonate with his body. All of you should be aware of what Call of the Forest can do. Even right now, my awareness of our surroundings is at a high level.

This is why I can safely state that although the skeleton is the source of the Dragon Force, it is not the reason negative energy is increasing in concentration around us."

Call of the Forest not only allowed Lyra to harmonise with nature around him, it also allowed him to 'borrow' power from similarly natured creatures around him. Lyra had 'borrowed' the dense metal and water element energy that surrounded Fafnir's Corpse and used it to expand the effects of Call of the Forest. This required a powerful mind and was not an easy feat. No one knew this better than the other mages. Natasha, Lydia and Palmer could not help but look at Lyra in a new light.

'Does he also have the potential to become a prodigy? Just what kind of locals did Peerless produce?'

Everyone there remembered the sheer display of mental energy prowess that Peerless had displayed in the tournament. Parallel Casting, Elemental Conversion, Intent Manipulation, Divine Summoning, a Domain and large reserves of Mana. These were all signs of a savant-level mind. Locals were bred from the talents of their master. Thus, from the others' perspective, the talents of Lyra, Solitary, Achilles and Narcissus were a direct reflection of Peerless' own ability.

"After casting Call of the Forest, I noticed an oddity about these pendants. They emit some kind of energy I am unfamiliar with. All I can say is that this energy is potent and negative in nature. The pendants those four have are releasing much more energy than the pendants the diggers have."

Lyra's words shed some light on the situation. Although they did not clear up everything, they now had a direction to go in.

"If the Dragon isn't the source of the Yin energy, then what is?" Lydia's question was met with silence. Natasha looked up at her silent sisters. The scorn in Giselle's eyes was becoming more pronounced by the second.

'She really believes that we are approaching a calamity…Why were they digging like mortals. Could it be that using large-scale magic triggered some sort of trap?'

Natasha was unaware, but she was actually close to the truth. Even though they were in a safe zone, the area was not completely safe. Certain mechanisms were put in place to challenge those who dared to arrive there.

'Michael Bellingham has the advantage of being guided by Siegfried, who knows this dungeon inside and out, so it makes sense that his preparations are better than ours. Odysseus has limited knowledge of this dungeon despite his large amount of knowledge.

As the leader of our expedition, Peerless should be the most knowledgeable among us, but I obviously can't contact him directly and Mercedes does not know much. That means our best source of knowledge regarding the current situation is…'

Natasha did not have the time to continue her thoughts as Will's solemn voice gathered everyone's attention.

"It's the Banshees. They are coming."