Chapter 44: A Vajra

'HCF Urban Taskforce?'

"You really can't expect to try and get into that job, can you? It's ultra-competitive."

"Which is why I need to pass this exam. And it's competitive because their job is super cushy."

"It shouldn't be," Chen Lan said disdainfully," they should do more than just act like glorified police in Bubble Cities."

"They should be out in the slums responding to Monsters attacking civilian populations."

The boy rolled his eyes.

"Oh please, what's a slum rat or two worth? They die by the thousands thanks to the shit they eat every day."

"It's not about the people it's about the Monsters, one of the reasons we even have Bubble Cities collapsing is because the Urban Taskforce is too lazy and scared to go properly stomp them out before they become a problem."

Feng Biao frowned. Both the boy and Chen Lan didn't seem to really care about the denizens of the slums. Personally, he had never experienced discrimination for living in the slums simply because that was where he had spent most of his life. Who would call him a slum rat but another slum rat?

"Well I didn't ask for your life story," Feng Biao said to the boy who glared back at him.

"Just climb out of the hole and help us."

"Or?" the boy replied sarcastically.

"Or you can't stay on the mountain top," Chen Lan shot back.

"Oh and who exactly is gonna make? You two?"

Chen Lan stepped forward to answer him but the boy continued.

"Don't get me wrong, I'm sure both of you could beat me, normally that is."

"But if I use my Divine Ability the dirt will encase both you two. The pressure won't kill you, but the lack of air would."

"You're bluffing," Chen Lan said, "without the hose, you'll suffocate too."

The boy shook his head.

"I carry spare tanks of O2 around just in case the hose gets blocked, I'll figure something out in the meanwhile, but I'll wait till you both suffocate."

"Try it and I'll smash the coffin beneath my feet. You won't be able to plug up a hole that large. We all die then," Feng Biao said coldly.

"Sorry, I already activated it," the boy said grinning menacingly.

Before Feng Biao could react the dirt surrounding him shot forward like a magnet encasing him in a tomb of rock and soil.

A second later Feng Biao found himself squished at all sides by dirt. Some pointy rocks were stabbing at parts of his body, but he couldn't tell if they were lodged inside simply because of the immense pressure surrounding his entire body.

'I've felt something similar to this before...'

When Song Zhilan had crushed him with a boulder he remembered the sensation was very briefly something akin to this.

He had died then but brushed it off simply because in Feng Biao's mind true death only happened when one's soul completely left their body.

Yet here in the darkness under the earth, Feng Biao felt he might die. Not from the pressure this time, but from the lack of air.

Feng Biao struggled to infuse Divinity into his body and the more earth he shifted the more that fell to take its place.

Then he noticed as he shifted the earth in one area it became looser until his hands clasped another. They gripped firmly on his and eventually the person attached to them was able to shift themselves as closely as they could to him between the dirt.

Then Feng Biao felt the pressure surrounding him ease up tremendously. Unable to see why he could only feel a sensation. Best described as wet, cold, and hard as a rock.

'ice?'

He then felt the earth beneath his feet shift downward. After a while, the dirt gave way enough that Feng Biao could see the other person.

Evidently, Chen Lan had created this icy structure with a hole at the bottom.

"Stand back, the dirt should be falling where that hole in his coffin was."

Feng Biao struggled and pressed himself against the wall as he saw the dirt in between him and Chen Lan shift. She then raised her arm and pointed it at the hole. Evidently extending something from it.

"Nothing," she muttered.

"He's not there?" Feng Biao asked.

"No, I would have felt if my ice had made contact with something, but it's just dirt and rocks down there."

"Come one we're gonna run out of air, let's get out of here."

Using her Divine Ability Chen Lan shifted the ice above them until she managed to create a shaft back to the surface.

Feng Biao and her then grabbed onto some sculpted ledges and climbed out.

Back outside of the ground Chen Lan was the first to speak up.

"What was that about?" Chen Lan asked Feng Biao.

"I don't know I guess despite being a coward he was capable of evil."

"Not that," said shaking her head, "why didn't my ice hit him."

"Are you sure you aimed it in the right area?"

"Positive, he wasn't very far from us in the first place, I could feel myself standing on the metal while we were buried."

"But it seemed like at some point it just went and disappeared..."

"He lied," Feng Biao quipped.

"About his Divine Ability?"

"Well maybe not exactly lie, he never really explained it in the first place.

"What do you think it does?"

"He must be able to move using that coffin, under the ground. I never saw him take anything big enough to carry that in the first place, so it's safe to say it's involved in his Divine Ability."

"What should we do?"

"I think I know where he is," Feng Biao said while he stared at the ground.

"Where?"

"Hold on I'm gonna try something."

'This could be good practice.'

"[Vajra]"

A giant intricate two-pronged golden spear appeared in Feng Biao's hands. It was taller than he was. It would have looked majestic if not for the fact it had cracks running all over it.

Indeed while it was golden it was not bright golden, but instead a dirty brown golden as if it had been left out to weather the elements by itself.