Chapter 39: Stepping out of Underground

They took long, hurried footsteps forward. Laziel and Nyra followed behind Cassias, half-running. They had a lot of trust in him. Because in such a dark area, his mental power was absolutely useful in detecting incoming danger. 

After a while, they heard the ground shake again.

"Walk faster." Cassias warned all of a sudden. At this point, they were already running.

As soon as they passed a certain area, a deep, deafening rumble then caught their attention. When they looked back, their hearts couldn't help but almost jump out of their chest.

The path they just went through was obstructed by rocks and soil. Completely blocked. Had they been one step late, they would have been buried alive.

They all fell silent, thanking their narrow escape.

The shaking ground had receded again. Laziel was the first one to break the complete stillness.

"Oh, damn." Laziel swallowed, his eyes full of fear. He clutched Nyra's hand tighter. "Should we walk faster to avoid more earthfall or earth collapse? Whatever it is called."

He turned to Cassias for his opinion.

Clutching the oblivious Zerra tighter to his chest, Cassias nodded. "Let's go. Always follow me."

They walked for another hour, not once did they stop. Every time the ground shook again, Laziel and Nyra would always turn to Cassias, their eyes full of alarm and vigilance.

Even if their feet were already tired, they forced themselves to go on. They needed to clutch on their dear lives.

Gradually, the frequency of what seemed to be an earthquake subsided. They met some people, and they were also in a hurry to escape.

"Are you sure this is the correct path?" They heard one of them asking. A group of five people; three soldiers in camouflage uniforms and two ability users. "If we take the wrong one, it might cost our lives."

Cassias put his flashlight back into his space. Laziel was quick to react. He asked in a clear voice, "Hello, are there people there?"

Everything became quiet.

Then a masculine voice answered after a while. "... are you human?"

"Can a zombie speak?" Laziel retorted.

"Zombies can't speak. He must be a human," someone said, while letting out a sigh of relief. "As long as it's not those cursed things again."

Nyra lit up the fire in her hand, and she approached them. Cassias and Laziel followed from behind. Cassias already knew the identities of the people nearby, but Laziel and Nyra hadn't.

"You are a fire ability user?" It was a rhetorical question. "That's a good thing."

"Any ability user on your side?" Cassias opened his mouth. He stopped Laziel, who was about to say something. 

At first, Laziel didn't understand Cassias' intention to stop him. Then his brain, which was as slow as Zerra, recognized his intention. 

He didn't want them to reveal too many trump cards in case those people hid malicious intentions. He secretly took a note of this in his heart.

"We have wind and earth ability users on our side," one of the ability users answered. There was a tinge of pride in his exhausted voice. No wonder that they managed to go this far. They had an earth ability user.

"The more people we have, the greater our chance of survival to figure out this place. How about we join hands?" Under the flickering light from the fire in Nyra's hand, he scrutinized the people in front of them and offered.

Nyra narrowed her eyes. 

"This lady has fire ability and our friend, Oliver, has earth ability. It's a perfect combination." The man added in order to convince them.

Seeing that they still didn't answer, one soldier stepped forward. "Miss Nyra, I am a soldier under Major General Valez. We have been trying to find Mr. Valez for a while now."

The Major General he was talking about wasn't Darren, but his second brother who was in the army, Theron Valez. 

Nyra's eyes flickered with surprise. "You know me? And you mean Darren also fell here?"

"Yes, I recognized your face when you went to find Mr. Valez, Miss Nyra." The soldier nodded. "He fell down with us, then we got separated when zombies attacked. There was an earthquake. The collapsing earth blocked the way. We are sure Mr. Valez is also looking for his way out right now."

Cassias questioned him. "How do you know Darren is still alive?"

It was the soldier beside him who spoke. "I saw that one of our comrades had thankfully pulled Mr. Valez out of the way when he sensed that the ceiling was about to collapse."

The three of them glanced at each other. 

"Miss Nyra can help to light the way and Oliver can help us avoid any possible collapsing ceiling," they added.

"That's not a bad idea." Cassias nodded. Nyra also told them, "we agree."

The eight of them walked together. Along the way, just like their previous journey, some zombies or mutated animals still occasionally show up. They were easily solved by the group.

Cassias and others, however, could tell that the five people were starving. After falling down to the tunnel-like space below, they had nothing to eat because none of them possessed space ability.

The three of them didn't eat either, not willing to reveal their secrets yet.

After a few hours of walking, they found more and more people. Some were badly injured, like they were on their last breath.

"Let's carry the injured ones." They decided. Those who were still strong enough carried people on their back. There were three severely injured people.

Every time they passed an unmoving body, someone always carefully went to check. The result was, most of those people were already dead. They had passed by five corpses in total.

Each announcement of another dead body weighed down in their hearts. A few died of exhaustion, others because of severe wounds, and there was also someone who had gotten half their upper body buried. 

This place, which seemed like it had no way out, brought them despair. They hadn't found a way out after so long. Maybe their fate would be similar to those corpses…?

They also could soon die of starvation.

"Look, there is some light there." someone excitedly told them. 

They all, whose number now had gone up to eleven and three unconscious ones, turned their heads in the direction pointed by the person.

"That's some blinding light there," another commented with an expectant tone in her voice.

"It looks like it's already daytime." 

"Let's go."

They all went in the direction of the light with hurried footsteps. Cassias and others stayed behind.

"Do you find anything strange, Cassias?" Nyra questioned him in a low voice.

Cassias frowned. "Just make sure to be as alert as possible in case something happens…"

Just as he finished saying that, they arrived at the opening. It looked like the end of a tunnel. But… they gazed at their surroundings. This place appeared like another deep hole in the earth. 

The diameter of the hole was around a few meters, while the height to reach the edge above was approximately four meters. The people were busy observing the surroundings, looking for a way out. They thought they could finally escape.

Then they heard a scream. 

"Here, some dead people." The soldier, who was the first person to speak with Nyra earlier, threw the person he carried to some kind of hole at the center and stepped away quickly.

Something terrifying happened. The body was caught by something like tendrils. Then they wrapped themselves all over him. In a blink of an eye, the body became like a dried corpse.

The scream was coming from other people who found themselves caught by the tendrils. What happened to the dried corpse had scared them so much.

"You! What are you all doing, you bastard?!"

"Are you betraying us? Selling us to those cursed things?!"

Those tendrils also wrap themselves around Cassias and the Sylvaris siblings. Even as far as targeting the unconscious Zerra…