'You gotta be kidding me'
A new wave of stress hit me as I realized what had happened. I understood why the worms weren't attacking me.
'They are fleeing.'
No matter how monstrous the sandworms were, they were still animals. And animals subject to the same laws of nature as everyone else—the food chain.
And at that moment all of us, including them, were prey to a much larger predator.
[Auto Taunt has successfully managed to call the attention of The Ruler of Vulkris]
The Ruler of Vulkris. That thing—whatever it was—able to scare away sandworms as if they were cockroaches, had now set its sights on me.
I clicked my tongue, more out of desperation than anger. I was used to things going wrong, but this was next level, even for my luck.
'Fuck that, I need to go back first'
I had to go back for Livia first; she wouldn't survive on her own. I didn't have much time, but I wasn't well either; my head was starting to spin, and my eyesight was beginning to fail.
I raised my hand and repeated the Sigil's incantation with the proper gesture to burn away the dizziness and nausea I was feeling. I decided to let the pain stay since it was the only thing that was keeping me from drifting into the void
The problem was the air; I couldn't burn whatever it was that was making it so hard to breathe, and I couldn't lift the books either.
I had managed to get them up with me onto the makeshift natural platform made of rubble, but once the sandworms passed and started creating tunnels, pieces of rock and black stone kept falling over me from the ceiling.
I had to block them with the shield and throw them away so they wouldn't crush me. To make matters worse, they seemed to fall every time I tried to pick up the books.
[Your Adversity rejoices]
"FUCK YO—"
COUGH!
Before I could finish cursing my bad luck, I started retching up a black, frothy bile that crashed against the stone. I fell to my knees and held out my hands to steady myself. I tried to stop the shaking, but my hands wouldn't move.
At the same time, I noticed that the magma levels were beginning to rise.
The tremors that had been shaking the cave changed and felt more like earthquakes. The tunnels formed by the escaping worms began to crack and collapse as the floor broke apart.
At one point, the concept of walls ceased to exist, when the cracks in the ground became so large that they began to turn into ravines leading to what seemed like hell itself.
I turned my gaze behind me. The path I had come by was far gone, completely flooded with magma, and the platform where I stood began to lurch as the ground opened up further.
Something extremely heavy fell on my back; the impact was so strong that it made me collapse right there and made the platform almost fall completely to the magma pool.
I tried to get up, but the weight on my back was too much. I couldn't even raise my hands to cast another spell. Not even the Sigil.
[The Goddess Who Enjoys Battles has started to watch you again]
The pain had become unbearable, and what once kept me conscious had now become torture.
'Stop…'
[Your Adversity rejoices]
Another piece of wall, or maybe ceiling—I wasn't sure at the time—fell to the side of the platform I was on, and as it hit the lava, small drops fell on my face and hands.
I screamed. Not really, no.
The drops of lava that had splashed me hurt less than speaking through my throat, which I wasn't even sure was working anymore.
'Stop… please…'
[The Goddess Who Enjoys Battles has sent you a private message. Would you like to read it Y/N]
I heard a sound, or so I thought. I wasn't sure because of the surrounding noise. But I did see the notification. I couldn't move my hand to even press the button on the blue screen that had appeared in front of me.
'...'
I couldn't think much more either; all my body could do was try to breathe the little air that came in, enduring the pain that even doing that produced.
[You are being affected by UNDETERMINED]
[UNDETERMINED has forcefully stopped the effect of your flaw: Auto Taunt]
For a moment, I think I stopped being myself, perhaps instinctively. As if something or someone were pushing my body beyond its limits.
I moved my index finger and tapped the notification. I pressed 'Yes'.
[Hold on a little longer, warrior]
I looked at the message, I wasn't sure what I was expecting.
But for some reason it didn't stir anything in me; in fact, I didn't really feel anything at all. There was no pain, no sadness, no despair. There was nothing. As if I had detached myself from my own body, yet still inside it.
'The Gods are all the same after all'
A familiar thought, which felt more like a mantra I had repeated my whole life, appeared at the same time as I raised my head and noticed another piece of rock ceiling falling in slow motion towards the magma that was in front of me and the platform.
Anger at the situation I was in, anger at adversity, anger at the gods, anger at the witches, anger at myself.
A cynical thought, strangely familiar yet alien, formed in my mind. A thought that only fueled the anger I felt.
'Tch, seriously, are they just going to let the boy die here? What a shitty family, huh?'
At the moment when the rock was millimeters away from hitting the lava and splashing back at me, I spoke.
"Fuck it, I'll do it myself."
When drops of magma splashed toward my face again, I stretched out my fingers. This time, with a strength that wasn't entirely my own, I managed to scrape out a few words.
"[Clawchaé]"
Just like before, I cast the spell as a third star rank. The veins in my forearms and hands lit up for a second. The purple lines that appeared and instead of entangling around my fingers, curved forward.
The threads pierced the magma drops and broke them as if they were alive, shielding me at the last second. The way they moved felt alien; I didn't think I could control the spell that well. At least not yet.
I watched as, after a few seconds, the threads broke and vanished into purple ash. Not a single drop of magma touched me.
It was a tiny act, perhaps insignificant, perhaps not even mine. There was no guarantee that it would have changed anything, but it did.
I wasn't aware of it at the time, because I didn't really feel anything, but the weight on my back disappeared and the platform stopped wobbling, remaining firm and stable.
[The Goddess Who Dislikes Gods is looking at you]
"I got you"
When I heard the voice and saw how the red glare softened into a brilliant white, I smiled. I didn't know why. I just had one last thought before my senses fully returned, and the anger disappeared.
'I guess not all of them are bad'
[You are not longer being affected by UNDETERMINED]
[Your Adversity is being pushed back by an Immortal Flame]
When my senses fully returned, the huge pain came back for a second, just to be completely overshadowed by a comforting and warm feeling.
She lifted me up, and little by little my body began to heal. My vision became clear again, and I could breathe in a rush. I gasped for breath as I clung to her.
"W-where… w-were you, Milaine?" I croaked
"Don't talk. Hold on tight, we are getting out of here."
The blonde—her hair now fully platinum and glowing beautifully—looked up. I followed her gaze, and found the ceiling was open. The red sky was there, half covered with black but not just from the clouds but millions of black dots that travelled across it.
'What?'
Just when Milaine was about to jump, I stopped her.
"W-WAIT!"
She was taken aback, flinched a bit, then raised an eyebrow at me.
"P-put me down for a second"
She did.
As I quickly picked up the books and the torn piece of tablecloth that had fallen out of my pocket, she didn't say anything.
In fact she didn't move even though the platform was still sinking and the cave was falling apart. She just waited with her arms crossed for me.
"Done" I said
She nodded and picked me up in her arms. She took a huge leap and we managed to get out of the cave directly through the ceiling.
The first thing I saw upon reaching the surface was—chaos.
The black desert had broken into different parts, and the land had split in multiple places, as if it had divided into islands.
The beetles that had attacked us before we reached the cave were going underground, while others remained completely still in a kind of defensive position.
I could see in the distance how sandworms, much larger than the first one I saw, came out from under the ground, as if they were jumping before hiding again.
In the sky, the black dots I saw before became more distinct; they looked like birds, but too big, and the only thing that was birdlike was their wings.
Every one of them was heading in the opposite direction from the volcano. When I saw the volcano, I noticed how it seemed to be trembling, as if something were about to burst.
It was different from the eruption a few days ago; it seemed more like a glass container about to shatter.
"LEO!"
The second thing I noticed was Livia running towards us; she looked much better than when I left her. She took my hand and Milaine's arm while crying.
[The God Who Would Do Anything for Money has started to watch you]
[The Goddess Who Doesn't Believe in Friendship has started to watch you again]
[The Goddess Who Doesn't Believe in Friendship would like to send you a private message. Do you accept Y/N]
I pressed 'Yes'
[Sorry for the trouble, little one haha. Don't worry, we've decided to fully support you now.]
'Trouble?'
Before I could fully understand the message Milaine slowly lowered me to the ground and stared at a point in the sky, frowning. When I followed her gaze, I saw a familiar figure.
It was a woman made entirely of black stone, her hair a cascade of dripping lava . It was Fuel—the moderator. She was watching us.
Milaine spoke first, without taking her eyes off the moderator.
"We ran out of time. They're going to wake him up now. They've given up on this channel and they want to erase us. "
Then she looked at us and pointed the fragment of a worm's tooth toward what appeared to be a sandstorm in the distance.
"Don't separate, let's go."
***