Chapter 32
Wave after wave battered into Phony. The only opportunity for rest came when the clan members had to climb over one another. She refrained from using her Mana due to the penalty she still had and the fact that she could still use the narrow to her advantage.
Having already spent quite a bit of her mana to burrow out these tunnels with an overcharged Mana Arrow. Her Arrow didn’t pack the greatest punch when compared to all other abilities out there, but when these creatures lined up for her, they were quite serviceable. Not being able to see in the dark tunnels meant that she had to touch both walls next to her to orient herself in the proper direction.
Through her tunneling with the same skill she had found that it could burrow dozens of feet with under thirty mana. With her now firing off an overcharged arrow with up to 80 mana at a time, she would burn through that in no time. Yet she still had to save plenty for her mana shield if they had to make the long run to the mountain.
Options dwindling, she called behind, “You think we should bail?”
Dozel called out, “Not yet. How much longer can you hold? You wanna switch?”
Phony shook her head before remembering that Dozel couldn’t see her. “Nah, but shake that bastard awake.”
“I’ve tried it all,” Dozel replied.
Phony shot back between a bright flash of her arrow and a hasty retreat. “Throw water in his face?”
“My canteen was left by the other supplies.” Dozel shot back.
“Piss on him then. Just get his ass up, or we are bailing.” Phony yelled.
Dozel considered Phony’s words seriously for a moment before she felt a jolt go through Wes’s body. Calling out, “Wes, can you hear me?”
Nothing came back for a few seconds, so she called out again and pinched his upper thigh.
That did the trick, Wes yelped and began kicking in all directions. “Holy hell, don’t do that.”
Phony heard Wes’s voice and immediately ordered, “Now or never, Wes. Can you do this?”
Dozel dropped Wes to the ground and took off down the opposite side of the tunnel. “I’m going to scout ahead and make sure we are still good.”
“Alright, make sure you stay in contact,” Wes yelled after her.
“We’ll do.”
Wes was still groggy from whatever he had just gone through. His cue to get up came with another blast of blue light. Making out Phony’s shadow for a second before the light died. He stood up gingerly, his head throbbing. “What’s the situation?”
“Been getting bombarded by the small ones for a couple of hours now after you wanted to take your little nap.” The strain in Phony’s voice came through.
“I am going to run after Dozel. Can you hold them off till I meet up with her?”
“What the hell would you do if I couldn’t. Go!” Phony yelled.
Wes took off on unsteady feet, running as fast as he could in the pitch black. Wes wondered if the girls had led them down the wrong tunnel after over ten minutes of running.
After another couple of minutes of running, he heard Dozel huffing along with her, scraping her hands on the dirt. “Dozel? We almost ready?”
Her breathing ragged, “I think so, but not sure.”
As Wes got closer, he could feel the debris under his feet. Rock and soil made it hard to walk. He took to a crawl before he tried to use Party Chat to call back to Phony. Realizing nothing was happening, he brought up his status. Finding nothing wrong aside from his savings account, he closed it and tried to call Dozel through it. But nothing happened. Not hearing a reply back, he asked. “Hey Dozel, you can’t hear me through Party Chat?”
“No.”
Wes brought up his status again.
Name: Wesley of 29744C
Race: Human
Age: 27
Unique Abilities: Imperial Over Metric, Back In My Day
Abilities: Deposit, Eternal Spark, Cleanse, Stopwatch,
Vigilant, Deviant, Symbiosis, H20,
Party Chat, Topographer, Superscription
Skills: N/A
Achievement(s): Bloody Soul, Pragmatic Savant,
Pacifists Envy
Trait(s): 3
Current Status: Healthy
Level 10
Savings: 1,457,452
Next Level: 20,736
Level 10 Exp Per Sec: .024
Current Exp: 789.9
Maybe I messed it up with my last level. Is that even possible? No, maybe. . .
Wes activated Party Chat again. As he watched his accrued experience vanish, he called out. “Phony, can you hear me?”
Support the creativity of authors by visiting Royal Road for this novel and more.
Her call back was immediate. “Is it time?”
“Hurry.”
Wes kept going until he reached Dozel. “She’s on the way.”
The dirt and rock around Wes rumbled; he instinctively put his arm to brace himself and could feel reverberations roll through the walls.
Wes started to hear Dozel going into a frenzy, debris and rock started to fly everywhere. Not knowing what was happening, he walked closer while tracing his hand along the wall. When the wall was no longer there, he called out. He whispered, “Dozel?”
A hand grabbed him and dragged him into the hole. Wes yelled in shock. Dozel yelled, “Now!
Before Wes could react, a blue beam rocketed across the entrance to the hole Dozel had just dug, mere feet from them. One after another, they came. Dozel held on to Wes tight, not letting him go as the beams of Mana raced within feet of them. Phony’s figure became visible as she passed, and she kept firing. For everyone she fired toward their hope of exit, she would turn around and fire two more.
“Now, Wes!” Phony shouted.
“But I can’t do it with you here,” Wes answered.
“Don’t have a fucking choice, hurry.”
Dozel whispered in his ear. “I will make sure nothing happens to any of us. Trust me.”
After whispering into Wes’s ear, she allowed her grip around his waist and shoulder to be released.
Phony remained firing nonstop, now mostly directing the beams backward. Wes grabbed Dozel's hand and pulled her forward to the main tunnel. “I will try and release everything in front of me. But run if you have to.”
Wes crouched in front of Phony's outstretched arm that was firing off beams. He could feel the energy pushing his hair. He could see the dozens of clan members eating the beam's head on. Their determination never waning sent chills down Wes’s spine.
“Now!” Wes Yelled.
Phony stopped firing her outstretched hand and slammed the same hand down on Wes’s right ankle. Dozel took his other ankle.
Wes activated H20 while the girls yanked him off his feet and started to drag him down the tunnel. Wes let the water run at the minimum capacity he could manage, wanting to see if the girls could manage. Finding that they were partially right about his ability, he increased the amount of experience he was dumping into it.
The water exploded out of him. And with Wes currently getting dragged, some of it went rocketing up his nostrils. That, combined with the slight downward angle of the tunnel, meant most of it had to rush past his head.
Phony called out over Party Chat, “More. They are gaining.”
Both Phony and Dozel’s grip strengthened. Wes felt a bone in his ankle pop, but he listened to the woman still firing off her Mana arrows, creating their escape.
Increasing his drain to 100 experience per second. Wes watched his savings dwindle away. Phony confirmed it was working. So Wes pushed a little more. Going to 200 experience a second. The girl's grip on his ankles started to be pushed back by the pressure of the water being exerted around his ankles, but they did not warn him to back off, so he kept adding more and more until he was all the way up to five hundred experiences a second. Almost out of breath, he felt he had to stop, but also knew he had to keep pushing.
Thankfully, Phony called back just before he reached the point of blacking out. “Surface up ahead. Stop, now we are going to make a run for it.”
Wes canceled his ability, as they were just breaking the surface. Phony threw him forward away from the mouth of their exit tunnel and started firing Mana Arrows down the tunnel, over and over again, just as she had. Dozel had already disappeared. No doubt, running the perimeter. Wes checked his status.
Name: Wesley of 29744C
Race: Human
Age: 27
Unique Abilities: Imperial Over Metric, Back In My Day
Abilities: Deposit, Eternal Spark, Cleanse, Stopwatch,
Vigilant, Deviant, Symbiosis, H20,
Party Chat, Topographer, Superscription
Skills: N/A
Achievement(s): Bloody Soul, Pragmatic Savant,
Pacifists Envy
Trait(s): 3
Current Status: Healthy
Level 10
Savings: 1,167,266
Next Level: 20,736
Level 10 Exp Per Sec: .024
Current Exp: .264
Sighing internally, Wes felt his anger boil over. He got up and walked over to where Phony was firing her Mana arrows one after the other. “My turn”
Phony gave him a sideways, incredulous glance before ignoring him. Wes' anger exploded. “Move out of the fucking way now!”
Wes did not wait for a reaction this time. He activated the ability he had been holding off on for far too long. Wes held his hand out just as Phony had been gently nudged out of the way by his shoulder and cast Eternal Spark for the first time.
***
Runar tracked the young ones from the second Wesley collapsed until the moment they came flooding out of the surface. Other than Phony showing the strength of their bloodline, the other two were little more than dead weight to his eyes. With thousands of clan members still alive down in the tunnels, he would have to intervene soon. Sure, some would drown, but most would survive.
That had been what he thought until Wesley stood up and walked over to the mouth of the tunnel. Using his keen eyes, he traced the path of Wes's ability all throughout the tunnel. Arcing from one to the next, not missing a single one. In Runar’s eyes, the energy resembled a spiderweb when it had reached the cavern of their hideout many miles back. After it reached the cave, it died, into nothing. Runar was a little disappointed until the energy came to life again. This time, the surge of energy was so great that it exploded through the chamber in an instant. Almost every single clan member in the tunnels disintegrated into little more than hunks of flesh. The more resilient among them squirmed in agonizing pain as they were cooked alive in the now boiling water.
Elders started popping in around him one at a time. Even Elders from other planets came to check in and make sure everything was okay. The energy coursing through this grid in their prized planet had alerted them all.
The Eldest questioned Runar again. “You think we should step in? The boy ruins the balance.”
“Tyberous, do not question my judgment. Be gone, everything is as I will it.”
Tyberous squinted in challenge. “I will report this to the Matriarch.”
Runar flicked his fingers, motioning for him to go away.
As nine elders around him left one by one, he watched as the boy below looked at his hand and walked off, as if nothing had happened.
***
Wes stood in satisfaction as the experience came rolling in. His arm was a little more than jerky right now, but that had already begun to heal. He didn’t know how everyone else felt when they received experience, but Wes couldn’t help but bask in the ecstasy of it. Opening his status, Wes began to laugh like a madman. He cast Symbiosis just before two more large waves of experience came racing in.
Phony gasped as she felt the surge rush into her. Dozel shot from the tree line and looked at Wes in awe.
A wide grin was splayed across his face as he canceled Symbiosis.
“That would make us even right, Phony?”
Nodding yes, Phony meekly said, “And then some.”
Looking over to Dozel, he asked, “And you. Do you forgive me now?”
“I can’t be bought, Wesley,” Dozel replied.
Wes held up his hands, “No, not bought. More liked bribed.”
Dozel looked from her status to Wes, “I guess that will be agreeable, but only this one time.”
Wes bellowed out, “Fantastic.” As he fell back on his butt.
Adding, “Don’t suppose any of you have any food?”
