Chapter 88: First trial 2

The moon still hung brightly in the sky, illuminating through the holes that bore through the dilapidated building Sia and the others stood.

It had been a six hours since they found this place, and like explained at the beginning of the trial, the positions of all teams were showcased every hour.

This place wasn’t that far from the location where they had spawned, so their position barely changed on the map.

Sia and Damon had in the end followed after the savvy guy and his crew. They had already projected a facade of weakness, so they had to keep it up. After all, it wouldn’t do for the two ’weakest’ duo in the team to be the ones shouting orders.

Both Dpress and his friends were Theta- ranked aetherials much like Sia, with only Damon being the one at the Eta rank.

The plan Dpress had proposed was to relax, and let the other team exhaust themselves/ do the hard work of eliminating the required ten teams. To their despondence however, none of the other dots also seemed to be moving. It seemed all the other teams were also thinking the same thing.

Sia shot a glance at the two Damons sitting crosslegged on the ground, and another standing not far behind them.

It would also seemed like Damon had taken the relaxing part far too well. The minute the plan was finalized, he made two reflections, or duplicates, as he called them in front of Dpress and the others.

He thought along the lines of; Since time moved twenty- eight times faster here than in the outside world, if he could channel here, he could completely cut down the time needed to advance to the Eta+ rank.

Unlike the initial two to three weeks he estimated under the time flow of the outside world. If he could channel for a week here, only six hours would have passed outside.

The chance was just way too good to pass. He didn’t care about the weird looks the others were sending him, and he also didn’t care about them trying to replicate his technique. If they wanted to die that badly, they were welcome to try.

The last reflection meanwhile stood guard behind the two. That was because in the channeling state, while Damon’s mind wasn’t completely out of awareness of the outside world, the awareness he had wasn’t good either.

And to be honest, he didn’t even trust Sia, talk less of the other three. While he was somewhat sure that Sia wouldn’t attack or try to kill him, he knew she was wildly unpredictable. Which was why the moment anyone tried nonsense, the reflection standing guard would instantly initiate a swap between the main body, and another reflection outside of the Immemorial Deadlands.

Of course he was completely wrong about Sia though. Even though she also looked curious about what his reflection sitting behind him was doing, she didn’t deign to ask. Everyone had their secrets. Damon had his, and she had hers.

Slowly but surely, time began to trickle by, though, the moon in the sky still hung unchanged. A whole twenty six cycles of the map being projected had passed. This meant that over twenty four hours, that is, a day had passed. But none of the teams still seemed to be moving.

Damon only interrupted his channeling when his aether was exhausted, but the moment he recovered, he would get back at it.

On the twenty– seventh cycle however, something different happened. Apart from the projected map that was consistently showing the same thing, the voice of the translucent man also echoed.

“Sigh, It seems old age might be catching up to even this will.” The voice said. “How could I have forgotten to mention that the more teams a team eliminates, the more advantages that team will have in the second trial.” The voice continued in a dramatic tone.

It was crystal clear to anyone listening that this was bait. They all knew that It was meant to make them stop being idle, but no one wanted to risk it. What if they stayed stagnant, and let other teams do the hard work, but then fell into a disadvantage during the next trial?

There might be a chance that the unscrupulous remnant will just wanted to see bloodshed, but could they take such a chance? Surely not.

Damon’s main body slowly opened his eyes the moment the voice faded. Sia also got up from her resting position, and so did the others.

“You all heard the voice, we’ll have to get proactive.” Dpress said.

“If that is the case then, I propose we go south, that’s where the team closest to us is.” Sia suggested.

“I second that.” Nina nodded. “We should get to them before the map shows up again, this would be the best window we’ll have.”

“Well you heard the ladies, boys.” Dpress chuckled. “Let’s go.” he took the lead, with Nina and Greg following right behind him.

With only Sia and Damon left behind, the two also shared a glance, before they followed, or at least one of the Damon’s followed.

The team moved at high speeds, covering dozens of kilometers in mere minutes. At first they were moving slower, but then they realized that the pocket dimension was larger than they initially thought, and if they wanted to reach the other team before they moved, or worse, reach the same conclusion as they did, the element of surprise would cease to exist.

Damon meanwhile got lost in thoughts while looking at Anastasia. Her movement art was somewhat weird in the saying. Instead of running, she seemed to be gliding, like there was no friction beneath her feet whatsoever. Even when they had raced to the tomb earlier, it was the same.

The Necron empire wasn’t explored that much in the novel, unlike the other empires whose Scions were part of the main casts but even though, the part of Damon that grew up in this world certainly knew the movement technique used by the Necron royal family. Which was why he was absolutely sure that whatever Anastasia was using wasn’t it.

’Meh, not my problem.’ he thought.

He then looked over to the other three. Rank gave them an advantage in speed over him, but he had the advantage in technique. With mirage steps, he was able to keep up just fine. Of course it might just be that they weren’t running at full speed, but it didn’t matter anyway.

They continued streaking through the apocalyptic city for a while, before they locked eyes with another team sprinting towards them.

’Aha, I knew there was a chance the other team would also think of coming to us first.’ Damon thought as his trusty sword appeared in his hand. The others also did the same, all summoning their weapons.

A longsword materialized in Sia’s hand as usual, while Dpress summoned a dagger. The blond summoned gauntlets, which Damon thought was quite fitting for her ability, and lastly, the stocky guy summoned a war axe, quite typical for a berserker.

Soon, just as the two teams were only around ten meters away from each other, they stopped, assessing each other.

Unlike the youngsters in Damon’s team who ranged from eighteen to twenty-four at the very least, the other team looked quite old school.

The supposed leader who stood at the front was some middle aged man who looked like a thug, and was radiating a Theta ranked aura. The rest of the team were also all middle aged, hell one was even a grey haired emaciated old man.

“Kids, if you know what is good for you, quickly forfeit this trial.” The man at the front shouted with a dark smile.

“What do you take us for, fools? When was it said that we could forfeit this trial?” Dpress asked.

“Or is it that you all are deaf?” Damon added.

“Oh, so you don’t want to forfeit then.” The man’s smile grew darker. “Since that is the case, we don’t mind seeing you boys off, after which we would have some fun with these ladies, hahahahaha.” The man and his entire team burst into laughter.

Nina frowned, while Sia maintained her amused smirk.

’Ah, so they’re a bunch of degenerates.’ Damon thought. ’Well then I’ll make sure to enjoy their their dying screams.’

“Kill them all!” Shouted the original thug as he bolted to his team, before bolting towards Dpress. He assumed Dpress was the leader, which naturally meant he was the strongest, so if he took him out, the rest would be easy prey.

Dpress didn’t move a muscle, even as the man reached him. But something wrong happened. The man suddenly froze as his eyes came into contact with Dpress’. He stood still for a second…. no half a second, but even that was more than enough for Dpress’ dagger to pierce through his throat.

He was dead just like that.

Damon stared gobsmacked.

“I’ll be damned.”

************

Sorry for the late update everyone, I was having network issues.

Thanks for the support everyone. There are now five privilege advanced Chapters on webnovel. So if you want to read ahead, you’re welcome.

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