"Zoe… why is your katana still floating?"
"I don't know; all my armor shut down, even its weight reduction, but the suspension system is still working perfectly."
Zoe replied, somewhat intrigued, as she looked at her hip, then glanced over her shoulder to her back, where she saw the handsome, starry-haired young man straighten his posture before placing his machetes at his waist. They also floated steadily, without the slightest fluctuation. At that moment, the young man gave an order, his tone visibly curious.
"Kaiser and Tiberius, stay alert."
With Erik's command, the pair of wolves—each nearly two meters tall—took up positions on opposite sides and extended their mana to detect anything approaching. The girls, equally curious, lowered their guard and turned to look at the young man.
"Why do you think it's still working, Erik?"
Elara asked, her tone curious with a hint of apprehension, as she searched for anything on her own armor that might still be functioning, but with no luck. At that moment, Erik responded thoughtfully, his right hand on his chin as he alternated his gaze between Zoe's waist and his own, more specifically at their floating weapons.
"I don't know… that suspension system is one of the easiest things to make and pretty much one of the first things you learn in artificery. But at the same time, because it has endless applications—not just in combat but also in industry, commerce, and daily life—it's something that's been improved and simplified over millions of years, and it's believed to have reached perfection.
"So, it comes down to one of three possibilities: First, it's true that the system is perfect and flawless, which means that even those golden chains, capable of completely deactivating Master-level Artifacts, were unable to make it fail. Second, it's so simple that it wasn't even detected as something to attack. Or third, it was deliberately left untouched."
"Does it matter whether it was deliberate or just overlooked?" At Erik's explanation, Zoe asked with a serious tone, prompting Elara to nod and reply just as seriously.
"It's very important. If it was simply overlooked, that means whatever caused this has flaws—flaws we might be able to understand, take advantage of, and even exploit for our benefit. That could help us recover our magical artifacts, or at least some of them, attack others, or find a way to get out of here.
"But if it was deliberate, then there's an intention, a plan, an objective, which could be either good or bad for us. In that case, we need to focus all our efforts on figuring it out because there could even be active manipulation that might change the rules of the game at any moment."
"I understand. But is there any way for us to know for sure which scenario we're in?"
Hearing the explanation, Zoe nodded in understanding, and immediately after, she asked in a serious tone, looking at the starry-haired boy, who seemed completely lost in thought—but even so, he managed to reply in a slightly dreamy voice.
"None. And without my tools, studying our artifacts in detail isn't really possible, which pretty much rules out any chance of getting real certainty..."
"What are you thinking about, Erik…?"
Seeing Erik so deep in thought, Elara couldn't help but ask, a bit curious, which made the starry-haired boy shake his head slightly, then look at her and respond calmly.
"I was just recalling something I read about a scenario that's somewhat similar to this one, to get an idea of what we might be facing. Although honestly, I hope we don't end up going through the same thing."
"What kind of scenario?"
Zoe asked, looking at Erik with curiosity. He quickly explained while shifting his leather coat into different positions, trying to adapt to it, since now, it weighed a couple of tons and prevented him from moving properly.
"To sum it up: During an exploration of some ancient ruins, carried out by sixteen Master-levels and at least a hundred Arcane-levels around 127,000 years ago, it happened that as soon as the last member of the team entered, the interior space was completely sealed off, which basically rendered any spatial magical artifact below Master-level useless.
"But the most terrifying part is this—the truly terrifying thing is that after they came out, they realized that not only had the space been sealed. While they spent four years inside the ruins, outside only a bit more than four months had passed, and no one, not even the Legendary-levels present, noticed anything strange had happened."
""Temporal dilation…""
Upon hearing Erik, Elara, and Zoe couldn't help but exclaim at the same time, a slight tremor in their voices, sharing the same thought as the starry-haired boy. They silently prayed with all their might that this wasn't actually happening. Just being without their armors and storage rings for six months would already be deadly enough that they couldn't be sure everyone would make it out alive—if that turned into six years, they didn't even want to imagine it.
"Well, there's no point in focusing on that, since we won't know for sure unless six months go by. So, let's focus on what's important. Since no one has come this whole time, we can assume it wasn't a direct attack, and it's possible the other participants are in a similar situation. That means our priority now is to secure water, food, and shelter.
"We're going to be here for a long time, and we need to prepare as quickly as possible. Our bodies need huge amounts of nutrients to function properly, and if we don't manage to find a proper and abundant food source, we'll starve to death in less than a week."
As the girls looked at each other in silent panic, Erik commented in a calm tone, finally leaving his coat alone—after all, no matter how he moved it, it was still incredibly uncomfortable to have several tons weighing on him, no matter how strong he was. At that moment, Zoe and Elara snapped back to reality and turned to look at him.
"You're right, Erik. Sorry about that; we panicked a little." Elara quickly apologized, a bit embarrassed, but Erik waved his hand to show it didn't matter, so the beautiful short-haired blonde continued speaking in a serious tone.
"And about your suggestion, I completely agree. Treasure hunting is the least of our concerns now—we need a lot of food, and if I remember correctly, the initial exploration documents mentioned that some of the city's buildings have secrets, and some even have pocket dimensions with their own flora and fauna."
"Truly, I'm sorry, Erik. I promise it won't happen again." Zoe apologized quickly, giving a small bow, then looked at Elara and spoke seriously.
"And you're not mistaken—I remember exactly the same thing, and I also remember the map and the locations of the buildings they explored. Even though it's just a basic map from the initial exploration, with a lot of gaps, we should be able to reach one of those buildings without too much trouble."
"Perfect, then let's go. I just hope the locations haven't changed…"
Erik commented calmly, then picked up his machetes, which also weighed tons, making them rather awkward to handle. With a casual movement, he slashed at a nearby stalactite, which soon after fell to the ground with a perfect cut. The starry-haired boy nodded and remarked,
"Well, at least the base materials are still pretty good, so they're still usable."
"Good thinking, Erik. Before we head out, let's test our weapons a bit. We need to know how much our combat effectiveness has dropped."
Seeing what Erik had done, Zoe quickly praised him with a smile, then stepped forward and took an Iaido stance in front of a massive stalactite. She took a deep breath, and with an incredibly swift movement, drew her sword, cut the stalactite, and sheathed her blade again. She couldn't help but shake her head in visible disappointment.
"I'm way too slow. The armor gets in the way, and both the sharpness and mana conduction of the sheath have dropped as well. Right now, I can only use about 60 to 70% of my strength…"
As the now-minced stalactite crashed to the ground, Zoe couldn't help but remark in clear frustration. At that moment, Elara—who had a volleyball-sized fireball floating above her hand—spoke up in a similar tone.
"It's the same for me. Besides, I'm a pure mage; I can barely handle my armor. And unlike you two, I don't have a contract with a spirit or anything like that, so I basically have no way to fly…"
"Well, flying isn't such a big problem."
Erik commented calmly as he began to rise into the air on a platform of Myst that appeared under his feet out of nowhere, causing both Elara and Zoe to look at him in admiration.
"It really is impressive how you manage to create Myst constructs so stealthily…" Zoe remarked in a calm voice, already plotting how useful that ability could be for ambushes. Elara spoke up after a small sigh.
"It's truly impressive. So I'm going to have to rely on you, Erik."
"Don't worry about it. This is a complicated situation, and we need to adapt." Erik replied quickly, landing softly on the ground, which caused the earth to tremble slightly due to his several-ton weight. At that moment, Zoe commented seriously,
"You're absolutely right about that, but let's leave the chatting for later. We need to move fast, since other groups might have the same idea as us and get ahead."
After Elara and Erik both nodded in agreement, the group took up formation again, with the spirits in the rear and the wolves leading the way along with Zoe. At that moment, Erik couldn't help but use his contract with Ebonique to ask, a little puzzled.
[Is something wrong, Ebonique? You've been really quiet.]
[Well, I wanted to see how you'd handle yourself in a situation like this, and I have to say I'm very satisfied. But be careful—even though I'm not exactly sure what's going on, I can sense a familiar presence here.] Ebonique replied quickly in a calm tone, which led Erik to ask in slight surprise.
[Is this the work of a spirit?]
[While it's unlikely, the fact that their presence is here is highly suspicious, so it's best to be cautious.]
Ebonique quickly responded in a calm voice, keeping silent about the real reason for her quietness—the fact that she was undecided, unsure whether to manifest a part of her true body and blow the place to pieces to get her Erik out of the complicated situation he was in or to simply keep maintaining her current incarnation, which followed the contract's rules and could only use such a pitifully small amount of power.
After all, a situation like this was perfect for Erik to train and mature. Besides, although her incarnation was pathetically weak, she could still materialize small portions of her true body to defend her Erik from any danger in that place.
But at the same time, she was feeling cautious because of the presence she could sense nearby—another Eternal, one she could handle easily enough with her true body if she really tried, but it would be very troublesome to alert them since it would be a disaster if they found out about Erik.
Moreover, materializing parts of her true body without alerting him would be problematic—not only would it take her a long time, but she also wouldn't be able to keep them materialized for long, which would undoubtedly be fatal for her Erik in a critical situation. It was simply too great a risk for her to take lightly.
(How troublesome… And if I try to contact Ignis to distract them, that would definitely raise suspicions, which would only make things worse. We still haven't completely hidden Erik, and if they investigate closely enough, they'll definitely find clues…)
Frustrated and annoyed, Ebonique could only continue to follow Erik in silence, trying to think of a solution that would allow her to keep her Erik safe without alerting the other Eternals in the process. At the same time, the powerful spirit couldn't help but regret not having examined the place more carefully before Erik entered.
After all, even though the presence of the Eternal had been well hidden and only became clear when those golden chains appeared, if she had properly checked things out—materializing even a small part of her true body—she could have easily noticed the inconsistency. She would have taken Erik as far away from that place as possible.
(Damn it… I got too complacent. I never imagined that this backward place could have traces of another Eternal besides Ignis… what a huge mistake…)
As Ebonique silently berated herself for her arrogance, Erik considered whether he should tell his companions what he had discussed with his reliable spirit. But, remembering their reaction when he mentioned the possibility of temporal dilation, he decided to keep it to himself.
The girls were already worried enough about their current situation. If he added the possibility of a mature or even stronger spirit being involved, they might end up falling apart completely. Besides, when you're facing a weapon, it doesn't matter if it's a pistol or a machine gun—death is almost certain with either—so it was better for the girls to keep hope alive for now. After all, nothing had been confirmed yet.
***
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