Two pairs of boots slammed against worn stone as the staircase twisted upward like a coiled snake, with the only source of light, being the glowing white orb flying ahead of them.
Their breath tore from their chests in ragged gasps, echoing wildly in the narrow shaft, while the shadows stretched and snapped along the walls. But no matter how much exhaustion tried to overcome them, no matter how much they felt blades were piercing their lungs,
They had to keep running.
Now that Epsilons soul core saturation was approaching the half way mark, his physical abilities were simply superhuman. He was nowhere near omnipotent yet, but compared to how he was before he entered the dream realm, the difference was like night and day.
What was a 30 minute long walk in the dark, was now a 10 minute long run at full speed, with the stamina to maintain it too. He could go even faster if he wanted, but he could only maintain this speed now precisely because he could see what was ahead now thanks to his dormant ability.
And that wasn't all, his Aspect and attributes had all seen significant growth from this as well.
'I'd like to say that I'm stronger than Nero now, but..'
Taking a slight glance at his runes, he suddenly felt whatever sense of accomplishment he felt wither away.
The memory altering effects of the castle had also come undone, so Ki Song was able to operate normally too. Everyone outside would likely notice the strange castle.. but that also meant the chimera queen would see it too. This place was no longer safe.
Right as he thought all of this, the castle shook once more.
"I'm going to meet up with Sylas to help them transport Gracia. I won't ask for your help, but it would be very much appreciated."
Unlike with the terror, this time they didn't have to confront it directly. All they had to do was reach the north of the city while avoiding the chimera queens gaze. This city was large, so it wouldn't find them right away.
The Chimera queen was too large to fit through the exit gates doors too, so it wouldn't be able to follow them through. Whether it was actually durable enough to withstand its blows though, were anyone's guess.
Either way, escaping through it right now was their only hope, they just had to try.
'Anvil should already be there, so I don't think I can count on him.'
Thinking about it now, this situation was far more dangerous than ever before. Even if they didn't need to fight it directly, traveling in a large group while a corrupted was looking for them, wasn't a very good idea.
'Isn't there something better I could do?'
Sensing his doubt, Ki Song finally gave her answer,
"If you plan on helping Sylas, then wouldn't it be wiser to do it from here?"
"What?"
"I have a much better idea. One where we won't have to get hurt, and we won't need to confront the queen either."
With a she asked,
"What is the max range of your aspect?"
He hadn't really tested that out, but if he had to guess, it was the same as his light sensing attribute? It used to be 200 metres, but now, that had grown as well.
"Around 250 metres now."
**
While the Chimera queen was starting to regain her bearings in this new environment, a great distance away from the hole she had emerged from, two tiny figures were swiftly moving from building to building, making sure they kept within its blind spot.
Once they sandwich themselves in-between two tightly pact buildings, the one who walked ahead of the two, who appeared to be carrying something heavy on their back, peered around the corner, exposing just half his head for a second.
He managed to get a quick glance at the colossal arachnid in the far distance, but that only lasted for a brief moment before he quickly hid once more, as the tyrant snapped its head in his direction.
'Crap! Crap! Crap!'
There wasn't even so much as a blemish on it's carapace despite the barrage of explosives that it had endured. Even worse, it had brought two of its minions along with it too.
'It's a surprise that dormant essence could do that much damage in the first place. If she had a memory like that the whole time she should've just given it to me.. getting that terror out of the way would've been a whole lot easier!'
Using his Aspect, Sylas was able to assess the safety of the ground around the hole, and compared it against how damage the queen did to it everyday in order to figure out how much time they had left. According to his estimations, they should've had another day.
'So in between now and the last day that I checked, something changed.'
With a look of visible annoyance, he glanced towards the already terrified Cassius, whose legs were shaking simply out of fear. He was about let out a sharp yelp, but he quickly covered his own mouth.
Right then, his annoyance, turned into obvious suspicion.
His Aspect gave him insight into all things and how they worked, regardless of if he actually possessed knowledge on it or not. As an indirect result, he had a rather accurate understanding of the human body, which played into his ability to predict how something would move.
There were a lot of things that could cause the human body to move involuntarily, and allowed it to act on its own without the minds consent. Such as right now, where signs of nervousness were overcoming Cassius.
One of those obvious causes, were the fight or flight responses of humans being trigged due to an overwhelming threat being nearby, which would cause adrenaline to pump through the body like crazy.
But in Cassius's body right now, there was barely any at all.
So in otherwards, the flight or fight response in him had yet to be trigged.
'Why is he pretending to be scared?'
If anything he was rather relaxed. Even more than himself.
Gritting his teeth, a steady fury began to accumulate within him.
'First he pretends to be weak.. and now he's pretending not to know anything??'
As everything stood, it looked like he was the one responsible for letting the Chimera queen breakthrough early somehow, and yet, he, and Ki Song too had been keeping a watchful eye on him all this time, so he shouldn't've had the time to do anything like that.
'Should I just.. kill him right now? His presence is throwing everything off, he'd be more useful as bait.'
While those murderous thoughts filled his head though, the sudden but small amount of movement he felt on his back caused him to rethink.
'...'
"Listen, we should..."
After a moment or two of thinking, he looked further at the empty space behind him.
Turning pale, he asked,
"Where the hell is Galahad??"