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Return of the Fallen Volume 8 Chapter 94

The mood was brighter but Danny quickly brought it down.

“Kazuki, don’t you think it’s time we moved already? It’s been several minutes now, any more time lost could cost us greatly.”

Kazuki nodded.

“Right. Everyone prepare, we move as soon as possible.”

The preparation for Danny and Kazuki was basically nonexistent. The two were seemingly always ready these days. Asuna and the others though were different. All three wore the new armor they received from Kazuki. The dull white god metal encompassed them from head to toe. On Kimi’s right side, she gripped the empty shoulder that once had an arm attached.

A bit of bitterness in her thoughts but she knew now wasn’t the time. She took the arm Kazuki had given her and placed it next to her empty right shoulder. As soon as the arm came close enough a small amount of magic welled up and inscriptions on both the armor and the arm lit up. The arm then fused together with the armor. Using her own will and magic, Kimi could manipulate the arm freely and there was even a small sensation of touch that came with it.

(This will have to do for now I guess.)

Besides Kimi, Sam as well wore the same type of armor. In his hands was a large war hammer. Asuna wore the same armor and had her golden magic hoop hanging from one side of her waist and two red daggers sheathed on the opposite side.

“Looks like we’re ready. Asuna, now that you’ve entered the 5th stage, you should be capable of teleporting all of us there, after all your main element is space.”

Asuna grew excited and gitty. She hadn’t even thought of it but it made complete sense. Garn was capable of teleporting vast distances and his main element wasn’t even space. If he could teleport all across the land without even having natural talent in space, then how far could someone who actually had it as their main magic.

“I don’t know how far I can take this many people but it’s worth a try.”

Asuna wasn’t confident in the distance but she knew she could at least teleport them without causing them any harm, like ending up inside a wall or a volcano or something ridiculous like that. Her control over the element of space was one she developed during war and battle. It was either master her abilities or end up dead on the battlefield.

Asuna quickly pictured King Brian’s mountain base and was about to teleport everyone away when she suddenly felt there wasn’t enough magical energy. She had just entered the 5th stage so she depleted most of the energy in her newly expanded Mage core. She tried to gather the element of space from her surroundings but found there was almost none.

Her brows furrowed at Kazuki.

“Are you messing with me Kazuki? You said you gathered all of the magic within 3000 miles and then we all used it to enter the Core stage. There isn’t any space element anywhere nearby.”

Kazuki became confused.

“It’s true that I gathered all of the magical energy within the area but you didn’t absorb all of the space element. As a matter of fact, I kind of overestimated how much you all needed and gathered far too much energy. You all couldn’t absorb it all and there’s still plenty in the area…

“Kazuki’s words froze there as he felt there was something wrong. Suddenly all of the hairs on the back of his neck were starting to stand on end and he felt the call of death and doom. His instincts screamed at him and alarm bells were ringing in his head.”

Not just him, Danny as well looked all around as if he were searching for an enemy.

Without hesitation, Kazuki’s aura wrapped around everyone, the palace included, and with his fastest speed, he scooped all of them up and took to the skies. Kazuki had no time to be gentle and everyone felt a harsh jerk on their body. Before anyone could be mad at him, something below caught their attention.

Everyone recognized it immediately.

Beneath them, the desert sands had gone from a brown caramel color to a dark purplish-black as Miasma began to seep out of the ground without reserve.

At first, everyone was at a loss for words. How did it come, when, and so on. These questions flooded their mind but there was no point in asking because no answer would come. What really mattered was that they had all almost died. Were the Miasma to touch them, their life and all energy within them would be drained and they would be lucky if a husk was left behind.

Kazuki had yanked up the palace and the people within it but a few people had gone outside and were relaxing moments before. Kazuki had failed to grab them and take them into the air with him. The Miasma quickly crawled up them and they began to disintegrate or melt and fizzle.

“HELP PLEASE HELP!”

“SAVE ME SOMEONE SAVE Meeee!”

These people screamed in absolute agony as their bodies began to fall apart. Kazuki didn’t hesitate to stretch out some of his aura at his fastest speed. There were three people down below but even with his aura that could cover 3000 miles almost instantly, it wasn’t enough time and they were already gone. The last person was a young man that Kazuki didn’t recognize. Kazuki’s aura became like a large hand and grabbed the man and pulled him into the sky but to his horror, again he was too late.

Even though this young man was already out of the Miasma, the effects were still playing out. The first thing to go was the man’s skin. It fell off the man’s flesh as if it were the most natural thing to do. The very next was the man’s muscles. Each muscle fiber was dissolving at a rapid rate and blood flowed out from the man like someone had spilled several buckets of liquid at once. Before anyone could blink, the man had entirely melted away.

It didn’t stop there and Kazuki had no time to be shocked as part of his aura, the part that had held the man was starting to dissolve as well. Kazuki hadn’t touched the Miasma with his aura, merely touched someone who had been touched by it and now the effects were spilling over to that part of his aura.

As this part of his aura was being eroded away, Kazuki felt a stinging pain from his soul. It was as if thousands of needles were piercing his soul.

Without hesitation, Kazuki severed that small part of his aura, disconnecting it completely from himself. The part that was severed was destroyed and the energy within it was absorbed into the Miasma.

In-kind, the Miasma seemed to expand and grow.

“We’re leaving right now!”

Kazuki announced this and no one argued. He turned to take off into the distance when his eyes suddenly widened.

“Kazuki, why aren’t we going?”

The question was simple but if Asuna could see what Kazuki could, she would not have asked something so obvious.

Kazuki’s eyes were hundreds of times better than everyone else here and in the distance, a few thousand miles away there it was. A wall of miasma. The wall didn’t just go upward but looking to the skies, there was Miasma falling down from above. A gigantic dome of Miasma was starting to form all around them. It was encompassing them for thousands of miles.

Kazuki didn’t bother to answer Asuna and instead scanned this ever-closing dome. He searched far and wide for anything he could use, any place where they could make their escape. Up down left right, everything was closing in. Finally, Kazuki spotted a small spot a few thousand feet across and high.

Without another word, blue flames erupted beneath Kazuki’s feet. He used everything he had and in an instant, his body blurred. Not just him but everyone else he dragged along with his aura. He, Asuna, Danny, Sam, Kimi, and even the floating palace, all of it blurred as Kazuki made his way across the ever-closing sky.

To cover a few thousand miles, Kazuki could do it in as little as a few minutes. He was confident he could make it.

As he went though, he found an immediate problem and before he could correct it, Danny was already pointing it out.

“Kazuki! With this speed, you’re going to kill everyone inside the palace as well as Asuna and the others. I’m fine because of my body but their’s will be torn apart if you keep this speed up.”

Kazuki could see the dome of Miasma shrinking even more. It had gone from a few thousand feet to several hundred far too quickly. Kazuki understood Danny’s words perfectly well but if he slowed then they would all be trapped and would all die.

Gritting his teeth, Kazuki mimicked the wind with his aura and he went even faster.

Kazuki could sense everything around him and could feel people within the palace starting to die by his actions, by his speed but he couldn’t stop. If he stopped that meant death. He refused to die, not here, not now.