Caera Denoir

We arrived now inside the entrance to the relictombs. There are lots of people here entering or exiting the relictombs. The line was long, but because the four of us are 'exceptions'. The guard didn't even manage to carry a simple conversation with us and we skipped the long line of people, or in Nico's words 'They let us go first by their own accord.' and brought out our weapons before entering.

Arriving on our first ever zone in this little journey of ours, we got welcomed by what for me looks like a ruins of old, ancient buildings. Surrounding the ruins are lush vegetations and trees towering above us four. The trees doesn't even look real as it is at least more than 50 meters tall and has a body as wide as a small house. Even its branches are as big as a normal tree I would see everyday.

Now, I'm wearing a white shirt and a simple black pants. While Grey is wearing a whole black outfit with a tight black long sleeved shirt as a top and black pants. Nico's outfit is similar to Grey's with only the difference is that he's wearing a long dark coat over his body.

Cecilia on the other hand is wearing a black sleeveless shirt with gold touches on it, along with a black leather pants. Cecilia, as the only girl besides me in our party so she is the one I'm closest with. Grey is an exception of course. At first I'm uncomfortable with Cecilia because she gives this otherworldly aura around her that I can't explain. It then revealed that her body is an Asura's specifically a Phoenix's body. That fact made me uneasy and because of her ears that looked like an elf's as Grey said to me back then. Combining the fact that she had a crush on Grey on their previous life makes it unbearable.

But that feeling of unease quickly disappeared when I got close to her. She is just a simple, quiet, cheerful girls and it made her likeable even with all my doubts.

Our line up is made of a triangle position. Grey at the very front, me in the right side, Nico on the left and Cecilia in the middle of us. We slowly but surely observed our surroundings trying to figure out what awaits us in this zone.

Looking around, I sensed danger  coming towards me and instantly brought up my sword to block it. But the attack didn't arrive, Grey caught it with his bare hands, and he instantly raised his right hand, Conjuring a small black water ball in his hands. Firing it towards the woods where the attack came from, the ball easily hovered to the forest and just like that, a wide area in the forest is now covered in a black ice. The ice produces a black smoke, making the trees in that area rot slowly.

Grey tossed the projectile to Nico who caught it and examined the object. “Is it a trap? But I didn't sensed any mana signature around us." I said, making the Grey look at me.

“Because it's not a trap." Grey said and looked at Nico who nodded at this. “As Grey said, it is not. It's a dart used by a mana beast. Or is it even a mana beast?" Nico said staring at Grey, asking for his thoughts.

“Whatever it is, just don't lower your guards and observe. But for now, let's go up." Grey said pointing up?

“Where?" Cecilia asked

“Up" Grey said and flew up to the closest tree, landing on top of it's biggest branches.

The three of us followed him and landed on the same branch as him.
Grey looked at Cecilia and signalled something with his hands. Suddenly, multiple new branches appeared on the trunk of the tree, connecting to the branch we're on making it wider.

“Now that we have a nice platform to stand on, we'll plan out wh-"

As Grey is about to finish his words, an object comes flying from the other tree, heading towards Nico. Nico easily swatted it by his mana enhanced hand, making it fall to the wooden platform we're currently in.

Cecilia who's near where it fell, bent down and grabbed the object showing it to us. “So it's the same thing huh?" I said looking at the bone like dart in her hand. “It seems like they are testing us." Grey said, walking to the edge of the platform. He raised his hands and conjured the same spell as earlier. Again, a huge area of the forest got destroyed easily by his spell.

“They say that zones adjust it's difficulty based on the strength of the ascenders inside of it, but this guys are just weak." Grey said as he walked back to the center of the platform joining the three of us.

“It does looks like that, but they're intelligent. Maybe there's more in it behind all of this." I said sitting down in a lotus position. The others also followed and we thought about how we can easily go through this zone.

“There are different types of zones, yes? This doesn't look like the puzzle thing zone for me." Cecilia said as she lazily stretched her body.

“So it's either we need to find the portal for the next zone, or kill everything in this zone." I said, looking at Grey.

“Considering the fact that zones get harder because of our strength, it possibly can't just tell us to kill everything here, it would be too easy. And now after seeing this giant forest from above, I easily can tell that it's most likely that we need to find the portal through this seemingly never ending forest. That's why this is my proposal." Grey stopped his words and stood up. His glowing red eyes looked down on us.

“Let's burn down the whole forest." He said with a sweet, sinister smile on his face. I can't deny it, it's cute. But how can he do such thing after saying something like that.

“In other situations, I would definitely say 'use your brain not your brawns' to you Grey. But seeing how weak the monsters here, it seems like you're correct." Nico mused, chuckling at Grey's plan.

“Well, I got bored so I'm going first!" Cecilia shouted and flew above us. She created multiple giant balls of blue fire and made it rain here in this zone. This girl is just too free and happy in life.

“Should we help, Grey?" I said looking back to Grey who's now just staring at the destruction occuring in front of his eyes.

“No, we'll focus on finding the portal. We'll try to find it from above, we can use the ring for communication. I'll take the west side." Grey said walking to the edge of the platform, ready to fly.

“Caera, be careful being hit by Cecil's attack." He said looking back to me.

“Okay, you too. I will take the east." I said as we both flew away on our respective sides to search for the portal.

The forest is now a living hell because of Cecilia's bombardment. Huge areas of the forest are continuously burning every second, and more of Cecilia's attack rains down on it. I searched all of the burned areas while flying but failed to see any signs of a portal.

“Everyone, can you hear me?" I heard Grey's voice in my head. So this is how telepathy works. It feels kinda weird but Grey seems to be used on how it works. Is it because of his former bond? Sylvie was it? The dragon bond Grey used to have.

“Yes Grey, I can hear you." I replied back after pouring mana in the ring the High Sovereign gave us.

“Same here, I can hear you too." This time it's Nico's voice who entered my head. Telepathy sure feels weird. People's voices just enters your mind.

“I can hear you all clearly. Now what is it Grey?" Again another voice entered my head. It belongs to Cecilia.

“I don't know what to call this if this is a bad news or a good one but I found the portal." Hearing this I felt a sense of relief for a second before realizing that Grey isn't finished on speaking yet.

“What is it Grey?" Nico asked

“I found it but it's not activated." Grey completed his words which made me disappointed. This zone became too hot it's now unbearable. I want to get out of here as fast as possible.

“Hey guys, I just found a working portal earlier, but." Nico's voice sounded disappointed.

“What is it Nico?" Grey spoke this time

“It deactivated after I touched it." Nico explained.

“I see, so in order to get out of this place we need to find the portal and enter it before something touches it or else it will deactivate and another portal will open. How convenient." Grey replied with an annoyed voice.

“We will still try to stick to our current plan. If the whole forest is burned down, we can easily find the portal. Even if the current one are destroyed we can easily find another one." Grey explained to us and we immediately understood what we're supposed to do.

The rains of spell from Cecilia didn't stopped. It even worsened as more and more higher powered spells were unleashed from her. I flew faster, and augmented my eyes with mana to see much clearer and farther. I stopped and looked around the area as I noticed something.

“Uhh... Guys? The trees are growing back?" The areas where trees have been disintegrated earlier just went back on its old form.

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11-16-23