There was a moment of disorientation as most of the disciples seemed to lose their balance and fall to the ground. Alex was one of said disciples, but he was quickly helped up by Louis and Yun Fao, and just in time as all three boys watched the spatial gate behind them loose it's brilliance and the it became nothing more than an stone archway built on top of a mountain in what looked like a weird desolate wasteland.
The air was quite dry, but Alex could still feel a hint of moisture, almost as if it was hanging just above his head. Alex raised his head, and hanging above him was, or rather above all of their heads were thousands upon thousands of floating mountains, and very much opposed to the land around them, the massive land masses hanging above their heads was green and lush and seemed to thrive, filled to the brim with life and completely out of place in desolate and grey waste they found themselves.
"Fuck! How dare those pieces of trash do this to us, this world was completely nothing until the imperial brought order to it!"
Alex if and others shifted their gaze to a movie Lu Wan, if the need to throw blame arose, they could just as easily point their fingers to him, after all he was one of the young generation of the family that the second elder was trying to prove a point to. Alex on the other hand didn't care, he sorely wished he could beat the shit out of the second elder, if he wanted to get back at the imperial family why the fuck did he have to go after him instead, when a very obnoxious and loud mouthed Lu Wan was sitting opposite from him.
Alex was slowly coming to learn that as far the cultivation world was concerned anything and anyone was fair game as long as it got you what you wanted and proved the point you needed proved. It was a brutal world, and every new day seemed to be an iteration of one major rule, and that was strength! Alex didn't know about most people, but this was a shitty world.
"We have to get off this mountain, this is the infernal Prison world, and not just the prisoners, but the Demon beasts in this world would have noticed our arrival, and not just the demon beasts, the prisoners also. We need to find a shelter and a safe base, there are tons of people much more stronger than us, we need to find a way to hold on until the Planetarium is fixed and the elders can come save us."
A guy who looked to be about 21 or thereabouts spoke up, he was the champion of the true element ranking competition, and was right at the leak of the mortal gate, just a cusp away from the earth gate where he would be considered amongst one of the elders and powerful, as opposed to the young and weak. Since he was the oldest, or one of the oldest and the strongest out of all of them, it stands to reason that they would all follow him, their survival depends on it.
Alex and his retinue were more than happy to let an older boy take control, especially since they were confused and a little sacred, but none the less the fact that they were amongst themselves, meant they could face anything which came their way together. Alex reckoned that there were about 30 of them here, which means they had a big enough group to make whatever might attack them think twice, or made a very big target.
The older boy whom had assumed the position of the led the way down with the others following closely, the mountain peak they were on had jagged and precarious edges with only one straight path down from the peak, and while said path looked really safe, falling from it's edges meant that you would be forfeiting your life. They moved swiftly and as silently as they could, but thirty kids coming down a mountain where not 30 ninjas, they were not as silent as they imagined, and those of them who knew the repercussions of such noise were sweating buckets.
Half way down, the sound of beating wings could be heard, but since there were lots of winged beasts in the air, none of them paid any attention to it, at least until what looked like a gryphon, only with scales and a single horn swept down from the sky and snatched their current leader up into it's arms and up the air. Alex and the others could only watch in horror as a grey colored beak stabbed downwards and removed the heart of a guy who was at the leak of the true element realm. And the funny thing was, the gryphon was not alone.
*Screeeeeeeeeet*
Louis placed his hands on the back of Alex's neck and pushed him forward, narrowly escaping the ten inch long talons that scrapped over his head, and then proceeded to scratch the scalp off the girl walking in front of them. Spilling her blood and brain matter all over the mountain path. Yun Fao looked around and couldn't find a way out, they were right in the middle of the group, they couldn't go backwards or forwards, however...…they could go sideways.
Yun Fao placed his arms around both Louis's and Alex's arms and dragged both boys to the edge of the mountain pass and jumped, much to the shock of everyone else, and the boys he dragged along in his suicidal attempt. The side of the mountain wasn't smooth, and it had jagged outcroppings that would happily smash them to bits, but Yun Fao had a plan, or at least part of one.
They fell down for about sixteen meters before he showed great strength and used just one hand to somehow carry both Alex and Louis, and then he brought out his Autumn sabre and stabbed it into the mountain side. There was s tiny explosion of rocks and Sparks as steel and grey rock met each other, however the blade was able to dig into the mountain side a bit, slowly their descent.
*Shreeeeeeeeeeeeee*
The grating sound their sabre made as it cut through the rock was so loud, it had drawn the attention of not just the gryphons attacking the disciples, but some sort of bipedal lizard like creature hanging off the side of the mountain. There were dozens of them, and Yun Fao's and his partners descent more than gave off the announcement needed for a buffet.
All of a sudden Yun Fao's sabre seemed to have met and extremely hard rock, it brought their rapid descent to a screeching halt, and the stop was so sudden that it harder Yun Fao's shoulder, dislocating it as it was pulled out of it's socket. But as if that wasn't enough, the sabre proceeded to snap in half, and the boys fell for another five meters, before landing of a very wide ledge at the side of the mountain.
Louis's body served to cushion their fall, though they were still left with bruises, which spoke volumes of the kind of danger this place portrayed. Yun Fao gritted his teeth as he made his way back up to his feet, his right arm dangling uselessly from his side as he used his left to pick up the broken Autumn Dao. Alex felt sorry for that, he knew how much Yun Fao loved his sword, yet the weapon had broken in his bid to save them all from danger.
"Oww, next time can either one of you guys serve as the landing pad, I think you might have shifted the position of my organs." Louis complained as he made his way back up to his feet.
Alex would have loved to give him an answer, but two of those Lizard things were currently feeling across the mountain wall and straight for them.
They had no idea how to that's the strength of this beasts, since none of them were given off Qi signatures, so their cultivation levels could not be accurately pin-pointed. So without knowing how powerful their opponents were, Alex felt it would be better if they could escape instead, besides Yun Fao was in no position to fight.
Alex looked around as the lizard drew closer, the were about 80 to 90 meters away from the base of the mountain, if they timed their jump well, s call from this height won't kill them, but it would definitely leave them heavily injured, and in s place like this, this was a very bad idea. Then he felt Louis tap his shoulder as he pointed at another ledge 7 or so meters away from them and 10 meter above them. There was a cave entrance there, or rather a cell entrance as it had an iron cell door over it's opening.
"That might actually be a bad idea." Yun Fao said to both of them, it might be better for them to take their chances in the open.
"Well it's the only idea we have, I doubt those things will let us make a run for it, plus you're injured. We don't have much of a choice." Alex said to him as they prepared to jump over, but one of the lizards sensing it's prey about to escape, got impatient and leaped at the boys, covering a distance that caught them very off guard, all they could see was a mouth filled with fangs and a red tongue that was rapidly shooting towards them, death had come calling.