The Center, Part 4
Matthew put his back against the wall, quickly willing the earth to part for him as he burrowed deep into the safety of rock and stone. As he did, an ear piercing screech threatened to rupture his small body. Adrenaline pumping through him, he began to crawl as fast as he could further into the earth. Not a second later, everything shook around him as a thundering force rammed into where he once was. Then another, and another. It didn't take a genius to guess what was happening. The colossus wasn't going to let its prey get away that easily.
Matthew crawled faster.
He had no idea where to go, there was nothing but earth all around him. Matthew could pulse his mana in around a fifty meter radius around him, but he normally used this in short bursts to sense the location of his opponents. Now, however, he was using it like a sort of sonar. The constant strain caused his already burning mind into overdrive. This was the first time he ever used his ability like this to the extreme.
An unknown amount of time passed as Matthew played a game of deadly cat and mouse with an abyssal spider monarch.
Desperately, he pushed onwards, giving up on trying to hide his trail by closing the tunnels he created. His pursuer could somehow sense where always was, so he just stopped to conserve his mana.
It was getting closer.
Getting nowhere, Matthew was left with two choices: continue burrowing into the unknown, eventually exhausting himself and getting caught, or turn around and try to outmaneuver the beast in order to reach the open again. Both were dangerous, but only one gave him a chance at life. So he took it.
Steeling his resolve, Matthew began digging upwards at breakneck speeds. The earth shook again, Matthew felt an unknown mass replace the earth where he was just a second ago. Shivers ran down his spine.
'Yup, definitely the right choice.' He gulped.
It was now or never. Matthew stood up, full sprinting as he exhausted himself further by sacrificing endurance for speed. By crawling, he minimized the strain he put on his body, but it greatly limited his speed. However, by running, he had to expend more effort to make up for the increased area he needed to remove just for an increase in speed.
Matthew calculated the distance he had already covered when retreating into the wall. By using his sonar range and time spent running, Matthew roughly estimated that he had covered around 600 metres of distance during the five minutes that he ran. So, he had to do that again, but much faster.
As he ran, he outstretched his senses again, scoping out the size of the monster chasing him. He imagined the shape of a spider as he did so. Matthew's face grew even paler. It couldn't be. The spider had only burrowed its front half into the wall.
Matthew ran forward, his chest burned, his mind was hazy, everything hurt, but that was better than dying. Pain was good, pain meant he was alive. Suddenly, his hair stood on end. Another ear splitting screech echoed through the walls of earth, followed by angry tremors. 'Crap!' It had finally sensed that its prey had changed course, outwitting it.
Matthew tunnelled faster, in a race against death itself.
Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, he sensed a vast emptiness ahead of him. Matthew came to a swift halt. There was no time to think, Matthew exited the walls and created platforms for himself to run on. Running along the wall, Matthew concentrated on his palm, closing it and focusing mana into a tiny ball. His closed palm began to glow a bright light.
'Yes!' Matthew smiled tiredly. Mr. Julius' lesson on basic magic, creating an artificial light source with pure mana had come in clutch. Matthew threw the ball out, letting it glow weakly against the darkness. The ball lit up the area around it, soaring through the black expanse until it finally lost to gravity and fell. Before it did, however, it managed to illuminate what looked like a cliff.
'Found it!'
A few hundred meters behind Matthew, the wall exploded into shrapnel.
Unperturbed, Matthew concentrated his magic to the soles of his feet once more, rocketing himself with a concentrated earth piston.
"PLEASE!" He put his arms up, bracing for impact.
Before he smashed into the hard ground, at the last minute Matthew turned the earth into sand. Sand wasn't the best thing to land on, but it certainly was better than hard, solid ground. Matthew brushed himself off quickly, not even paying attention to the carpet burns and wounds he got from the rushed landing.
For good reason too. A loud boom thundered from just behind him, Matthew was suspended in the air for a moment. Ears ringing, he looked back to see the claw of the colossal arachnid just mere inches away from him. Eight glowing orbs shone like head beams, Matthew being the deer.
Out of pure instinct, Matthew shot multiple earthen spears at the eyes. The spears broke upon impact but caused the monster to shriek in pain. Not wasting the opportunity, Matthew created a cloud of dust and booked it.
'Nope!'
.
Squatting behind a dilapidated house, two figures schemed.
"Points A and B are where we need to go, the dungeons should be on the third level of the underground base. When I give the go, you'll create an earth tremor that will cover the noise of our break in. I'll use my plant magic to produce an amnestic drug to put the guards to sleep. Keep the gas mask on and you should be fine. Got that, Hedrick?" Lazellia drew on the ancient dust, her blueprints very thorough.
The ground rumbled.
"Yes, just like that, but not yet!"
Hedrick squinted. "That wasn't me."
"Must be a natural earthquake then, what a funny coincidence!" Lazellia began tying her hair back into a ponytail. "Go!"
Hedrick closed his eyes, focusing intensely. A bead of sweat formed on his forehead and dripped down his cheek. As it landed on the roof, a low rumble emanated from around slowly, then growing louder. When the rumbling crescendoed, Lazellia's eyes shone a verdant green and a large vine sprouted from the ground. In one single motion, the vine smashed into the house, revealing a hidden entrance that lead to a vast system of tunnels. Two guardsmen who were posted just below looked up in shock, unable to even utter a word before the vine collapsed in on them and crushed them. Roots sprouted from the vine, absorbing the two guardsmen. A large bud sprouted from it. As the life left the two guardsmen, the bud bloomed into a beautiful flower. And from it, an insidious invisible scent. Gas masks on, Lazellia and Hedrick plucked the flower and proceeded down the twisting tunnels. Lazellia moved through it as if it were her own home, turning left, right, left and so on as if following a mental map. Hedrick silenced the earth beneath their feet whilst Lazellia's flower incapacitated all the guards that were unfortunate enough to be in their way.
"Over here!" Lazellia whisper shouted, stopping in front of a hatch in the ground. Hedrick rubbed his hand on the earth surrounding the hatch, a moment later the hatch fell downwards noiselessly.
They climbed down.
Lazellia wiped some sweat off her brow. "Well, Orion, Dylan, I hope you now know exactly why patience is a virtue- what the HELL ARE THEY DOING HERE?!"
Orion scoffed, "beats me, I was just as surprised as you were. Actually, I should have expected my idiot brother to do something like this, it's so stupid, just like him."
"Shut up, Booger Spear!" Demitri blew a raspberry at his brother.
Dylan finally moved for the first time since he had been imprisoned here. "The Deathbloom, wilt it immediately."
"I know, the gas mask plan is out of the proverbial window now that we have more prisoners to break out." Lazellia's veins shone green for a moment as she put both her hands on the flower. It began wilting not a moment later.
Hedrick crouched down beside Orion, pouring earth into the keyhole and moulding a key based on the results.
Orion rubbed his wrists, finally free from the dastardly binds that confined him. He flexed, feeling the rush of magic once again. His eyes flared red. "It's good to be back, baby!"
Dylan wordlessly stood up, exiting the room and climbed up out of the hatch. "I'll be lookout."
Zayne stretched, yawning tiredly as he too rubbed his wrists. "Man, that was a wild experience! Thanks for rescuing us, Laz and Hed!"
Hedrick grunted, Lazellia smiled politely at the carefree child. Did he not realise that he'd be in deep sh*t if she and Hedrick weren't there?
Finally, Demitri and Lauren were freed.
"We can't leave yet, we haven't gotten crucial evidence yet!" Demitri was still focused on his goal.
Lauren hurriedly walked past him, climbing up the ladder to reach her brother. As she did however, Dylan's eyes hardened.
"Brother, what's wrong?" Lauren tilted her head.
Dylan gave her a hard stare, whispering. "Quiet."
. . .
"Enemies incoming. Hedrick, burrow us out." Dylan grabbed Lauren by the wrist and jumped back down.
As he did so, a sudden torrent of footsteps accompanied by shouting flooded the upper tunnels, as well as the lower ones. It seemed they had figured out what was happening. All together, the group of jailbreakers huddled around Hedrick as he began burrowing into the wall. Demitri turned around one last time as Hedrick cut off the tunnel behind him. A large number of enemy guards and cultists broke into the room, loudly shouting orders and questions. A low baritone voice silenced them all. Slowly, a large shadow was cast over the guards. As the hole, barely the size of a golf ball at this point, closed up, a purple snake-like eye peered into it. It made eye contact.