[Remember to check AN]
One minute… forty-five seconds, thirty seconds.
With each second that counted down, the surrounding teams of students approached the cave's entrance surreptitiously. Wendel had previously mentioned that they maintain a distance of five metres from the cave to deal with any surprises. Currently, however, some students had ignored that warning and closed in on the cave, hoping to be the first to get in once the barrier was down.
Fifteen seconds…ten seconds…five seconds...two seconds
'Now.'
Just before the last second could clock, the various students all employed different tactics, skills, spells, and so on in a bid to reach the cave first. Some reacted faster than most, some attacked different teams, while another group hoped to utilize the chaos and seize tokens from the defeated teams. All in all, one could say that mayhem broke out.
However, just then, something strange happened.
Boom.
An explosion burst from the cave's entrance, sending a bizarre gust of air streaming toward the outside. Mixed within the wind were magic symbols and runes, partially visible with a couple entirely transparent but creating a weird refraction of light just as the barrier did a minute ago.
Some students managed to notice this and stopped right away, however, those closest to the cave as well as the fastest in the teams, were unable to react in time.
As the wind passed through the students who were the closest to the entrance, multiple cuts and abrasions appeared on their bodies with blood spilling out from those wounds. However, that wasn't the worst part.
When those magic symbols and runes carried off by the wind touched them, a surge of mana flowed into the bodies of the affected students following which they exploded into a rain of blood, gore, flesh, and bones.
Bang.
Bang.
Bang.
A few explosions sounded out s a couple of students suddenly exploded; some in mid-air while the others while still running on the ground. The entire region before the cave turned into a scene of blood and gore. Organs, brain matter, blood, bones, and flesh were spilled all over the place. The students had died in such a horrific fashion that they had no time to scream miserably or in pain due to the injuries from the wind.
"Ahhh!"
A girl who was lucky enough to have avoided the massacre screamed at the spot.
Like the call of a crow that gives rise to the caw of a murder[1], screams resounded from the other students who were faced with the gruesome sight. Even Lyn and Aurora couldn't stand the sight as they ran behind some trees and began puking. The situation was even worse for those who had a bit of flesh and blood on their face. They either fainted on the spot or released a shrill before puking profusely as if trying to force out their meals from three days back[2].
It should be recalled that they were fourteen-year-old students and the oldest of them were either fifteen-year-olds. These children, although they had engaged in brutal battles with monsters, have never ended a human life nor seen such a scene like this. They weren't cold-blooded killers.
Even with the somewhat tough life they experienced in the academy and their encounters in the forest for the past day and a half, they weren't at the level of being able to remain calm in the face of such a scene.
Only a handful out of the dozens of students gathered here was able to remain somewhat calm in the face of all of this. One of them was Wendel, another was Owen, and two more were some of the older generation young teens whose families had to save up before they could get in. As for the final individual, it was none other than Asher.
In fact, compared to the other four, Asher was able to take in this sight without so much as a flinch. He had seen way more gruesome deaths and had even orchestrated some of them in his past life, so this was nothing.
Wendel had things tough growing up in the royal family, especially as an impure child of the king. All those years of trouble and pressure had built up a strong mental fortitude and willpower in him. A similar situation applied to the other two boys.
The only one Asher couldn't figure out was Owen.
'Everyone has their secrets. No matter.' Asher glanced back to the entrance of the cave before looking at the leftover body parts of the now-deceased students.
At least thirteen students were caught up by the response of the magical restriction to the barrier's decay. Some had more than three magical symbol land on their body while others had just a few or even two. The result was that some corpses exploded into tiny bits of flesh, a few were somewhat complete while others had only the limbs or a part of the chest remaining. It was these incomplete corpses Asher was currently studying.
He walked closer to a severed arm and squatted down to have a look at it while avoiding contact with the arm.
'The symbols contain a great amount of mana even though they were clearly dissipating out of existence. Upon contact with the skin, the mana forcibly flowed into the body. However, the amount of mana contained in those symbols was too much for a fourteen-year-old second-stage Guardian to handle. This led to their bodies exploding due to the sudden influx of mana beyond their capacity. If a Dantian Opening cultivator of the third stage was here, uh, should be a Hero of the third stage, this magic symbols would be good fortune.' Asher's eyes glittered as an idea crept up in his mind.
Utilizing the magic symbols for his training was out of the question originally, but most of the mana in them was spent exploding the students while the rest were dissipating. In fact, one could not spot any magic symbols in the air again, but by using special vision spells, Asher could see that there were leftovers in the air although more than 80% weaker than they were before. The result of this was that the mana concentration in the area suddenly increased in folds, but the students were too stunned to notice this. Over time though, this mana would spread and diffuse all around.
If he hurried quickly enough, Asher might be able to preserve some of these invisible magic symbols and utilize them for his personal training.
'Alright.'
Asher's eyes gleamed as he hurriedly made a few hand signals and released his mana through his feet and hands which were currently touching the ground.
Asher tried to keep his actions secretive to not draw unnecessary attention, and with his deep collection of knowledge, he was successful.
'Hehe.' Asher grinned inwardly, but on the outside, he maintained a serious look as if he was examining the arm.
Asher 'captured' the magic symbols and placed special seals on them before putting the items into his magic ring. As they were currently invisible, it would be hard for anyone to spot them unless there was a fourth-stage Guardian mage.
But Asher had purposefully kept his back towards a certain direction and had drawn the magic symbols to the ground before surreptitiously dragging them across the floor towards himself. This way, even the recon team that was meant to monitor the students didn't spot anything out of the ordinary. Also, they were quite far so it would be difficult for them to notice any changes.
As for the recon team, none of them would have ever thought that a student in the group had noticed them from the start. Asher had a fourth-stage equivalent mental power so unless a fifth-stage Guardian mage was present, no one could hide from him. However, fifth-stage Guardian mages were quite rare and every one of them usually held a lofty position.
By now, some of the students were beginning to recover. As for those like Asher and Wendel, who remained unfazed, they didn't enter the cave yet out of not just fear and caution, but also because they couldn't just abandon their affected teammates.
Now that their teammates were beginning to recover, they would soon have to take action. Nonetheless, the event that had just taken place made some students hesitate.
Just the decay of the entrance's barrier alone was deadly enough to end the lives of thirteen students, one can only imagine what lay in wait. Even though the allure of a magical treasure that could shake the kingdom existed, one had to be alive to use it. This was something all of them knew.
Twenty minutes passed like this and by now, quite a majority of the students had recovered. As for those who had yet to do so, they immediately dropped the idea of exploring the cave and left.
Asher didn't hurry to enter as he made use of this time to sneakily steal more magical symbols but he eventually had to stop as he noticed that one of the members of the recon team was scrutinizing him.
Currently, only seven teams remained at the spot now but none of them had decided to move yet. Among the seven teams were Wendel's team, Aurora's team who had recovered from Asher's attack long ago, Asher's team and four others.
Of those four teams, one of them only had three members and another only had four members. This was because the two teams experienced the same situation where an internal disagreement had resulted in some of them not being interested in exploring the cave any longer and leaving the group.
[1] For those wondering, a murder is what you call a group of crows.
[2] Yes I know, this isn't possible by all forms of logic. Just go with the expression.