Mark read through the new mission from the system and he frowned as a new surge of motivation rose from inside him! This was confirmation that Arit was not dead! He still had a chance to save her before the monsters killed her! He was going to save her no matter what!
Pat knew that Mark was already thinking of going to that island to save Aria and he knew that this was exactly what the monsters wanted! Pat was able to make the same deduction that Mark made earlier that this kidnapping was a plan by the Anima to lure Mark into that island for some reason! And no matter how Pat looked at it, there was no way this would end well! The Anima are meant to be mindless creatures that could never think for themselves other than when they were trying to kill humans! They already caused enough damage as mindless creatures, so Pat could only imagine how much damage they could cause if they started thinking for themselves!
Pat used satellite imaging to look at the island closely and he didn't like what he saw! It was a completely deserted island and there were only thousands of trees forming a dense forest surrounded by beaches on every side. There was no sign of any Anima. But a closer look will show hundreds of openings all over the island floor that reveal a possible colony existing within the island. Mark could be walking right into an anima hive!
[I don't think you should do this, Mark. That island. It's obviously a trap. I think they need you for something and they are trying to make you come to that island by any means.]
Pat tried to reason with Mark, but Mark was silent on the other end of the call. He didn't say anything for almost ten seconds and Pat knew that there was no need to talk to Mark anymore. Mark knew that it was a trap and he just didn't care.
[I can get a helicopter ready. I just bought one recently for a crash test, but I haven't gotten around to using it yet. It's currently somewhere in city C and I can bring it over in less than a day.]
Mark would always be surprised when he hears things like this. He already knew that Pat was rich. Richer than anybody that Mark had ever met, but this was insane. Pat made most of his money from buying and selling cryptocurrency and since most of his money was in different crypto tokens, no one really knew how much money Pat had. Mark also made a lot of money through Pat's crypto trading, but he had no idea how much Pat really had.
"Why did you buy a helicopter for a fucking crash test? No... that's not important. Can you get it here faster? Like in an hour?"
The sound of clicking over the phone paused and Mark could almost hear the cogs turning in Pat's head! Pat thought about what Mark said and thought of all the possible ways to get the helicopter to him quickly, but there was nothing that he could do to get that helicopter there that quickly.
[Five hours. If you can wait that long then I can get the helicopter to you if I push for it to be flown really quickly. I'm sorry, Mark. It's the best I can do.]
Mark growled deep in his throat as he heard this! He knew that it wasn't Pat's fault, but he felt angry right now! If only he had a way to fly then he would be able to get to the island quickly! The first thing that Mark would do when he gets into another fight is jump off a fucking building so that he can trigger a flight skill!
"Fine. I'll be waiting. Just… hurry it up. Don't know what the monsters want with me, but I know they only took her so that I can come to them. I don't want anything to happen to her because of me."
[Yeah, I know. Don't think too hard about it, Mark. If they wanted her dead, then they would have killed her already. I can still see that her vital signs are active so I'm sure they won't kill her since they want to use her as bait.]
Pat said all this as he tried to calm Mark down, but what Pat didn't say was that Aria's vital signs were extremely weak and it looked like she was already going into hypothermic shock from being in the water too long. Pat didn't know if Arit would survive long at this rate, but he was not going to say that to Mark since it would only make Mark more anxious to leave and save her. The best thing right now was for Mark to calm down and regain some of his energy!
"Did you say something about an island?"
Fiona spoke up suddenly and Mark was almost shocked that she was still standing there! Mark completely forgot that she was even here in the first place! He was so worried about Arit that her presence didn't even matter to him anymore.
Slam!
Two figures suddenly slammed into the ground behind Fiona and Mark only raised his head to look at the much taller man! Fiona didn't even react at all since she already knew who they were and she was more interested in talking to Mark right now! She wanted to know what he was talking about with the person on the phone!
The two people that landed were Tyler and Tilda. Tilda looked very tired and she was already on her last leg with many injuries on her body, but she was relieved as she looked around at the destruction that occurred during the fight with the ant-headed anima! She couldn't believe that GHOST was able to defeat a monster like that all on his own and his image in her mind just increased by a lot! But there was still another problem and Tilda didn't know how to feel about it! She couldn't come to terms with the fact that GHOST was so young! Even though he was tall, there was still a very youthful look on his face and there was no denying that GHOST was still a teenager!
Lightning Rider already left to go and get his wounds cleaned and bandaged, but Tilda knew that if he was here then he would be telling her that he was right all along! They should have looked deeper into GHOST's identity before allowing him to fight with them! She was grateful that he killed the Calamity class, but if she knew that he was just a child, then she would have tried harder to take him out of danger!
However, Tilda also knew that her efforts would have been useless since the monster Mark fought was far above her power level!
Tyler looked around the area that he was standing in with interest. He glanced down at the Ant-headed Anima that was just killed before looking up at Mark with a great amount of interest burning in his gaze! To think that a high school boy was responsible for all this!? That was an amazing feat that Tyler had never seen before!
"Fight me!"
Tyler began to move towards Mark with a wide grin on his face and he cracked his knuckles as a flame began to surge to life from under his feet! Tyler wasted no time as he immediately challenged Mark to a fight. Mark narrowed his eyes and his muscles tensed as he prepared himself for the fight. Mark was always down to dish out a beating!