The seven ran on the water and beelined to the shore. With their speed, it was possible to run on water before surface tension broke Using that momentary footing, they ran as they were running on the ground. If they couldn't, it would take months to fully explore this Gate. They arrived at shore in less than a minute and sat down to rest and strategise. Amaya picked up a reed stem and used it to draw the Island's shape on the muddy ground.
"We are here at the moment," she pointed to the southeast of the Island. "The Aberrations are at the north, south, west and east of the Island respectively. They seem to guard the Anchor by watching over its four directions."
"Can we get close to Anchor without fighting them?" Dylan asked.
"No, the Anchor is out in the open, they have their eyes on it."
"Can't we use that pearl or whatever, it seems to have stealth properties," Zane suggested.
"We don't know the limitations of it, too risky." Dylan shut him down. But Captain Henry had different ideas. He took out the bead and injected it with Ether. Nothing happened, or so they thought.
"I can't feel the Ether of Henry!" Amaya exclaimed and looked in his direction. He was sitting right in front of her, and she could see him, so how could she not sense his Ether? With a grin on his face;
"Can you change the refractive index of water with your hydromancy?" he asked Amaya. "I might have a way for us to cross the place unnoticed."
"I… I don't know. Never tried it. Why?"
"If you can change the density of water, you may change its refractive index to make us practically invisible. And with this bead, we can mask our Ether. Do you see where I'm going with this?"
"That's… That's actually genius." Zane was having a hard time hiding his shock. "I didn't take you as the nerdy type. I thought you the only thing you thought about was how to kill Abominations."
"I don't even know if this is a compliment or a double insult... I went to school too, you know."
Ignoring him, he gave the bead to Amaya as she formed a water bubble around herself. She was fine-tuning the density so the light wouldn't pass through the water bubble but come out from the other side. This could only work because the Anchor was above a lake, meaning everywhere around it was water. Even if she had changed what the Abominations would see when looking at their direction would be other parts of the lake, same as the place they would pass through using this method. If they had tried to do this in another location, they would have to be more precise about the light's angle and density of the water, and constantly changing it while walking wasn't feasible.
Amaya finally got the gist of it after familiarising herself with the changing density and she suddenly disappeared. The only thing Captain Henry could see was the surface of the bubble and the disrupted view of Billy through the water.
"That's so cool, you can become the ultimate peeker on a beach!" The water bubble suddenly deformed and fell with a {SPLOSH!} as the figure of Amaya emerged.
"Who wants that, you idiot!" she yelled and hit Zane with her whip.
"Enough playing around." The voice of Dylan halted them. "Amaya, recover your Ether. Lilith, observe the Aberrations for the time being. We will be taking the Anchor down in thirty."
Amaya sat down to meditate while Lilith opened her eyes wide, and just looked at the Abominations. She had an evolution ability that enhanced her long-range sight. While she was using her ability, her pupils turned green instead of the pinkish-red they usually are.
"Those Aberrations are huge, I would say. I definitely don't want to fight all of them together."
"Like they would ever attack you. I never have seen you get aggroed once. That damned pheromones of yours, compound smells of perfume because of them." Zane complained. He had his fair share of sneezes due to her pheromones.
"Suck it up, baby. It smells good anyways, you could use it." Lilith answered back. "You smell like ash, because of how frequently you set yourself on fire."
"But I'm the cleanest because of it!"
"Oh Harsen… They are at it again…"
—
After half an hour, Amaya stood up all freshened. She had recovered a good amount of her Ether since they had relied on her Ether SONARs all this time. Even using hydromancy against the Deep Lurker, she had spent quite the amount of her Ether reserves.
After that, Captain Henry held the bead, and everyone gathered around him. Since he wasn't a Savant, meaning that he was the only person who couldn't transfer his Ether without physical contact, he would be the one carrying the bead and the rest would inject their Ether without touching it. After they used the bead, Amaya put a water bubble around them and they slowly slipped into the lake. Relative to their maximum speed of course. They were still going faster than a sports car.
When they reached the front of the lake, they slowed down and slowly dived into the waters. The lake was deep, probably deeper than the swamp that was surrounding the Island. They swam slowly to not alert the Aberrations through vibration. It would've sucked if they had come all this way and was discovered because they moved too fast. As they got closer to the Anchor, the green-cyan hue grew brighter, and the Savant Elite team could feel how its Ether moved around. As they made it to the right below the Anchor crystal, Captain Henry turned towards the elite team.
"Start running back just before I destroy the Anchor, and get these Aberrations away as possible. We don't want them to pass through the Evacuation Portal."
Dylan nodded slightly and Henry brought his gaze upwards and readied himself to make a great jump as he made a footing for himself below his feet.