"Be careful, don't lose your balance." Reign said to one of the angels as the girl jumped from a floating rock to the platform the rest were located at.
They had so far managed to climb about 7 meters in height. It wasn't particularly hard, but it wasn't easy either as they found that keeping balance was a bit of a challenge. It was especially hard when one would jump from a moving rock to another moving rock and some had almost fallen down.
The other two teams also struggled, the ones that had the most difficulties when moving around were Tank and Greenie, their size was a disadvantage in such activities and made it hard to move from rock to rock and platform to platform.
The occasional smaller rocks that would zoom past them from time to time made things even more difficult, one hit from the smaller rocks could get injured and even fall down.
Time slowly passed and Reign and the others patiently made their way up. The first obstacle they had to overcome in order to get to the top of the building wasn't particularly difficult, it just forced them to be patient and move slowly.
It took them a whole 2 hours to get up. There was a ceiling at the top with a staircase that led up. As Reign and the others all walked up the stairs and arrived at the next floor, they exhaled in relief as they could finally step onto the normal ground.
The very moment the last person went up, the hole that led downstairs closed. Reign and the others cared little for that, they didn't plan on going back down anyway.
What met Reign's sight on the next floor was a forest.
"Huh, how, how come there's something like this in a building?" Shadow asked with a befuddled voice as he stared around them.
With a clear blue sky, grass on the ground, trees, and the chirping of birds, it was as if they were outside.
The only thing that made it obvious that they were still inside was the wall that was behind them. It seemed that they were at the very edge of the floor, the wall behind them showed grass, trees, the sky, and everything that was in front of them.
But one could simply touch it and the wall would ripple before showing its black exterior.
"It's like a TV of sorts," Beast said as he moved his hand across the wall.
"The exterior is similar to a crystal, it seems one can use this to create a similar to what we were able to do with technology, just like TVs, phone screens, and such."
"And the way it works, let me guess, mana?" Shadow asks with a wide smile as Beast shakes his head.
"It definitely uses mana, but how it works exactly, I have no idea."
"Alright, no time to dilly daily, we have to move, Drayce said that the other two teams wouldn't be able to finish the hidden task, but we shouldn't take any chances." Reign said as the others all nodded.
"You guys good to go?" Reign turned around and asked Mia and the angels.
They simply nodded to him to answer and soon they were on their way.
The forest they entered was quite peaceful, one thing did bother them a bit, even after about 10 minutes of walking through it, there were no monsters or animals that they had come across.
The trees looked and felt real to the touch, and the grass and leaves as well. But it was obvious that something was going on here, they were able to hear noises from all kinds of animals and insects, but they were unable to see any of them.
"I'm not going crazy right, there's no way that we wouldn't be able to spot at least one animal when we are constantly listening to them, like, no way!" Shadow complained as he tried to search around and find something, but it was for naught.
The whole floor was seemingly devoid of life. The only thing one could find were thousands of trees, bushes, and other plants.
"What do we even have to do here?" Shadow asked as they walked through the forest.
"Find something maybe?" Tank said.
"Maybe, or maybe we need to like meditate, achieve enlightenment before we get teleported up?" One of the angels said.
"Bro, this isn't one of your novels, just, just don't talk." Another one of the angels said with a dejected expression as he stared at the other one who simply shrugged his shoulders.
"Alright, we're getting nowhere with this, Wolf, do it." Reign said as he stopped and yawned.
"Sure."
Wolf suddenly started channeling a great amount of mana as he prepared to unleash his flames.
"Mia, please do get ready too, we'll need your ability to keep us safe for what's about to happen." Reign turned around and told Mia who started channeling mana as well.
Fire suddenly appeared around Wolf who opened his eyes and started hurling fireballs around him. Each of the fireballs was about 2 meters in diameter and would explode after hitting a tree.
It didn't take long for the temperature in the area to rise, Mia was still waiting, however, as Wolf still hadn't finished with using his ability.
"Done." Wolf suddenly said and showed a thumbs up at Mia who activated her ability. The ground around her quickly froze as walls of ice suddenly started being formed around them.
The walls being formed slowly but surely materialized and the cold air from them managed to cool down the area. A ceiling was created as well and soon, the team was completely surrounded by ice.
It was similar to the [ Ice Prison ] skill that Mia had used against the Tier II tiger, only that it was much weaker this time since she wasn't using any of her marks.
Mia stood straight and continued pouring mana into the ice walls, the hot temperature from outside was melting them with great speed and she needed to focus and not let them melt down completely.
Luckily, the flames spread out everywhere and since this place was the center of it all, the fire here was the first to die out. It still took some time and Mia was covered in sweat by the time she finally released the skill.
Desolation
That was the word that one would use to describe the scene in front of them. The grass, trees, bushes, all the greenery was gone. This was the first time that Wolf had used his ability without holding back and allowed his flames to spread out everywhere.
When fighting in different areas, Wolf would usually try his best to contain his flames, lest they end up burning half the forest down and injuring others at the same time. The forests around their territory and those that were in higher-leveled areas were also more resistant to flames and it wasn't as easy to burn them down like this.
Only ash and some charcoal remained of the forest they were previously standing inside of. The burned remains of the trees crumpled down with the slightest touch and the only greenery left was inside the ice walls that Mia had created.
Reign and the others stared at the devastation left by Wolf's flames, in the distance they could still see fire and smoke rising high in the air, the whole forest was still not burned down, but it wouldn't be long until it was gone.
"So, do we just wait?" Shadow asked as Reign simply nodded at him. There was no point in leaving this place right now as the flames still hadn't fully gone out.
They would move after about 20 minutes had passed, that should be enough for most of the forest to get burned down.
They patiently waited, the temperature was high and it made them thirsty, still, they didn't take out their water just yet, they wanted to check if there was any source of water inside this place, but with Wolf's fire destroying everything, they doubted they would even be able to drink any water they find.
"Maybe we should have explored some more before resorting to such drastic measures," Beast said as he scratched the back of his head.
Perhaps he was right, maybe Wolf's fire actually made everything harder for them right now, but Reign doubted that, whatever they needed to do in this area, they would definitely find it easier after the forest was gone.
Suddenly, a bright light shone and they were teleported out of the area.
"Tch, they destroyed the whole area, it took me a while to make this place so nice." Drayce appeared in the sky above the destroyed forest. He sighed as he looked down at what was once a beautiful place.
"Maybe I should have seen this coming, well, no use complaining about it now." Drayce waved his hand and something from below flew to him.
It was the charred remains of an animal, that was actually what they needed to do in order to pass this floor. There was only one animal on the whole floor and they needed to find it and capture it, of course, killing was also allowed and would count as passing the floor.
"Poor guy." Said Drayce as he looked at the charred remains before throwing it away. He spread his arms as a brilliant light shone down on the forest.
Suddenly the ash was gone, and the charred trees as well crumpled to dust and were wiped away by the wind.
The original state of the floor was back, rock floors and walls and ceiling that were made of the same crystal-like material. As Drayce continued pouring his mana in, the floor changed, soil appeared and grass and trees started sprouting before growing with breakneck speed.
It only took him about 10 minutes to return the whole floor as it was back when Reign and the others first arrived here.
"Now, let's see how well they're doing."
This 𝓬ontent is taken from f(r)eeweb(n)ovel.𝒄𝒐𝙢