The Astral soul system

Chapter 250: Abyss

’Finally , gone!’

Zaria sighed

"Now- Gah"

A cold breath suddenly escaped her lungs

She looked down and saw the armoured beasts sword stabbed into her side.

"H-how..."

She gasped. Her facial expression was surprisingly neutral, even as her eyes widened and dilated.

It had already stopped getting higher. How had it reached her again without reaching the ground.

Her raging momentum slowed to a halt, the golden aura surrounding her dissipating as she fell to the ground, the beasts on the ground converging at where she was going to land, ready to rip her apart once she did, the staff slipping out of her hand and transforming back into a harmless golden hair.

"No....."

************

Halt

"Hm? Something wrong?"

Celia asked, looking back at Zen. He’d stopped again. This was the third time already.

"If you’re not feeling well,I could take a look at you~"

He paid her no mind.

Once could be ignored,twice was odd, but three times, and in such a short span of time. Something was wrong.

’Does this have something to do with Jade. Is this because of our connection?’

If he was alone he could have just summoned Moirai and gotten it over with but he couldn’t. Something felt wrong. If it wasn’t for this stupid collar one of them could have stayed with her and the other would investigate

[Error detected]

[Determined that host is in danger]

What?! No he wasn’t. They were just in another corridor, and how come this didn’t activate when he was actually fighting for his life, but now when nothing was happening

[Biological defenses are in effect]

[Vitality boon in effect]

’Theia what’s going on? Stop this’

"I can’t! The system isn’t even doing anything, this is all you"

The astra he’d gathered and converted from absorbing beast cores suddenly started disappearing.

He watched in confusion as his Astra kept reducing alongside his health

He clutched his chest, stumbling back.

He was finally feeling what the system was talking about,an unmistakable feeling of dread so strong it forcibly switched them.

With a low shimmer from the gem on the collar, Zaine was in the steering wheel.

"Woah... looks like something really is wrong"

Celia said, reaching to him

"Put that hand on me if you’re okay with loosing it"

He spat

"Eep! Touchy"

She flinched, pulling back

"In any case we’re nearly at the heart so pull yourself together,or at least up"

He snarled but didn’t move his head,it was lowered for a reason. His eyes had transformed,pitch black with the white iris. Even his mutated eye had become black, though his multicolored pupil hadn’t changed

"Keep walking"

She shrugged and kept walking ahead of him

’why don’t we just kill her now?’

"And be the last people she was in contact with before disappearing in a dungeon? Tim knows we’re here with her. Anything happens,we’re suspect number one "

’This is why I said we should leave this stupid academy. We could have killed her and the Ryder girl if we didn’t have to worry about unimportant things ’

"She can’t kill you either though. Her family had sway in the military but if a student just straight up disappears after going into a dungeon with her,it could cause problems"

Zen suddenly spoke up

"A student with no family or relations. It’d be too easy to sweep under the rug. Also she could have school officials under her control like with us and Gary. Then there’s always good old fashioned bribes"

Theia didn’t have anything to say about that

Then there was the issue of if they’d be able to. The system screen’s info on her was limited to say the least, but he knew he couldn’t just attack her.

They fell into step behind her,head lowered

’How do I stop this?’

He asked, clutching his chest He could feel an itch on his back, somewhere around where his wings would be . It was getting more and more annoying as time went on.

"I don’t know, something’s wrong."

A beast core he’d gotten from one of the crocodiles popped out of his ring. At this point his gloves were already shredded so he didn’t bother taking them off and just held it, watching it slowly lose its shine and turn to dust.

.

.

.

Nothing

He felt nothing.

The absorption rate of ambient energy had been multiplied tenfold when he entered this strange state but his Astra was still stuck

[HP: 15/150]

[Astra: 10/166]

It wouldn’t go above or below that level.

"We’re here"

The final stage appeared before their eyes. The door of the room opening to let them in.

Strangely enough, this final room wasn’t a swampy mess like what they’d passed through to get here. There were still some wet areas but it was mostly solid

That wasn’t all, it was... empty

Just a large circular arena with a small vibrant tree in the center.

Even Zaine paused to look around.

"What’s this? Where’s the boss?"

He tried to check the tree’s stats but nothing came up.

Before he could react, the ground suddenly cracked under some invisible pressure,marks spreading out like cobwebs.

The shaking lasted for a few seconds before it stopped again.

Below their feet,water started to fill up those cracks and before they realized it they were sinking in mud.

The ground suddenly started coiling and winding, round and round before the mud around Celia started to close up. Using her ability she teleported somewhere in the air, holding on to the wall

"Good luck"

Sensing she was gone, it’s focus was turned to Zaine. The tree suddenly sank into the ground as the floor started coiling around him , squeezing him tighter.

The head of a massive snake suddenly breached the surface. It’s body was a mix of brown and green, with roots and leaves peeking out from under its scales , giving it an ancient and earthy look.

Charging up it rose into the sky before its massive body turned the other way, charging down and into Zen, burying him in the swamp

[-50HP]

************

Sable stepped out of the way of another metal spike. She’d timed it down as precisely as she could to dodge with as little effort as possible,with her margin of error only being a few milliseconds. The scratches that were a result of those errors were already mostly healed, though her healing was begining to slow down considerably.

She had to conserve energy

The spike which had gone by her suddenly started spinning in the air before changing direction like a boomerang

There was also that problem

She glanced back and three other metallic spikes had risen and joined the first.

She sidestepped, narrowly dodging one before rolling to avoid another. After a while she broke into a full sprint, circling the pair of hands that were watching her intently.

Running up, she leaped up on the red one before jumping towards the open palm.

The blue one immediately closed itself around the eye and the huge metal spikes pursuing her were suddenly repelled, flying away

She threw her fist at the eye but it just closed as well, allowing her punch to land harmlessly on its knuckles. At the same time she looked back and the spikes fell to the ground company

"Hmm"

She mused, grabbing it and kicking off

"So I was right."

Blue attracts,red repells,both need to be active to have complete control, but only one is needed for their specific job. It seems they couldn’t attack while using this ability but perhaps they were just being careful since she’d attempted to attack the eyes multiple times

"I can work with that"

Both hands opened up again and the metal spikes rose into the air and started circling her, slowly closing in before suddenly accelerating

For a second it looked like she’d disappeared from where she wS standing and appeared in the air again.

Stepping on one of the spikes she jumped into the air again, towards the red one, throwing her fist as hard as she could. As soon as it closed up, she revealed the feint, spinning around in the air and grabbing two of the spikes before throwing it at blue as hard as she could.

The spikes struck and slid across the palm and knocked it down, their speed and force increased by its magnetism. The hit looked strong but ultimately she’d missed just narrowly.

"Damnit"

She cursed, quickly getting down. She couldn’t aim properly in that situation and she’d hoped the magnetism would have pulled it closer to the center and made up for her erratic throw but the magnetic field around the eye seemed to be larger than just a single point.

"This would be easier with two people"

She glanced back but couldn’t see Zaria. Hopefully she was okay

Before the blue hand could get back up, she decided to take the opportunity.

The magnetic field wasn’t yet back up so she grabbed one of the spikes, jumping over it and thrusting it down into the eye.

A huge burst of energy escaped from the point where she stabbed it, manifesting as short arcs of light and electricity and magnetic energy? Or whatever. She still didn’t understand this thing but she knew this had to hurt. Glowing cracks appeared all over the arm and it started shaking violently.

She pushed harder but noticed something wasn’t right. Either she wasn’t pushing hard enough to break it or she still hadn’t figured out what she was supposed to do.

The hand seemed to have snapped out of whatever stunned state she put it in.

It immediately started to shift again,all five fingers seperate.

Hissing, she jumped back. She’d lost sight of the gem. It had to be on one of the tentacles but they were coiling and winding too fast for her to catch it.

They all suddenly struck at her,all five at once trying to flatten or crush her.

The spikes in her hands became makeshift swords, knocking them away from whatever direction they came.

"Come on, come on. Give me -"

Her eyes suddenly twitched and her neck turned back and down at an unnatural angle, dodging a blast from behind heading right for her head

"Crap!"

She hissed. She keeps forgetting that her new body’s nervous system was different from her old one. It hadn’t been very painful, just... Jarring

Her neck quickly reattached itself normally and she looked behind her

The beam attack came from the eye so it had to be...

"That one"

She yelled, throwing one of the spikes . It struck the tentacle, knocking it down and revealing the blue gem under it .

"Yes!"

This is her chance. She gripped the last spike in her hand and threw it with all her-

"Huh?"

It suddenly flew out of her hand, repelled by an invisible force.

She immediately started looking around

"What? But where did it -"

The ground under her suddenly burst open and five more tendrils wrapped around her grabbing her in it’s crushing grip

"Fuck!"

She seethed, trying to break free when the other set joined the red one, wrapping around her before they formed back into hands, squeezing her in their grip.

She kept struggling but she could barely move. Looking down she suddenly noticed the eyes glowing again

"Huh-"

A spike suddenly flew in, stabbing through the space between the fingers and into her side

"Guh-"

She gasped, coughing up blood

Then a second, and a third and after a while she was basically a giant pin cushion.

Coughing, she slowly raised her head,her blue eyes pale and blank.

"Ghhh...Heh, you should see the last person who got this close to killing me"

She suddenly frowned. She didn’t know why but she felt like this thing was laughing at her

Her head dropped again, she was too weak to keep it up and her eye lids had gotten too heavy

A blue light snapped her out of it, and looking down she saw it was the blue eye about to shoot her already dying body in it’s crushing grasp.

"Oh, screw you..."

She slurred as darkness overtook her vision