"Hughhhhh!" Ray suddenly breathed in sharply as his chest rose and fell. Sweat covered his body as his eyes opened wide. His pupils were constricted as he felt as harp pain radiated through his body.
Ray sat up and looked around as he saw the head nurse, Sirius and Nia looking at him with worry evident in their eyes. His mind was still in chaos as a high pitched ringing sound invaded him.
Seeing Ray's condition, the head nurse understood what was happening with him and raised her hands. A whitish light glowed over her hands as she whirled them in the air and cast a spell,
[Infusion:- Energy Of World],
This allowed her to retrieve the calmness around her and turn it into an energy as she infused it unto Ray. The whitish light turned a bit foggy as it was absorbed into Ray's body. As the energy was infused in his body, it went straight to his mind and mana core. The abnormal supply of blood and hormones was calmed as his brain entered a semi-induced calm state. His mana core stopped spinning as the glow around it dimmed and it became dull.
[System Deactivated],
[System shutdown mandatory]
[reasons:-
-host overused the system
-various mana pathways damaged
-host body is exhausted beyond its capacity and can not handle the system for now.
Therefore, the system will enter shutdown and will try to heal the host over time]
As Ray's brain came back to senses, he read the whole system message and called out weakly,
"Aurora are you there?"
He waited for a few seconds as no voice was heard. Hearing nothing from her, he got a bit disheartened as he thought, "Well, the system, went on shut down. So she mist have gone to sleep as well. Sighh… i hope she doesn't feel alone or scared," he thought as he remembered the time Aurora spent when she had no host.
Because he shared memories with her, he felt the fear and anxiety darkness brought and the stigma it had created within her and the only thing she feared even more than darkness was being left alone. He didn't want her to suffer that again and this was where his thoughts were revolving around for now. That was until his mind link with his consciousness was re-established and a the cranky sound of woman was heard, "Don't worry. I am not going anywhere,"
"Aurora!" Ray asked in surprise.
"Who else? You idiot!" She replied angrily as she pouted within his consciousness.
"Well, weren't you linked with the system and now that the system has shut down, wouldn't you also go to sleep along with it," Ray asked her in confusion.
"Sigh.. you really are an idiot," she sighed helplessly and then explained, "So it is like this. I am not just part of the system but a consciousness as well and with ''em being a consciousness, it m linked to yours and am a part of your consciousness. So if the system goes offline, the part of mine that is linked to the system goes to sleep. So i simply shut down my abilities and keep my conscious active in yours,"
"Wow, that's some long process," Ray commented in wonder.
"Told you that you are an idiot," she said to him exasperatedly and continued, "Now get back to the real world you dumbo, others are getting worried seeing you zoning out and staring at the air like a weirdo," she giggled and then turned silent.
Hearing her, Ray realized that he was around others and then regained his composure. His eyes moved as he looked at everyone around him and saw them looking at him, giving him questioning looks.
"Uhm… i used a technique that caused a very bad backlash. So i was just assessing my body," Ray answered.
"Ohh.. is everything okay now?" Asked Sirius in worry.
"Yes everything is fine now," Ray replied with a smile but used the telepathic technique as he told him, "My system has gone on shut down while the mana pathways in my body are ruined and emend to be healed and taken care of. Other than that, i can only exert a small percentage of my physical strength at max," Ray told him as his voice was heavy and helpless.
Listening to him, Sirius just looked into his eyes and smiled as he told him back, "So what? We are your friends are by your side forever. Also, you are and will stay everyone's leader even if you have zero strength left and if anyone dare oppose you, i promise to hunt them down and prevent you their head," As Sirius replied, he stood up and looked down at Ray as he offered him his hand and lifted Ray up.
Ray held his hand and then hopped on the ground as he stood up. As he did, he felt a pain radiate through his body as he frowned. All his muscles were screaming in pain and he could feel his ribs move abnormally. The damage sure was extensive and Ray knew right he was going to need quite some rest.
"But why did my body get damaged to this extent? I barely took any heavy blows," he thought to himself in worry.
"It wasn't just the blows that you took. Let me remind you that you have been constantly fighting and have been injured various times. If not for your unique body constitution and the draconian blood within your bloodline. You would have been bedridden long ago," Aurora told him as she recounted the instances he was heavily injured and still continued like nothing happened.
"But, i try not to get injured that much and dodge most of the attacks. So where do these injuries pile up from?' Ray asked as he recounted the times he was injured and noticed that it was very rarely that he was actually hit by an opponent attack.
"Well, have you considered looking up at your brutal fighting style. You literally make your body suffer and become alighting rod to unleash a stronger bolt of lightning," Answered Aurora sarcastically.
Hearing her answer and the sarcasm it was laced with. Ray decided to stop himself and focused more on future plans. He turned to the head nurse as he asked, "Is everyone here?"
"Yes, everyone is here. They are waiting outside the portal room," the head nurse answered expressionlessly.
"Hmm… why are they waiting outside though. Did something happen?" He asked as he found it a bit strange for the head nurse to leave all the survivors outside while she herself ventured inside the portal room.
"You are thinking on point. It was wrong of me to leave them outside but i did this due to two reasons. One, i was concerned about the situation inside and used it as a precautionary measure to look for the situation inside before leading them while i also felt an extra presence lingering around alongside you three," as the head nurse spoke the last words, the wind in the portal room was stirred as a reddish streak shot out from a corner. The sudden change shocked Ray, Sirius and Nia as they never expected to be attacked at such a time when they had personally checked the whole place and found no one hidden.
"Hehe… so you finally came out of hiding," the head nurse remained unfazed as she crackled in an evil way. She raised her arm and muttered,
[Energy Barrier],
The particles of energy were formed as she turned them into a barrier of energy and captured the reddish streak. As she did, the streak tried to hit the walls of the barrier various times but to no avail did it succeed as the barrier wasn't any barrier but one formed by a Celestial.
A few instances later, the reddish streak finally calmed down as it stayed in the middle of the barrier and morphed back into its human form.
As it did, everyone looked as they saw Josh fall inside the barrier, completely unconscious.
"So he was the one you sensed?" Asked Nia as she recognized Josh immediately.
"Yes, I found something strange with this one," answered the Head Nurse.
"Well, lets capture him and get out of here fast. We don't have much time left. We will question him later on," Ray spoke as he asked Sirius to help him deeper in the portal room.
As they walked forward, the head nurse and Nia walked outside and called the others to follow them.
Ray walked alongside Sirius as he guided the man according the map he had. After turning a few corners, they reached a large opening in the portal room that was filled with many devices and wirings that were connected to one another.
"So this is the main portal room?" Sirius muttered as he took a sniff and immediately frowned, "why is there the smell of rotten flesh?" He spoke and walked towards the source of smell. Only to find the operators inside the portal rooms laying on the ground all dead. Their corpses had gotten rotten long ago and from what it seemed like, they were killed at least a couple of weeks ago.
"Something fishy really happened here," Sirius said as he walked back to Ray.
Ray stood on the module as he continuously looked at his badge and back at the module. He lifted his finger and pressed a couple of buttons as he inputted the activation code.
After inputting the code, a notification appeared on the module, "Please place the badge on the module of show authority,"
Ray did as asked and placed the badge on the module. Just as he placed the badge, the whole module lit up as the light spread throughout the portal room. Lights opened one after another as the machines whizzed and buzzed.
Portals were set alight as they got highlighted and opened themselves. Five portals were transported out of their storages as they stood tall in the middle of the portal room. The mechanical portals opened up as Ray inputted the destination co-ordinates in the module. Right as he did, a fluctuation in space appeared as a warning shone over the module,
[The spatial barrier is to be breached within five minutes. Do you require the teleportation to continue?],
Reading it, Ray sighed and pressed the button,
[YES].
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