Jake may have been one of the few unscathed, but as a leader his sense of foreboding was even greater than that of his subordinates. Squinting at the surface as if he wanted to peer through the kilometers of solid rock separating them from the ground, his heart clenched with anguish, tinged by a nasty premonition.
"We can't stay here. We have to move on." He declared suddenly.
Lucia, Enya, and the others who were dusting off the dirt and rubble that had fallen on them during the quakes stopped what they were doing and turned to him, a serious look on their faces.
"Are you sure?" Maeve scoffed apathetically. "It's enough of a miracle that we weren't discovered."
"I agree with Jake." Hade announced coldly, backing him up. "The Celestial City is very likely indestructible or this Ordeal would have no point. If we're just below it no explosion from above can reach us. We're almost there."
" However, that's only a short-term solution." Enya retorted, forming a 3D model of the Celestial City and its surroundings with her red flames.
The model was strikingly realistic and one could even see the habitable zone shrinking in real time as the curtain of black clouds drew closer. All their preparatory work and information research had not been for nothing.
To support her point, she snapped her fingers and the circular occupiable area shrank abruptly in accelerated time, closing in on the Celestial City but going no further than its outer edges. Jake and the others, who were marked by a dot, situated dozens of kilometers underground, found themselves trapped by the unbreakable Celestial City above them and the curtain of black clouds all around.
The only consolation was that they were safe. For the time being, that is.
"I'm afraid the situation is much less optimistic than that." Will, whom they had only just reunited, calmly objected.
Immyr, the dragons, Craig and the other surviving troops from New Earth nodded their heads in agreement, sharing the same opinion.
"What do you mean?" Jeanie's fluent, trembling voice chimed in unexpectedly, her tiny head craning up timidly from Aisling's cleavage.
The Minmin was completely useless and out of her depth in the face of the foes and dangers that lay ahead of them, but she had refused to bide her time until the end of the Ordeal in the safety of space with the other natives. No one knew why she insisted on accompanying them, but because she had an Oracle Device Jake could not think of a reason to dissuade her.
The Fairy might be fearful and useless, but she sure as heck could be stubborn. His theory was that she had made friends with everyone and felt comfortable and safe with them. For that reason, she didn't want to be left behind no matter what.
Will looked around to see who had just spoken and blinked stupidly several times as his gaze fell on the little doll's head with electric blue hair sandwiched between two white mounds. With no context one would have thought he was ogling not the fairy, but Aisling's breasts.
When he was confronted with the slightly irritated stare of the gorgeous half-demon, the dragon tamer averted his gaze and coughed uneasily.
"Ahem, who are you?" Will finally inquired as he cleared his throat, addressing both the fairy and the vampire-succubus.
"You'll have plenty of time to get to know each other later." Jake tactlessly interrupted him before reminding him, "The explanation."
"Ah yes, sorry." The merchant smiled awkwardly. "This planet is round, right?"
All three having traveled in space, Jake, Hade and Asfrid looked at each other and then confirmed with a synchronous nod.
"Last time I checked, that was still the case."
" If that's true, we' re not safe here." Will claimed in a confident tone. "When Shenron was escorting us here we got to see what happens when these clouds hit the ground. The rock melts quickly when it comes into contact with these endless downpours of lightning. The Mana Storm descends soon after, swallowing up everything that has managed to overcome the clouds. If I'm not mistaken, most of the planet has already been dissolved and what is left of it must now look like an inverted dome. The undestroyed area is not a cylinder, but a bowl."
The heart of Jake and the others sank when they heard this last statement. It wasn't that they hadn't considered the possibility, but that they didn't think the Mana Storm would descend so quickly. If it had only been the clouds, the planet would not have collapsed so quickly.
"If what you say is true... If we stay under the Celestial City for too long, we'll be trapped and perish swallowed up by the clouds and the Mana Storm, trapped alive under the city we were supposed to join-"
BOOOOM!
A series of explosions even more terrifying than the others sounded on the surface and all the Myrtharian Nerds lost their balance as they were hit by a catastrophic shock wave. The Kintharians, Throsgenians and Eltarians combined forces and the rocky vault above them stabilized in the nick of time.
The explosions did not stop there, but rather increased in intensity and frequency. The blasts and tremors became more and more terrifying, the shock waves overlapping and merging with each other to destroy absolutely everything in their path. Soon Jake, Gerulf, Asfrid and Rogen were forced to intervene to stabilize the rock surrounding them, but the worst was yet to come.
In the blink of an eye, much like the explosions before, but a thousand times more dangerous, they were hit by scorching heat and radiation, and several Myrtharian Nerds who had overheated their Oracle Shields began to char before their eyes, including Jeanie.
Seeing this, Jake stepped in decisively and his galactic eyes flared. In one swift swipe of his hand he harnessed all the heat and radiation beaming down on them and channeled it, then focused it before splitting it into various sized energy beams which he then redirected at each of the Kintharians and himself.
Within seconds, their skin turned white-hot and Gerulf growled in a hoarse voice as he opened a tunnel with a casual wave,
"Don't worry about us."
The next moment, a shockwave even more monstrous than the previous ones hit them hard, and the Kintharians were slammed into the ground. Despite their incredible constitutions, their bones broke, their skin cracked and their muscles tore on impact.
Asfrid said nothing, but ignoring the blisters and severe burns sprouting on her body, she stopped instead of running and reinforced the Kintharians' position with a force field. Ruby, who was both an Eltarian and a Throsgenian also stood by Jake to cool the rock and absorb the radiation.
Hade reluctantly returned to help them, but a sharp glance from Jake made it clear that he was needed to stabilize the tunnel and protect the others.
"Enter the Portable Fortress." Hade roused them with urgency as he summoned a black sphere about a meter in diameter.
It was a reinforced and more advanced version than the ones used to house the Laudarkvik natives in space. Although the space inside was roughly the same, the alloy forming the steel armor of the artifact was significantly thicker and much more sophisticated. Jake, Gerulf and even Ruby had helped design it by providing the precious metal.
Alas, they had only been able to make four of them and this was the last one they had left. If not for the fear of running out of options, they would never have risked taking the last blasts with their Oracle Shield.
Most of them no longer had that option to defend themselves, so they complied with Hade's order without flinching. But unexpectedly, several Players chose to stay outside despite the circumstances.
Towering over Hade and the Portable Fortress, the giant mammoth that Mufasa and the others had recruited refused to enter and instead chose to cover them with his body.
"Since I have a bracelet, I have nothing to fear." The huge prehistoric pachyderm, nicknamed Dumbo by Jake, laughed without fear or regret. "Without you, I would never have gotten this far and I would have had no future. Let me return the favor."
The dragons like Jinlong in charge of escorting Will also took the initiative to protect the group with their massive bodies.
"A few explosions won't kill us." Immyr roared as he coiled like a boa smothering its prey around the procession.
BOOOOM!
Ruining the emotional scene, a blast more devastating than any other hit them. Those in the tunnel under Hade's protection were blasted away and the scales of Immyr and the other dragons flew in all directions.
The force field created by Asfrid shattered, and Jake and the other Kintharians lost control of the rock they were holding. The heat and radiation that Jake had been keeping under control by sharing the flow between them mushroomed, and several of the weaker Kintharians suddenly began to burn brightly.
A careless Kintharian was instantly vaporized, roasted alive by the radiation. Asfrid, who was even more fragile, teleported into the tunnel in time by activating her Force Push Skill, but Jake and the others who were propping up the cavern were mercilessly buried, blasted into the depths of the earth.