Chapter 32: The Escape Plan

The platform at the summit trembled slightly from the chaos of battle. In the shadows, the three members of the Gray Hawk squad were bound together by rust-colored tendrils, while Kira poised her throwing knife to slash at the black silk threads.

Seeing her intent, Ye Mi hurriedly intervened. The black threads slowly unraveled, revealing Gina’s face. “Hey, calm down—it’s me.”

Kira was clearly startled, then her eyes shone with disbelief and relief. “Gina?!”

“You’re still alive!” Red kept his voice low, but the relief in it was unmistakable.

No matter what had happened, the fact that all members of Gray Hawk were present was already good news to them.

Reunited after so long, each had questions about the others’ ordeals. Red asked, “These black threads binding us... what are they?”

“A newly awakened ability,” Ye Mi answered dismissively, not wishing to dwell on the subject. She changed the topic: “What happened to Raj’s arm?”

Ye Mi was eager to know. She and the other three had entered the passage at the same time; even if the passage had shifted, their pace should have been similar. Why, then, had she not encountered them in the arena?

Though the three Gray Hawk members found Ye Mi’s sudden awakening of a second ability odd, it was not unheard of, so they let it pass.

Raj, the one asked, gave a wry smile. “After we got separated from you and couldn’t find you, we ended up in an arena where we faced a bronze serpent, at least C-rank. My arm was lost fighting it.”

He paused, shivering at the memory of the harrowing battle. “Its venom was fierce. My power can’t regrow an arm tainted by that poison.”

Ye Mi nodded thoughtfully, then produced a spear. “Is it this kind of poison?”

She let a drop of venom fall to the ground. The moment it touched, the surface sizzled and melted, leaving a small, smoking pit.

Raj recoiled in horror. “Damn! That’s the one—keep it away from me!”

Red looked at her in surprise. “Where did you get that?”

“Harvested from the monsters in the arena.”

At her reply, the other three’s expressions went blank for a moment. In unison, they exclaimed, “You can do that?!”

Ye Mi was about to speak further when the sounds of battle above suddenly grew louder and closer. A member of another expedition team was blasted aside by an energy cannon, a severed limb skidding across the ground near their hiding spot. Warm blood spattered across Red’s face.

He wiped his face without flinching and said to Ye Mi, “With the Defense Bureau’s teams, clearing the rest won’t take long. What do we do?”

Red felt that Gina, now wielding two abilities and possessing both the God’s Mask and the spear, was perhaps already stronger than he was. Though he hadn’t seen her new power in action, as someone who’d also fought in the arena, he understood how hard it was to survive alone against those monsters—and Gina had lived.

Gina Ye Mi calmly accepted the subtle shift in the group’s dynamic, with herself at the center. The appearance of the other three led her to adjust her original plan slightly, but it was a welcome change; their presence was a significant boost—the reason she’d saved them.

But before forming a new plan, she needed to clarify something. “Captain, can you still fly on this platform?”

She remembered well: the higher they went, the stricter the flight restriction became. Otherwise, Gray Hawk would have just flown up using Red’s power.

Red nodded, then shook his head, explaining, “I can use my power, but I doubt I could keep us airborne for a full minute—thirty seconds at most.”

“That’s enough.”

As long as they could fly, it was far better than Ye Mi’s original plan to climb and escape.

“When the fight above is nearly over, Captain, you use your old trick to fly us across the platform. Raj, you shake the bell at the bottom, and Kira adapts as needed.”

She paused, adding, “That’s the plan. I’ll keep the God’s Mask as a backup.”

There was no better way. Against six C-level espers, brute force offered no chance of victory. Even with their surprise treasures, at best, they could trade lives for lives. It was better to gamble everything on their artifacts.

The others knew this was the only workable plan and waited quietly for the right moment.

Not long after, the melee above was nearly over. On the platform, the last survivor of the remaining team fought desperately. Anders’s vines encircled them like a massive cage, sealing off all escape.

That person was lifted by the throat by Darwen, his legs burned to charcoal yet still cursing and struggling. “Dogs of OC Corp... you’ll die a wretched death!”

Flames flickered on Darwen’s hand, his face marked by several fresh cuts—a gift from this very explorer. He sneered, “You’re strong, but not strong enough. The law of this world is the survival of the fittest.”

With that, Darwen snapped the man’s neck with practiced ease and tossed the corpse aside. Blood flowed into the platform’s grooves, lighting up nearly all the patterns—they resembled a giant maw on the verge of awakening.

Only the dark lines at the central obelisk remained unlit.

“We’re still short,” Anders stated plainly.

The three Defense Bureau teams fell into a strange, tense silence.

There was no one left to kill.

Everyone instinctively stepped back, weapons raised.

Darwen’s face was half-hidden in shadow, his expression unreadable. “Are we about to turn on each other?”

His words were quiet but carried by the wind to every ear. The six C-ranked espers remained composed, but the eight remaining agents all blanched in unison.

Who else could serve as a sacrificial offering but them?

The flames in Darwen’s hand roared higher, the air growing oppressively hot. The Defense Bureau agents grew ever more anxious.

“Oh, I nearly forgot,” Anders suddenly laughed, breaking the tension. Even the oppressive heat seemed to pause momentarily.

He turned and walked toward the edge of the platform. “There are still three little rats we haven’t caught.”

Relief washed over the eight agents, hope rising that the blood of those three would be enough to light the altar’s final lines and let them escape unscathed.