Chapter 93 - Forlorn Hope

Immediately after the orb of darkness devoured them, Mari and the others found themselves falling down an abyss, causing especially Iza to panic.

"Mommy! Mommy! Save me, save meeeeeeeee!!!!"

"Iza, for freak's sake--DON'T FREAKING PULL MY HAIR!!!"

"No, don't push me Rin! I don't want to DIIIIIIIEEEEEEEEE!!!!!"

With none of them ever tried skydiving in their lives--the only way they were aware of it is through watching videos back on Earth--some of them had varied positions while falling: Rin, Mari, and Kai lying prone, their arms spread wide; Karen lying on her back while holding her skirt; James falling headfirst; and lastly, Iza riding on Rin's back and grabbing her ponytail. It is Iza weighing down her back that Rin is more worried of, as she's afraid that her scalp will fall off if her classmate won't stop tugging her hair every time she desperately scream for help.

"Karen, can you drop a light orb down this abyss we're falling into? I want to see how deep this place is," Mari calmly asked.

"Eh? O-Okay," Karen nodded.

She took a deep breath and from the palm of her hand a ball of light the size of an apple appeared, and let it fall down her hand. As it fall they all counted altogether the time elapsed since it started its descent until a few seconds later the pale light it gave off stopped reaching their eyes.

"Ah, this place is so deep," Kai remarked.

"There's a large chance this abyss is an endless space, just like the ones in movies," James also spoke.

"No way! D-Does that mean we're going to fall down this hole forever?!" Iza panicked again.

Not only they'll die of starvation and thirst in this kind of place, they'll also die of boredom if they were to be trapped forever. Such an end makes Iza feel more uneasy, as she consider it to be much worse than a brutal death.

"*sob* I don't want to die like this..."

"Don't worry. I'll make sure you won't die alone," James teased her.

"T-That doesn't make me feel better at all!" she retorted.

"G-Guys, look! The orb of light..."

While the two are bickering to each other, Rin saw a tiny speck of light ahead of them. At first she was suspicious of it, but shortly she noticed that its color is the same as that of Karen's light orb dropped a few minutes ago.

"So this abyss has an end after all..."

"Ah!" Karen exclaimed. "T-This is bad..."

As they reach the bottom of the abyss they noticed that their fall is getting faster and faster each second due to gravity--a proof that the laws of physics also exist in such a place.

Seeing that the bottom of the abyss is just meters ahead of them, Mari hurriedly alerted her classmates: "Everyone, ready for impact!"

"I-I'll try to soften our landing!" Iza responded, immediately activating her [Treasure Box] spell.

Right away all of them became surrounded by a large bubble of mana that absorbed all of the impact, allowing them to bounce off the surface instead.

"What in the world is going on?!"

"We're...bouncing everywhere!"

"Uuuu...my head's spinning. I can't take it anymore..."

"Nonononono! Don't you try vomit at me! I-I'll beat you up--KYAAAAAA?!!"

"Izaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!"

"I'm sorry! I'M SORRYYYYYYYY!!!!!"

As if made of rubber, the bubble--and all of the people inside it--continued to bounce off in all directions at the rocky bottom of the abyss, causing some of them to feel nauseous. They kept on bouncing until the bubble touched a sharp stalagmite, popping the bubble, and everyone got thrown away as a result.

"Ugh...my butt hurts so much," James groaned as he sat on the hard ground.

"You're complaining about that, but what about me? Karen almost vomited on my face, you know?!" Rin complained at him.

"Hehe, sorry," Karen chuckled.

"Is everyone okay?" Mari asked.

"Yeah. I think no one got hurt so bad," Kai replied.

After they helped each other stand up, Karen immediately picked up the light orb she created. She tried to apply more mana into it to make it glow brighter, but it's still not enough to light a five-meter area around them.

"Even with her light magic, we still can't see anything..."

"Not only that, the air here is also very thick. It's like we're in the bottom of the ocean..."

"Guys, keep quiet," Kai shushed his classmates. "I'm hearing something coming towards us."

He grabbed the light ball from Karen and asked everyone to huddle close together. Then suddenly he tossed it up in the air and slashed it with his sword, creating a small popping sound and a blinding flash that revealed a large area around them.

"Uhh...guys? I think I'm hallucinating..."

"You're not hallucinating, James," Rin said to him. "We're all seeing the same thing."

No doubt, what they're seeing wasn't just a figment of their imagination, but a real scenario hidden in the dark. Even for a very short time, they were able to clearly see what's in store for them.

Karen took a step back in horror. "No way, they..."

"Nn," Mari nodded. "Demons."

Unbeknownst to them, the abyss they've fallen to want just an ordinary place but a home for demons of all forms and sizes, thousands of them. Now that their cover has been exposed, there's no need for them to continue stalking their potential prey under the dark.

"Everyone, calm down. We've been doing this many times already, there's no need for us to panic," Mari reminded everyone.

Without anyone noticing, she took out a couple of small pills from her back pocket and tightly held them in her hand. She waited for the light to disperse, and then--

"Everyone, run!!!"

The moment the surroundings turned dark again, Mari threw the pills to the demons, releasing a thick veil of smoke that caused their eyes to become irritated. They then used that opportunity to run for their lives, as the area was too narrow for them to effectively use their powers.

"Damn it! I never expected that a black hole would bring us here inside this hellhole!" James cursed while running.

"I-I also think the same way!" Karen said.

Not even Mari could predict that the situation would happen. 'If only,' she muttered to herself, 'if only I had more foresight of the situation, perhaps we could have prevented ourselves from going to the lake...'

"Instead of being upset, the more important thing we should focus on is to find the exit as soon as possible. If we can enter this abyss through a black hole, I'm sure we can get out of here the same way," Kai spoke.

But something like that is easier said than done. With no light to guide them in the dark abyss aside from Karen's spell, the only thing they could do at the moment was to run blindly toward the direction they believe would lead them to the exit. It was a gamble on their part, but they have no choice.

"Waaaaaggghhh?!!" Iza shrieked as she tripped her foot on the uneven terrain.

"Iza!" James rushed to help her. "Are you okay?"

"I-I'm fine, it's just that my boots aren't actually suitable for running. Tsk."

"Ah, they're already catching up on us!" Rin warned her classmates.

Behind them, hundreds of demons came chasing after them at various speeds; some of them could even move as fast as Rin.

Letting out a deep sigh, Kai muttered: "If we can't outrun some of them, might as well outfight them!"

Brandishing his sword that quickly glowed bright with power, he charged headlong towards the largest demon he could find, and made a wide horizonal slash running through its head.

"KHAAAAAAAAHHHH!!!"

"Hey, don't start the party without me!" Rin yelled at him the moment he killed the demon.

She took a quick glance around her, and saw about ten demons within the area lighted by Karen's magic.

With a grin, she said--

"Buh-bye."

Click!

In a blink of an eye, the demons she counted suddenly turned into heaps of flesh and blood--an attack so fast that it looked like she didn't moved at all in the eyes of her classmates.

However--

"Oh my, I shouldn't have done that at all..."

With the scent of blood coming from their fallen brethren wafting through the already dense air, the demons that were once dormant in their individual lairs started to wake up at the same time, bringing the entire abyss to vibrate in resonance to their combined battle cries. Soon, they found themselves surrounded in all directions by thousands of red lights shining ominously in the vast darkness.

Even though it wasn't their intention to wake them all up, by the time they realized, it was too late to go back. They have already disturbed the hornet's nest.

Karen bit her lip and said to her friends, "This is getting worse..."

"What are we going to do now? Even if we fight them, they will just keep on coming and coming until we exhaust our strength!" Iza yelled in despair.

"And if we try to run away again, who knows there might be a demon who can easily catch us," James concurred.

HAAAAAAAGGGGHHHH!!! KUUUUUOOOOOHHHHH!!! SHAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!

The demons on the other hand, have only one option in mind. With their sharp fangs and claws as well as their sheer size and numbers, a small group of six young humans is no match for all of them.

"..."

Amidst the mess they're currently in, they noticed that Mari has been disturbingly quiet for a while now. Seeing her just standing still while looking down, James propped her head up and--

"What the heck? Why is she sleeping?!"

Despite his consternation, Mari wasn't actually asleep. By going through a meditative state, she can then use her ability to see countless future timelines, each having different outcomes. After examining each and every one of them, she can filter out the 'bad ends' and leave the good ones behind, from which she'll choose the best outcome--all done in a very short period of time. Such a task would give her too much mental strain, which resulted in her eyes to have their seemingly permanent deadpan stare.

"We have to protect Mari at all means. Her visions would be our only hope at this point," Kai said firmly.

"""Okay,""" his friends agreed.

And so it immediately became their objective. Until Mari finally finds out their next course of action, they have to devote their all to keep her from harm's way--even if it cost them their lives.

'Karen, at the count of three create the brightest, most powerful light you can make. Can you do that?' Kai whispered to her.

'Nn. I'll try.'

"Look at them. Look at their ugly faces. Can you see their smug stares being directed at us? They must be feeling extremely hungry now after seeing us humans, bursting with youthful vigor, in their turf. Look at how their saliva drip from their vicious mouths, the way their sharp teeth grind against one another. Aren't they no different from the beasts in a zoo enclosure?" Rin said, expressing her contempt for the demons surrounding them.

However, she has yet to see if there are any demons in the vicinity that has some capacity for judgment, just like the demon that attacked Barchen. Who knows, her words might cause the demons to start attacking all at once, just because some of them understood what she said? That would be a very foolish way to go.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Kai said: "Alright. Everyone, get ready in three..."

As soon as he started counting, the whole surroundings instantly became saturated with tension and killing intent coming from both sides. In just a few moments, a group of young people will face the largest horde of demons they encountered in their lives yet.

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'We have to survive,' all five of them began muttering in unison some sort of mantra, reminding themselves not to act rash and support each other as much as they can.

"One..."

'It's hero time.'

Raising his sword up, Kai started charging his weapon with mana and--

"Karen--!!!"

"Burst forth, [Midnight Sun]!!!"

At Karen's command a large magic circle appeared high above them and the demons' heads and started giving off so much light, that the seemingly eternal night inside the abyss instantly turned bright as day. The light coming from the 'magic sun' irritated the demons' eyes and agitated them even further, causing all thousands of them to charge towards the human invaders.

"GAAAAAAHHHHKKK!!! GHAAAAAAHHHHHKKK!!!!!"

"Everyone, now's the time! Let's slow to these demons what we're made of!" Kai shouted as he inspire his friends into all-out combat.

"""OOOOOOOHHHHHHHH!!!!!"""

Screaming on the top of their lungs, all five of them braved themselves for the upcoming Deluge that could potentially wipe all humanity--a torrent of demons no Ark could shelter anyone against.