CH371

The second he stepped foot through the door he had to stop himself from taking another as he swung his arms out, holding the people by his side back from going over the narrow ledge in front of them, into a hail of oncoming earth bullets before an unending chasm.

Wow, I really don’t like how this one started.

He pressed his back against the wall they’d just come through, barely daring to breathe with the scene in front of them all. Only inches from his face was what seemed like an endless barrage of stones flying by, merging with the walls on the opposite sides only to be shot out again.

The rate of fire was so thick and constant that there was no room for them to slip through it all, and even if there was they had no ground to walk across. Instead, there was just the gorge at their feet, ready to swallow them up if they stepped just a little too far.

“Can’t say I’m particularly fond of bullet hells. Jake, what are the odds you could open some portals farther and farther ahead to see if this ever stops or if there’s something else we’ll have to deal with on the other side?”

“None.”

“I mean, maybe you could try though? Just for funsies? And out of a desire for us all to not turn into a fine paste?”

“I can’t use space magic right now,” He told them, disappointment heavy in his voice as only Ben and Thera were left surprised by the statement.

What does he mean he can’t use space magic? Why can’t he… oh shit.

What he’d been missing snapped firmly into focus as everything he’d seen came together. The door itself was one clue, but he’d gotten another big one right at the start in the form of the additional weapons Amy had brought, loaded with nothing but earth enchantments.

Immediately he wanted to test to see if he was right, so ever so carefully he reached to his vest to pull away one of his sticky pads, only instead of activating it he first tried to change the enchantment on it, before failing that and attempting to alter its shape with his material magic, followed by his destruction, with every attempt to do anything failing in the end as the truth of their situation slapped them in the face.

“So should I take it that anything other than earth mana just doesn’t work?”

It was Amy who answered, sounding extremely frustrated as she did. “That’s right, so we only have the one option to get through this.”

“And I don’t suppose you can tell us anything else?” Thera asked, her mind instantly flashing to everything that could go wrong if they didn’t have access to any healing spells, especially since both Ben and Yuzu would be nothing more than dead weight for the rest of the trial.

“Don’t think there’s anything else to tell,” Jake said with an awkward chuckle. “This feels like the last major thing I was being made to hide personally, just wish it was happening in an environment that didn’t feel quite so deadly.”

All of them could feel the breeze of the stones shooting by their faces, with only two potential options for how they were supposed to clear it. Either they were going to have to go down into the chasm below, or across into the unknown.

“Well, at least this first bit seems manageable,” Thera sighed, her overwhelming level of mana giving her a different perspective from the rest of them as she used her power to gather the stones shooting by, shaping and condensing them all into a bigger and bigger ball before there was a boulder in front of them all that only continued to grow.

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By hanging stationarily in the air, it was being hit by more and more rocks that were trying to shoot past it, either being absorbed into the greater whole or else bouncing off with a destructive level of force as both Jake and Thera used their magics to make sure none of them were hit.

It was only once she deemed she had enough that she took the mass floating in front of her and shaped it, creating thick walls she was keeping strengthened with her magic to ensure they stood strong against each attack, as well as a platform to stand on and roof for their heads in the event anything came crashing down from above, and seeing no other option they each stepped on to the makeshift vessel as she started to fly it across the sky.