Chapter 129: The Abyss
Chapter 129: Chapter 129: The Abyss
Chapter 129: The Abyss
Gravity took absolute control.
The colossal durasteel bridge completely shattered under the weight of Draven’s kinetic explosion. The Iron Leviathan’s heavily armored VIP carriage tilted forward over the edge of the cliff.
Inside the sealed lounge, the squad lost their footing.
The floor vanished beneath them. The carriage plunged straight down into the bottomless Miasma Gorge. The Absolute Dead Zone had shattered along with the Executioner, meaning their mana had returned.
But mana could not give them wings. They were trapped inside a metal box weighing hundreds of tons, falling at terminal velocity.
Zero gravity hit them like a physical blow.
Aegon slammed against the ceiling of the carriage, his Blood Fire Spear clattering wildly against the metal walls. Cole and Lyra screamed, desperately clinging to the bolted furniture. Estella summoned a layer of stardust to cushion her fall, her eyes wide with terror.
Outside, the freezing, toxic wind howled.
Aegon pressed his face against the reinforced glass of the blast doors. He looked out onto the crumpled hood of the train carriage.
Draven was standing there.
The Captain was falling right alongside them. His black Vanguard coat whipped violently in the rushing wind. But Draven was not panicking. He was not preparing a massive spell to save them.
He was smiling.
It was a cold, calculating smile. He was staring at a glowing holographic projection radiating from his Mythic item. The [Cartographer’s World Map] illuminated his face in the pitch-black abyss.
Draven was simply cross-referencing their exact descent trajectory with the hidden coordinates of the Phantom-Weaver Warlord Legacy.
’Why waste energy flying down?’ Draven thought pragmatically, his eyes scanning the map.
’Gravity is free. It is the fastest way to the bottom.’
He calculated the depth of the gorge. It would take exactly thirty-eight seconds to hit the bottom. He would engage his vectors at the very last moment to conserve his stamina.
But Draven had severely underestimated the psychological fragility of teenagers.
Behind the glass, Aegon saw Draven smiling and doing absolutely nothing.
Aegon’s heart dropped into his stomach.
’He gave up,’ Aegon thought in sheer horror.
’The fight with the Level 100 Cultist drained everything he had. He is smiling because he accepted his fate. We are actually going to die.’
Draven had technically given up if you think about it. Given up on giving them a comfortable ride.
The gorge was pitch black. The rushing wind sounded like the screams of the damned. They were in a metal coffin plummeting into hell.
Ten seconds had passed. Twenty-eight seconds left until impact.
Aegon felt his blood turn to ice. He did not care about the Vanguard anymore. He did not care about the Human Civil War, or the Capital Elders, or his own ambitions. He only cared about one thing.
Aegon kicked off the ceiling. He floated across the cabin.
He grabbed Reina’s hands.
Reina looked at him, her eyes wide with panic. She gripped her High-density Ice Core Axe in one hand, her mind frantically searching for any possible way to freeze the walls or cushion the inevitable, fatal crash. Her brain was moving a million miles an hour.
"Reina!" Aegon shouted. His voice cracked. He did not care.
Reina blinked, completely caught off guard by the sheer intensity in his eyes.
"I love you!" Aegon confessed at the top of his lungs, his words tumbling out in a frantic, desperate rush.
The entire carriage suddenly went dead silent. Even Cole stopped screaming.
"I have been loving you since when we were kids!" Aegon continued, his grip on her hands tightening. He pulled her closer in the weightless cabin.
"You mean the world to me and I don’t want to die without keeping my feelings hidden. I don’t care about anything! Only you!"
Aegon wrapped his massive arms around her and pulled her into a tight, desperate hug. He squeezed his eyes shut, bracing for the carriage to hit the bottom of the ravine.
Reina froze.
Her mind, which had been calculating impact vectors and ice-shield densities, completely short-circuited. The panic vanished. The fear of death evaporated. All she could hear was the echoing ring of Aegon’s voice.
He loved her. He had always loved her.
Reina let go of her axe. The heavy weapon floated away.
She did not say a word. She did not need to. Reina galloped forward, wrapping her legs around Aegon’s waist and throwing her arms around his neck.
She violently smashed her lips against his.
It was a messy, desperate, incredibly passionate kiss. She completely lost herself in the moment, pouring years of hidden affection into a single, final embrace.
If the world was going to end in twenty seconds, she was going to spend every single one of those seconds exactly like this.
Aegon gasped into the kiss, his eyes flying wide open in shock before he melted into it, holding her even tighter.
---
On the other side of the carriage, Lucien stared at them.
The Thunder rapier slipped from Lucien’s grip. He swallowed hard. The raw, unfiltered emotion of Aegon’s confession struck a chord deep inside him. Death was coming. There was no time left for regrets or awkward silence.
Lucien slowly turned his head. He looked directly at Nyx.
Nyx was gripping the shadows of the wall. She looked back at Lucien. Her dark eyes were wide, her heart hammering against her ribs. She could read the exact expression on his face. She knew exactly what he was about to say.
Lucien opened his mouth. He took a deep breath to shout his own confession.
Outside on the hood, the ground finally appeared in Draven’s S-Rank Tactical Radar.
Three seconds to impact.
’Perfect timing,’ Draven thought.
Draven instantly engaged his SS-Rank Vector Manipulation. He did not target the carriage itself. He targeted the kinetic momentum of the fall.
He violently reversed the downward vector.
VWOOM.
The effect was instantaneous and physically jarring. The hundreds of tons of falling metal were stripped of their kinetic energy in a single millisecond. The carriage decelerated from terminal velocity to an absolute crawl.
Inside the lounge, gravity viciously reasserted itself.
THUD.
Everyone was thrown roughly to the metal floor.
The VIP carriage softly touched down on the solid, rocky floor of the Miasma Gorge. The landing was smoother than a commercial flight.
Total silence blanketed the dark canyon.
Outside, Draven swiped away his holographic map. He dusted off his Vanguard coat. He walked up to the heavy blast doors he had locked earlier.
With a casual flick of his wrist, Draven applied a separating vector to the locking mechanism.
SCREEEEECH.
Draven physically tore the heavy durasteel doors completely off their hinges. He tossed the ruined metal aside and stepped into the carriage.
He expected his squad to be drawing their weapons, ready to secure the perimeter of the toxic wasteland.
Instead, he walked into a room thick with absolute, suffocating awkwardness.
Lucien was lying on the floor, his mouth still half-open, his hand reaching out toward Nyx. Nyx was covering her face with her hands, staring at the ceiling.
Cole and Lyra were aggressively looking out the window at nothing. Estella was blinking rapidly, completely bewildered by what she had just witnessed.
In the far corner of the carriage, Aegon and Reina were sitting on the floor.
They were no longer kissing. They were sitting three feet apart.
Aegon’s face was as red as a tomato. Reina had pulled her knees to her chest, burying her furiously blushing face into her arms.
Neither of them dared to make a single sound.
Draven stood in the doorway. He looked at Aegon. He looked at Reina. He looked at Lucien on the floor.
The Warlord blinked. His tactical mind could process the complex spatial geometry of a Level 100 magic domain, but this current atmosphere completely eluded him.
Draven tilted his head slightly.
"Umm..." Draven asked, genuinely confused. "Did I miss anything?"