Chapter 93: Maddening Trial (I)
Chapter 93: Maddening Trial (I) [Bonus Chapter]
[In this trial, you only have one goal...]
[Survive]
That was it. There were no other explanations, no specific goals, no specific tasks. Just survive.
Uhtred wasn’t even the one to express his confusion. Diya immediately spoke out loud.
"Survive? What sort of vague goal is that? We’re just meant to survive? For how long? There isn’t even a time limit?!"
Diya seemed a bit more vocal than she usually was, but one couldn’t blame her. The feeling of losing cosmic essence, feeling your power seep out of your body without any understanding of how to stem the loss, was a new feeling.
After getting used to cosmic essence for two whole weeks, forging her way up to Level 11, it was a no-brainer that she was getting frantic at the speed at which she was losing her new power.
The same went for everyone else in the group, even though they were much calmer and not as vocal as Diya.
"We can save the questions for later," Dennis interjected, grounding everyone with his calm logic. "For now, we need to figure out a way to reduce the loss of our cosmic essence, or else we might not even last the night."
Uhtred looked up at the sky, where the sun was making its journey across the expanse. It was still just past midday by its position, but just like Dennis had said, in a few hours the sun would begin to set.
If by then they had not found a way to stem the cosmic essence loss, then they truly would be fucked.
"And that’s just one of our worries," Uhtred muttered under his breath, his eyes focused on the dots in the distance that had caught his eyes in the first place.
Zara was staring at the same spot in the distance, and both Diya and Dennis also turned, noticing Uhtred and Zara’s gazes.
"Are those people, or the ancient variants?" Diya asked, squinting her eyes.
"Neither," Zara responded flatly, then tore her gaze from the dots. "Those are beasts. I can’t really tell from here, but to me they look like some sort of wolves."
"Jackals," Uhtred corrected. "We’re in Australia. Wolves do not exist here. Those have to be jackals or wild dogs. I can’t really tell if they are prehistoric versions or just evolved modern versions, though."
As Uhtred stared at the dots, right before his eyes, they literally disappeared into the shimmering haze of heat on the horizon.
Uhtred frowned, but he said nothing, simply averting his gaze and focusing on their current situation. So long as the beasts were simply content in watching from afar, there was no immediate threat.
"We need to find somewhere to stay. A prime location where we can make a stable territory for the meantime before we figure out exactly what is going on in this trial."
"How about those rock formations?" Zara nodded towards their front. The rocks in the distance provided a high vantage point for one to have a broad view of the surroundings for miles. It was exactly the kind of place they needed to figure things out.
Without further ado, Uhtred simply nodded and began walking, followed quickly by the others.
Their cosmic essence continued to leak, but individually, they had all begun to try to stem the flow one way or the other. Their results were negligible, though, even for Uhtred, who had a primordial grade core.
Usually, in this kind of situation, his passive draw would basically counterbalance the leakage, but the surrounding cosmic essence itself was barely existent in the first place.
This place, the air itself and the very surroundings were barren. There was barely any cosmic essence available at all.
The weird situation had made Uhtred begin to form an idea of what the System wanted of them in this so-called Age of Hunger trial.
This was essentially a test... a test to see which strain of man was better attuned to cosmic essence between the modern humans and the ancient men.
He didn’t know for sure, but he was certain that if he could find a way to stem the flow of his cosmic essence leaking out of his body, his control over cosmic essence would reach terrifying heights.
Uhtred was lost in thought as he tried to decipher the System’s intentions, but his battle-hardened body, even with his absent minded state, still retained a level of vigilance that allowed him to immediately pause the moment he felt something off.
His attention returned to the present in vigilance, but before he even spoke, Zara held a fist up, stopping everyone in their tracks.
No one moved a muscle, and even Diya did not ask a question. She knew when to speak and when to remain silent.
Uhtred spread his senses around the area, trying to pinpoint exactly what had triggered his vigilance.
They had walked a few kilometers away from their initial landing spot and were now over a flat expanse of sand. Their cosmic essence continued to leak out of their bodies, and the heat beat down on them from the sky.
Uhtred wiped a stray bead of sweat that rolled down his forehead as he listened carefully and pushed his perception to the maximum.
At first, he began to wonder if they were being paranoid. It was as if there was something vague in the air, whispers of a presence that was close yet wasn’t at the same time.
Then, all of a sudden, his perception locked onto a blisteringly fast blur dashing in from the side.
The entire crew burst into action immediately, Uhtred and Zara being the fastest, moving in synchronization and dominating different sections of the area they felt the presence speeding in from.
Diya and Dennis fell into a more defensive position behind Uhtred and Zara, turning immediately and trusting their backs to them as they also covered their behinds.
Before what was attacking them revealed itself, Uhtred activated Winter Court, and in an instant, the few feet around him flashed into a cold domain.
Yet, within his broad perception, the attacker who should have entered into the domain suddenly diverted, changing direction in a physics-defying maneuver.
Uhtred’s eyes widened as he barely tracked the movement.
With the speed their attacker was moving at, there was no way they should have been able to escape the entire area Uhtred’s Winter Court covered.
The attacker moved abruptly right, entering into the area Zara covered. Her fist shot out like a bullet, her eyes locked on to the blur of movement that flashed within her perception very briefly.
Yet, in the same manner their attacker evaded Uhtred’s reach, they also danced beyond the reach of Zara’s fist.
She activated that weird magic of hers that distorted the area around her fist, bending it unnaturally.
Despite that, their attacker only seemed slightly surprised, being dragged in for a brief moment before they reacted and burst into an even greater speed, disappearing like they had never appeared in the first place.
The entire team was left dazed for several moments as everyone’s attacks cooled off and they waited for another probe from their invincible attacker.
Maintaining a strict level of vigilance and not underestimating their opponent, they waited for a few dozen seconds before finally easing into more relaxed stances.
"Whoever or whatever the fuck that was, they were bloody damn fast," Uhtred’s eyes darted around the area in case their attacker remained within the vicinity, but no attack came again.
They resumed walking towards the rock formations in the distance, maintaining a stricter formation this time and being more aware of their surroundings.
Yet, after about two minutes of walking, they felt the presence again. The blisteringly fast attacker came in speeding and nearly scored a hit on Dennis, pinpointing him as the weakest one among them.
Uhtred and Zara were quick enough, and Diya and Dennis themselves had also been well trained, that they reacted quickly, foiling the attempt.
At this point, though, Dennis made an observation.
"It’s those foxes we saw earlier. Or rather, the jackals..." he said, correcting himself. "And they’re not truly trying to attack us..."
Uhtred’s eyes widened in realization.
"Guerrilla tactics."
Dennis nodded. "They can sense our cosmic essence leaking into the surroundings, and they’re trying to make us expend more of it faster."
Uhtred growled under his breath and clenched his jaw. "Then we just need to move and disregard them."
He began walking briskly, and the others followed immediately, keeping up with his pace. They still remained alert and defended against several more probing attacks from the jackals, but Uhtred, even with his Level 23 strength, was beginning to get pissed off.
If you disregarded them, they were going to attack. And with their speed, they would score a significant hit, causing damage that would mean spending more cosmic essence.
So, even though you wanted to disregard them, you were forced to spend cosmic essence to defend anyway.
It was a lose-lose scenario. The guerrilla tactic was working efficiently. Every single one of them was losing cosmic essence even faster, with no source to draw in from.
At the same time, they couldn’t even score any hits on the blisteringly fast creatures either.
Then, as if to add insult to the injury, not far away from their group, a dozen pillars of light suddenly shimmered as twelve Neanderthal and Homo erectus men materialized into existence, dropped off by a teleportation circle into the fray.
The dozen ancient variants and Uhtred’s team stared at each other for a few seconds of silence before both sides suddenly burst into action...