"We have to split up in order to make sure none of us fall off the edge. Emelia, Raylen, Harry, Fredric, stay with me. Elijah, Take your group down the chasm and try to catch up with Damir and Cael." Aslan set the plan in motion.
The soft noise coming from the waterfall comforted Elijah as it reminded him of the ocean. Parts of him wanted to escape Astraea, and find a secluded part of the world to build a life of freedom for himself. Another part of him felt attached to these new people, and with himself aware of his mental troubles, people are exactly what he needed.
Flashing lights of fire were lighting up the chasm fifty feet below them. Elijah would have expected for them to make it further, but just maybe, there were a lot more orange core kappas here…
"Damir!"
The head of a shadowed silhouette turned around to reveal a blue-blooded face. If Elijah thought himself was crazy at times, this kid one-upped him.
Damir fled quickly across the bridge to a cavern with a small number of kappas. Soon after, explosions of fire echoed, signifying death.
"Novius, Theon, keep everyone safe, I am going to go ahead of everyone."
"What?" Novius had no clue what Elijah meant, until he neared the edge of the sloped bridge held together by metal wires and wooden planks. The suspension bridge shuddered with Elijah careless momentum moving across it.
With a smile on his face, Elijah took one step underneath the metal wire, and slowly fell to the bridge 40 feet below him.
"You're Insane!" Cael remarked while holding onto the thick barbed metal wires.
Water slashes mixed with space magic promptly exited Elijah's empty hands, and flew towards the ugly kappa's feet exiting the darkness of a nearby cavern. The legs were severed as they were expecting an attack to the chest, or at least something at face or chest level.
"I knew something was up with you! Water magic can't do that!" Cael was furious and used his air magic to quickly shift his body to the side to dodge the water tridents thrown from deep in the cave in front of them.
Surprisingly, a second spell from the cave appeared, and a wave of water sent both Elijah and Cael out of the front of the cave, and onto the bridge. The situation was dire with Cael hanging by his hands on the Bridge. Instead of screaming for help, he dropped down to the next level once the water subsided while watching Elijah defy the natural laws of the world.
'This kid was supposed to fly off the edge! But he somehow swam through the wave of water and stood back on the bridge!' Cael struggled to contain his emotions.
Damir, ran across the bridge Elijah was on once he saw the sight, and immediately sent a wave of fire forward that incinerated any kappas who weren't coursing mana through their body. A fireball was also sent towards the ceiling, exploding into chunks of rocks that fell on the heads of anything living.
Elijah followed suit, and silently severed the heads of the kappas within the dark cave alongside Damir who was occupied with a grin.
"HELP ME!"
The steps were slippery but did not affect Elijah in the slightest. Knowing he could not afford to lose an orange core mage, he quickly ran to the rescue — scaling the slippery stairs without even touching a single step. Previously, Elijah had made use of his odd water magic, as well as his power of flight with the intention to draw out their desires. Only envy would bring out the worst in Damir and Cael, and proved Elijah's worrisome beliefs to be true.
Instead of rescuing Cael smothered by an orange core kappa, he was surprised by an unavoidable gust of wind. The kappa was nothing more than a prop, previously slain, and used to lure Elijah's poor soul into a trap!
It happened too fast. There was no time to react. How could a simple distress signal cause Elijah to lose focus from his conspiracies?
Bam!
Elijah's back was slammed against the wall of the chasm, stolen from the wobbly confines of the wooden bridge. Intense waves of pain washed over his body in waves. The thought of losing consciousness was barely on his mind as his fall into the depths began.
Cael had pulled a card Elijah played ignorant to. Indeed, he was in need of help from the orange core kappas appearing from the next cavern. However an easy way to escape death temporarily was by jumping into the waterfall. Cael held a certain hatred towards Elijah, and most definitely had reasons for his actions.
"So you have a soft spot for helping others, huh?" Damir expressed his content emotions from above, then later moved into the darkness of the cavern.
The rough wall of the chasm brushed and tore the skin off Elijah's back, eventually leading to his chest slamming against the metal wires of a suspension bridge. A jagged rock had protruded from the wall, leading Elijah to land on his back.
His mind was everything that had to do with the reason he was still alive. The small spurts that Elijah had of his mind being active allowed him to move and shift his body mid-air. Unfortunately, it did not help him break the fall of face planting into a bridge in between two nests full of red and orange core kappas.
The sounds were dulled, and the sense of pain on his back and forearms didn't seem to bother him. Muffled and sluggish footsteps were heard to his left and right, and with all the energy he could muster, the bridge was cut down the very center.
SHING!
Sensations of cold wind and water droplets coated his body as he tumbled off a bridge below him, finally beginning his descent into the chasm…
With his hand trying to reach and grab onto anything near him, the water from the waterfall began stretching itself to reach Elijah. Barely visible sparks of light began to travel from the water, into Elijah's body. Slowly, the skin of his forearms and back began to be repaired to the lengths water magic was capable of.
…
The split party finally caught up with where they thought Damir was, but was confused by the sight of seeing no one. Not a single sound was appearing anywhere close to them, and based on what Elijah had told Novius, he put up his guard, and led the group across the bridge.
Exiting the darkness of the cave they just passed, the son of a devil, Damir, appeared from the darkness with his fists covered in flames.
Emelia, Harry, and Aslan were at the back of the group, with Trey as a barrier before Novius, Alexia, Raylen, and Theon.
When they turned around, they couldn't help but scream for their lives.
Brandishing a torturous heat, a wave of bright flames was sent forward, disintegrating almost everything in its path.
"HARRY!"
The last words that came out of Emeila's mouth were filled with an insane amount of emotions. There was nothing that could be done, especially when Trey conjured an earthen barrier forbaying anyone behind him from moving forward. Transactional was where his mind was at, saving himself temporarily from the heat of the flames.
Aslan unleashed every bit of strength inside him, while Harry hoped to buy time with a thick sheet of metal.
"BASTARD!" Novius had lost control of himself as soon as the rest of the group barely made it to the cavern across the bridge.
Clothes tattered, with tinged pieces of loose fabric that continued to disintegrate from the leftover embers.
The flames engulfed everything, and seemingly felt like a self-destruction spell with the magnitude of power.
Fredric was at the front, and was facing the cave with a smile on his face while everyone behind him was running frantically with blind spells being casted behind their hands.
"Elijah! Where is Elijah!" Alexia was distraught, covered in black soot and red embers that slowly died out. Tiredly, she asked Fredric the first question that came to mind as her knees hit the floor.
Just after Fredric's mouth opened, a single long blade of ice was conjured, and stuffed into the back of Fredric without a moment's hesitation.
"YOU WERE PART OF THIS! DIE!"
It seemed the man had accepted his fate after his role was played. The question was, how could a ten year old willingly play the part?
How is the Kingdom of Astraea not pure enough to make this line of thinking purely impossible?!
The flames subsided, and when the smoke and stench of burning flesh rose into the air, not a single soul was seen besides the devil with burning fists to his side.
…
Bubbling sounds were heard the moment Elijah gracefully entered the deep pool at the bottom of the chasm. Damage was minimal as his mind bounced between a conscious and unconscious state, allowing spurts of power to slow his fall.
The only feeling that brought him back to reality was the feeling of suffocation, and the moving current underneath him signifying death.
What seemed like an angel rising from the water, was just a child. One draped in ripped clothes that angelically rose through the air.
"My friends… are in trouble. I need… to save them…" Elijah's body bounced from side to side against the walls of the chasm.
Visibly, there was a lot more to this place at the bottom. Several caverns spread out in every direction, leading to brightly lit cavernous hills full of glowing stalactites.
"YOU ARE STILL ALIVE!" Cael, who was slowly falling through the waterfall by pushing the air around him, yelled after sticking his head out from the waterfall.
Elijah had noticed this fact, but continued to hyper focus on his own objectives. The sounds of wind splitting resounded through the chasm as his speed picked up. The fingers of his hand glided against the current of the water, returning his sense of touch.
With the chain of events that forced his mind into a state of fight or flight, Elijah had no idea if he was alive, or in a dream…