21 To the sea!

The group reached the edge of the woods under Blake's lead. The elbow-high grass and the tall trees towering before them gave an image of tranquility. The trees were ancient and of great variety, some were evergreen, some shed their leaves for differing intervals and/or seasons, some were tall, some were thick and some were both. Altogether, none were normal because they had been nurtured by the thick spiritual energy present in the area. After reaching the first line of trees, Blake stopped and started taking things out from his storage space. The rest circled around him to see what he was doing only to see all types of tools sprouting out from his sleeves.

There was a chainsaw, a long saw, a collection of hammers, screwdrivers, bolts, nuts drill machines and all sorts of other things an outdated carpenter and a woodcutter might need.

Outdated... Did not he know about the newer machines which could do all the work by themselves? 'Hammers and screw drivers, even our grandparents wouldn't have got a chance to actually touch these tools...'

He intends to construct something?

But this was not all. More ancient stuff continued to be spouted out from the dimensional space. Land mines, shovels, picks... these are all tools used when digging and carving?

They were bewildered when he took out a thick stack of papers after placing the tools on the ground. Splitting it into seven even parts, he divided it amongst them, keeping one with himself.

"Crazy!", Sajjad's eyes gleamed as he browsed through the papers.

"Impossible! How did it even cross your mind?!" Awiergan however protested outright.

"Too much hardwork...", Sproule complained, too.

"Don't even think about it!" Lucy waved her hands to show her disapproval.

"I think it's going to be quite fun...", hesitation was evident on Ivory's face.

"I can guarantee that it's not gonna be safe! My gift let's me know what's gonna happen to the bodies of those around me in the next 15 days, be it some kind of disease or injury! If it's bellow a certain threshold, then I catch the disease or get injured the same way fifteen days before it's going to happen to the one around me. Remember that whole lot of coughing and sneezing? It was all because of my gift predicting us to go swimming in that cold river! This time, it's telling me something will happen but it isn't harming me in any way! This is dangerous!" Orbona explained everything in one short breath.

Gifts. Everyone has one but it is up to fate if it would awaken or not. It is sometime related to linage like Awiergan's but it is mostly unique to oneself. Sometimes, the gifts are not that good or beneficial to be called gifts, taking Awiergan's case for example. His gift helps him by telling him when something bad or dangerous is going to happen to him but it also amplifies the magnitude of that danger in the process. If it does not qualify to be called a gift, it is named as a curse.

Blake opened his mouth to say something but before he could word it out, Sajjad beat him to it. "You feel that it will harm us. This means that it will definitely harm us! You can do nothing to stop it from happening!"

"Sigh! Fine", she gave in. She secretly wanted to follow with the plan, too.

"Are we really doing this?" Lucy's legs were trembling. If it was something dangerous, she'd directly throw her positive personality right out the window.

Without answering, Blake headed inside the woods, knocking on each and every tree he walked past. After knocking on several trees, he halted abruptly after knocking on a tree. It was about ten meters tall with a diameter of one meter. The trunk was pure white, round and extremely smooth, dividing into branches only at the canopy.

Taking out a battery, he put it inside the chainsaw and "zrrrrr!", the tree was cut swiftly, leaving a lonely stump behind. The six had noticed a faint layer of dark energy covering the chain in the chainsaw, letting it cut the tree in one swift motion.

"Hiss!" They took in huge breaths. Blake was already this strong? He was already able to use his energy to enhance tools and weapons? Just look at how easily he cut through that thick tree! It was like he was using the chainsaw on butter instead of wood!

Blake was easily able to drag hundreds of such logs back by himself but he still called the six to help him move it out of the woods.

Drip. Drip.

Two droplets of water fell on the back of Awiergan's hand while he helped the rest push the log. He looked up to see dark clouds gathering in the sky above the patch of grassland. A thunderstorm was approaching!

"It's a thunderstorm! Let's get out of here before it arrives", he suggested but before he even finished, the few raindrops falling down suddenly turned into an abrupt downpour. The clouds covered the sun, dimming the surroundings to an uncomfortable darkness with occasional lightning flashing here and there.

"Bro, you shouldn't have said it that way. The storm thought we were in a rush from your words so it also made haste. If you had said 'It's a thunderstorm! Let's head back slowly and let the storm pass first', it wouldn't have arrived this quick!" Sproule grumbled.

"But wouldn't that make the storm eager? It would have come quick and last longer...", Ivory gave her opinion too.

"Can things get any worse?" Lucy exclaimed.

"Now that you have said it... I think they already got", Orbona pointed forward. The tall patch of grass in front of them was swaying erratically as the stalks slowly slid to the left along with their roots!

Looking down, they saw their feet sinking into the wet ground as the soil slowly flowed to the left. They did not need to think before they were climbing on the fallen tree lying near them. They sat there quietly, getting drenched by the rain and looking at the soil turning into mud and mud turning into thick, muddy water. Looking at the ground, it did not look like water had seeped into the soil to make mud. Instead, it looked like that the soil was added into water to make muddy water!

The grasslands suddenly transformed into a massive, muddy lake and the forests suddenly transformed into a vast swamp. The tree Blake had cut had durable wood which had the ability to stay above water- he had been planning to make a floating platform to ride across the underground river from earlier.

The current picked up speed steadily as the water flowed to the left while carrying the log along with the stalks of grass. Towards the left meant East since at that time, they were facing the south. Towards the east was the ocean but was not the ocean far from here? This was not a lowland where sea water would occasionally flood, right?