Escape

George led the ground through the ash covered prairie fields which were no more.

Boulders and rocks of all sizes were everywhere.

Visibility had shrunk to around three feet and light from the sun was being blocked, making it almost as dark as night.

Abe casted a basic light ball spell to illuminate the area, but the light did not help much. Emma maintained the shield spell while the adrenaline helped to keep her hyper-focused. Bernice was struggling to not cry.

Hester felt like he had walked out of a frying pan and into another frying pan, but he did not witness the outside events so his mental state was much better compared to the others.

George was naturally indifferent as usual. He was doing some basic math to calculate the location of the path relative to the original location of the interference field.

"Try not to fall on anything sharp." They were coming up to the giant landslide that was half the side of an entire volcanic mountain. They would not able to go around and had to traverse through it. That is why he warned them.

Indeed, a huge pile of debris made of rocks, dirt, and snow mixed together came into view three feet away. Including George, everyone helped each other to climb up.

They slowly made it to the somewhat flat surface atop the landslide with nobody losing balance.

More walking continued and nobody talked.

About thirty minutes later, after what felt like an hour, they arrived on the other side of the landslide. What followed was climbing down but that was a little easier.

The ground became relatively flat again as they continued walking.

Ten minutes later, they arrived at a destroyed pine forest caked with ash, broken branches everywhere, and many trees fallen over. Paths of destruction from large boulders could be seen everywhere alongside the boulders as well.

"U-Uh, u-um, G-George?" Emma weakly stuttered as she tried to speak to him.

"Yeah?" He continued to walk.

"I-I think the a-adrenaline is w-wearing off."

George peered behind to see her pale face heavily perspiring and her legs and hands shaking badly. She looked like she was about to collapse, and yet she was trying to focus on maintaining the barrier with all remaining energy.

"A-Are you alright?" Bernice suddenly realized she had not been paying attention to Emma's condition. She put Emma's arm over her shoulder to help.

"I-I'm f-fine." Emma weakly smiled to try and comfort her, but it only made tears run down Bernice's face as she looked at George.

"C-Can we take a break?"

He shook his head, "Pyroclastic flows usually travel eight miles if I remember correctly, so we should be out in another hour or two at our current speed."

George looked at Emma and said: "Tell me in advance when your magic is about to run out. We'll create some makeshift masks and douse them with water so we can breathe."

He then looked at Bernice and said, "Use one of your healing magic spells on Emma that specifically targets her mental state."

"I forgot about that. [Mental Health]!" A golden halo appeared above Emma's head and descended around her body. Her body glowed as golden sparkles flew into the air.

Emma's terrible complexion improved as blood returned to her face. Her shaking legs and hands returned to normal. Although she looked tired, her mental state had improved greatly.

"Thank you." She gratefully looked at Bernice, but winced at her stomach.

"Are you still hurt?" Bernice inspected her body out of concern.

"I'm fine now." Emma did not want to waste their time and feigned a fake smile.

"Let's hurry then." Abe also wanted to get away from this place.

--------------------------------------------------------------

As the hour went by, the visibility gradually improved from three feet to twelve feet and the brightness had returned to half.

Although Emma's complexion was much better, she was starting to pant.

"I-I'm almost out of magic."

"Everyone take off your backpacks and get a small piece of cloth. Pour some water on the rag and hold it against your mouth while you breathe. Wear a pair of googles to prevent ash getting in your eyes."

George took off his backpack and demonstrated for them.

Everyone carefully followed along, pouring water on a small piece of clothing they had. They then got out a pair of googles which were meant for high winds and blizzards and put them on.

"Spare the rest of your magic for any emergencies. Is everyone ready?"

The four nodded.

"Alright." George lowered the goggles and looked at Emma.

The shield dissipated and the smoke-filled air filled the space.

Everyone breathed through the wet rag as they continued walking.

--------------------------------------------------------------

Thirty more minutes passed and the situation drastically improved.

The visibility rapidly improved and the sun could be seen again. The amount of ash on the ground and in the air rapidly decreased. More of the pine trees were looking to be in good condition compared to the beginning.

They eventually came out of the smoke cloud and the air quality instantly improved.

"You can take off the goggles and breathe normally." George said, doing exactly that.

"Phew!"

"*cough* *cough*"

"We've finally escaped!"

Everyone was caked in grey dust from head to toe. Bernice collapsed to the ground beside Emma while Abe slowly sat down to take a break. Hester sighed in relief and relaxed his tense muscles.

He looked with George at the smoke cloud behind them.

The winds were moving through the valley and pushing against the smoke cloud, causing it to come to a halt around this location. The volcanic cloud occupied half of the sky and portions of the mountains.

George looked back at the tired party members and relaxed a little.

"Everyone can take a twenty-minute break. The next campsite is two hours away. We'll have a twenty-minute dinner there before continuing. Our breaks will have to be shorter for a day or two so we can catch up on schedule."

"Everyone can take some caffeine to keep the tiredness at bay. Emma, let me take a look at your injury."

"O-Okay." Emma was too tired to care and lifted up her shirt.

"Hiiii!" Bernice shrieked in shock seeing the injury.

The bruise had swelled up a lot and a sizeable portion of her stomach had turned purple.

"What happened?! When did this happen?!"

"A high speed rock hit her while she was protecting you and Abe." George explained, squatting in front of her and carefully looking at the bruise.

Abe looked over at Emma in surprise. He could not help but feel some gratefulness.

Bernice had tears down her face upon realizing her best friend had protected her.

"W-Why didn't you tell me about that?! I could've healed that earlier!"

"Sorry..." Emma felt a little bad for doing that.

"Healing requires energy from both the user and the target. Emma needs that energy to focus and for you to not exhaust yourself Bernice." George explained while gently poking the bruise with his finger. Emma hissed in pain.

"Does it hurt internally when you move or breathe?"

"No, although my insides ache a little. It's mostly on the outside."

"That's good then. That means you didn't injure any of your internal organs. You likely just ruptured a lot of blood vessels in your skin. If your organs had been damaged, the energy needed would have been much higher."

"You seem to have medical experience." Abe noticed this and spoke out.

"I tried becoming a doctor in my youth before but it never came to fruition. I also treated myself a lot during my stay in Diabolus. I only remember some basic stuff." George stood up and looked at Bernice.

"Use a healing spell now and eat an energy bar so you'll have the energy to walk later."

--------------------------------------------------------------

Back at the destroyed anomaly.

The castle mansion has practically become a ruin by now, although a lot of the building was able to repair itself before its core completely dissipated.

The clean water in the fountain was now grey from ash and dust along with most of the exterior.

The candles inside the castle were all extinguished and the rooms were all filled with smoke. Paintings

The stone chamber was practically destroyed. The runes and arrays on the walls had lost their brilliance. The walls themselves were cracked and parts of the ceiling had collapsed with pieces of them on the floor. Dust filled the air and some of it caked the floor.

A sudden radiance escaped the corner and turned into a person.

"*cough* *cough* I'm alive!"

Melissa regained consciousness and furiously coughed from smoke inhalation. Dust fell off her black robes which were half destroyed and torn at this point. She tore off a piece and wrapped it around her face as a mask, but its effectiveness was limited since it was not wet.

While still coughing, she looked over at her superior who was dead and sat in a pool of blood.

She inspected herself but found no injuries to her relief.

'W-Who the hell was that person?! He's too terrifying! My contractor was easily overwhelmed despite being S-rank! Thank goodness I have this [Fake Death] skill. Ugh. That's not important right now! I need to escape before I choke to death and report this to Shadow Hive!'

Melissa slowly got up and used her remaining magic to turn into a shadow to flee the castle.