Energy Links Error

With the anomaly core contained, George focused his attention to the outside realm.

Every second, energy was piling up against the barrier which caused it to ripple under the force.

The air itself was trembling and dissipating the nearby clouds. If any mortal were to stand inside this rippling air, their entire body would rapidly disintegrate into their elementary particles.

Being the authority of the dimension, George can see the invisible 'links' which transported energy.

According to Amanda, these 'links' are connecting to a large amount of anomalies through the Northern Mountain Range. Mainly, the majority of these originate in areas between the outer and inner regions where the anomalies are neither weak nor overwhelmingly powerful.

The reason they are doing this is unknown.

However, George was curious if he left the realm up and let the energy continually accumulate against the surface. Would it eventually break the dimensional barrier or would it rebound?

...

Amanda was guarding the group and had a shield casted up when the orb was released, sending her and Bernice into a panic.

The expansion of the orb was too fast for them to escape, so they could only clench their eyes shut and hope for the best.

When they opened their eyes, the icy top of the mountain had been replaced with a demonic-like sky and landscape filled with demonic trees. The air was heavy and filled with demonic magus.

The dense demonic magus in the air pushed against Amanda's shield with enough force that it gradually shrank in size. She gritted her teeth as she was forced back until there was less than an inch distance from Bernice. The bubble had shrunk to only a few feet across.

"W-Where are we?! What happened?!" Bernice shouted in fright at this unexpected situation.

"I don't know... but I'm rapidly expending energy to resist this demonic magus!" Amanda really was struggling against the demonic magus which wanted to fill the empty area.

The density of the demonic magus was horrifying enough that the gravity in this place felt much higher. Bernice who was too distracted by her surroundings suddenly noticed this.

"What do we do then?"

"I... don't know!" Amanda was focusing all her mind and energy to resisting the force of the demonic magus. This was her first time encountering such a difficult situation without it involving a powerful enemy.

Before Amanda or Bernice could say anything, the force of the demonic magus abruptly doubled.

The shield cracked and shattered, flooding the small empty area of demonic magus.

Bernice screamed in horror as everyone became engulfed by the demonic magus. She knew from her schooling that demonic magus is toxic to outsiders of the Diabolus realm, corroding the body and mind before falling into insanity.

Amanda seemed to know this as well as her face turned to despair.

She felt a gut punch from failing the orders given to her.

The seconds passed by, but Amanda did not hear the sounds of death approaching. She blankly looked over at the ground who were still fine.

Bernice slowly opened her eyes in shock upon realizing nothing was happening.

"I'm... okay?"

She was awaiting the feeling of demonic magus corroding her lungs, infiltrating her skin, and dissolving her mental state.

Instead, the demonic magus seemed to have an unreactive response to them.

Although the air was thick with demonic magus which made it harder to breathe and had the stench of rotten eggs, the magus was not reacting at all to their presence or their magus.

Bernice looked up at Amanda in shock, who had a similar expression.

"Is this not... demonic magus?"

"Should be..."

Amanda would not be physically affected by the presence of demonic magus since she is inorganic, but it would still ferociously attack her magus energies.

But this energy was not something she recognized within Vita.

Combine this with the demonic-like world around them, the likelihood of this being demonic magus was incredibly high. Yet for some reason, it had no reaction to them.

Seeing Amanda had no clue, Bernice checked up on her unconscious members. She sighed in relief seeing their stable breathing which was heavier in this environment.

"Roar!"

The two of them stiffened upon hearing the weakened roar of the flaming ape.

In the distance rose the very large ape who had lost its heat, radiance, and intimidating presence. The ape fell back onto its knee before falling over shortly after.

The ape from their location disappeared under the obstruction of the demonic trees and foliage, but the ground did not tremble whatsoever.

The stability of this dimension was clearly very high since the fall of the ape triggered no reaction.

Hearing the cries of agony from the flaming ape, Amanda looked back at Bernice who looked up at her with a complicated expression.

"You wanna investigate?"

"I don't know where else to go." Bernice helplessly stood up and grunted while picking up Emma.

Amanda picked up both Hester and Abe, tossing them on her shoulders.

They attempted to run towards the direction of the ape, but Bernice was panting from the higher gravity, forcing Amanda to slow down.

...

Somewhere in the Northern Mountain Range...

In an underground facility of the Finis Order was a huge pentagon-shaped room lined with screens that made up the walls. Throughout the room was long tables laid parallel to each other, housing hundreds computers next to each other.

Operating these computers were many highly-specialized workers sitting in chairs, typing away and occasionally communicating with someone via their headset. Others in uniforms standing up were issuing commands or talking with some of the workers.

At the moment, the screens along the walls were merged to show a single satellite view map of the entire Northern Mountain Range. On the map showed hundreds of white dots connected to each other by 'links' which were highlighted by light-blue dotted lines.

All of the links together and dots formed a rough circular-like shape, with the inner empty area mostly devoid of any connections and the outside region empty of anomalies.

One of the ordinary-looking worker who was on his computer was monitoring several anomalies within an area given to him by his manager. On his computer was multiple window tabs showing programming language, energy movement charts, energy parameters, etc.

The worker frowned when one of the anomalies he was monitoring was rapidly dipping in energy levels. The amount of energy being used up was far exceeding the input of energy coming in.

This was the flaming ape and the worker knew about it since he was notified about the experimentation. Rather, everyone in the room knows about it since they were informed.

If something happens to the flaming ape, everyone needs to know what they are dealing with in order to properly deliver the right procedures.

The worker turned on his headset to notify his superior of the strange change, and the permission to divert energy. After a few seconds of wait, the headset buzzed and the worker received permission. He then contacted several other workers nearby to ask for permission to divert energy.

After all, all of the workers operate a set amount of anomalies and need to communicate with each other frequently on any parameter changes. Otherwise it could throw the whole energy transfer system into chaos.

After receiving permission, the worker typed away at his keyboard and clicked a few times, changing a few parameters.

On the large map on the wall at the far south of the mountains, a few dozen light-blue dotted lines doubled in size as multiple anomalies transferred energy between each other towards a single anomaly.

The energy transfer speeds between each anomaly are insanely fast despite the distances between each one. Naturally, it only took a few minutes for the energy to arrive at its location.

The worker internally sighed in relief seeing the parameters returning to normal and even exceeding the normal amount.

Just as he was about to communicate with the other workers to lower the energy amount, the multiple window tabs flashed red with errors as if something went wrong.

The worker's face turned to panic as he typed away, trying to figure out the problem while communicating with his superiors and workers. Sweat ran down his face trying to perform multiple tasks at once.

On the large screen near the bottom, a white anomaly dot turned red as a small alarm label appeared on it.

The normal bustling atmosphere in the place suddenly became tense.

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Notes:

* N/A