“Don’t stand too close to the lightning, or you’ll be fried before you could be of any use to us.”
Suddenly a voice comes from the back. Meira and I turn around, finding Marianne standing behind us with her arms folded. At once, Meira lets go of my hand (the glove disappearing the moment she does so) and greets her with a deep bow.
I don’t exactly greet her, but I do find it amusing to see her here. After how she ran away from me earlier today, I thought I wouldn’t be seeing her for quite a while— or at least, I wouldn’t be seeing her looking as if nothing unusual happened between us.
Just to make Marianne uncomfortable, I purposely stare at her with squinted eyes… but she just stares back unabashedly.
“I’ll take him from you, Meira. You can go ahead and resume your position.”
With a quick nod, Meira turns back and walks alongside the lightning dome, standing a few meters away from us while facing the WST. She does look kind of weird standing there alone like that, but I guess it must be of some significance. With a shrug, I also walk away from the dome, moving next to Marianne.
“Why did you run away—”
“Not here. Not now. We’re here for something important, let’s focus on that first.” She immediately stops me from inquiring with a finalized tone. It’s clear she won’t entertain any of my questions about the morning incident.
At the same time, I notice that she takes a step away from me as I get close. Looking closely, her hands also seem to be slightly shaking, but her beautiful face looks quite tranquil.
“Then can you tell me what we are going to do?” I ask.
“Of course, you’re going to be entering the dome with me,” she answers nonchalantly.
“…”
“Haha, nice joke but I won’t fall for it. You just said I would get fried if I touch the lightening.”
“Not with me protecting you. We’ve collectively thought of a few probable actions that might fix the tower— all of which require you to be inside the dome,” she replies seriously.
“…and I assume these ‘actions’ of yours consider my safety as the top-most priority?” I ask doubtfully.
“Oh… sure…”
“…”
Marianne chuckles.
“You have quite the look on your face, you know. Of course, it is our priority. Only a handful of people can safely brute force their way through the lightning dome, and I happen to be one of them. You’re completely safe as long as you are by my side.
“And although it’s extremely unlikely, even if something does go out of my control, there’s a backup plan. Try looking around the dome and see for yourself.” She tells me.
With a frown, I do as she says. As I try my best to look through the thick tendrils of lightning, I recognize the busty yet beautiful figure of Ilsevel, the queen of the White Elves. At a distance from her, I can also see Lucias Vondrac and Naomi. All three of them are standing just like Meira, facing the dome.
“There are others as well but on the other side. If something unexpected happens, they’ll combine their magic to pull you outside safely. Are you happy with our measures now?” She asks with a smirk.
“Y-Yeah.” Seeing all these famous and powerful people here to protect me, even I cannot help but feel a little flustered. It is also a tell of how important fixing the WST is.
“Okay then, let me make a final check before we proceed,” Marianne says. She closes her eyes and starts speaking to herself. It takes me a few seconds to realize that she’s using telepathy.
“Is the area properly evacuated…? Good… Yes, the leaders are in position… What about you guys….? Are you done rechecking the layers? There shouldn’t be any flaws… great. I’m starting then.”
Once done, she opens her eyes and looks at me with a confident smile. She then raises her hand and murmurs something inaudible. A second later, some sort of dark miasma erupts underneath both of our feet, making me almost jump in surprise. Slowly, this miasma spreads and swirls around us, forming a large cocoon-like structure.
“Here’s our protection. Let’s go,” she says casually.
“…. Go where? I cannot see a damn thing.”
“I will guide you. Just walk with me.”
Marianne puts a hand behind my back and gives me a gentle push forward. And thus, together, we start walking towards the world system tower (hopefully).
And by the way, now that she’s touching me, I can exactly tell how severely her hand is shaking. She’s not showing it on her face, but something is definitely wrong with her.
“Oh, I forgot to tell you, but don’t get alarmed by the sudden noise,” Marianne suddenly says.
“What noise—?”
*BOOM*
The inside of the barrier gets illuminated for a fraction of a second as lightning strikes the outside with an almost ear-splitting noise.
“Fuck, that was loud!” I complain while holding my ears.
“It is. You would’ve gone deaf if I hadn’t canceled some of it out. And I cannot completely isolate the sound either or we won’t be able to communicate with people outside,” Marianne tells me.
Great…
At first, the lightning only strikes us once or twice every 10 or so seconds, but as we walk further, the frequency and intensity increase exponentially.
“Okay, this is getting crazy!” I say loudly.
“Don’t worry, we’re nearly there,” Marianne answers.
After what seems like an eternity, Marianne finally asks me to stop moving. According to her, we’ve reached the base of the World System tower.
“Okay, then. One of our speculations was wrong. Simply getting you close to the WST won’t solve anything,” she says with a sigh.
“Next, I’m going to open the front of the barrier (the lightning bolts won’t be able to enter through there), and you’ll have to touch the tower.”
…
“You want me to stick my arm out in the middle of this electric bombardment?” I ask, dumbfounded.
“I repeat, your safety is in my hands. Don’t worry and just do it,” she answers impatiently.
Easy for you to say.
Without wasting any time, Marianne opens a hole in the barrier (dangerously wide, in my opinion), and then gives me a look saying, ‘Hurry up’.
Through the hole, I can only see a jagged stone wall that’s just an arm’s length away. Taking a deep breath and closing my eyes, I just say ‘fuck it’ under my breath before thrusting my hand forward.
Fortunately, my hand doesn’t get blasted off when I touch the cold, hard rock. Unfortunately, though, it seems like this method doesn’t work either.
“I guess it really was just stupid wishful thinking,” Marianne says with a sigh. She then closes her eyes once again, communicating telepathically.
“Be on high alert. We’re going to do that.”
Asking me to step aside, she places her own hand on the wall. It’s still kind of dark, so I have to focus hard to see what she’s doing. Black miasma is coming out of her hand this time, and it seems to be getting absorbed into the wall.
All of a sudden, a small rectangular section of the jagged wall gets smoothened and six strange symbols, which seem to be thinly etched on the wall, appear. All together, these symbols are placed in a hexagonal shape, and as Marianne removes her hand, I notice that the symbol at the very bottom of this hexagon is glowing faintly.
“Jacob, place your hand at the very center like I did, and then try to summon chaos magic,” Marianne tells me. For some reason, she sounds extra serious and cautious this time. And even though I’ve no idea why she wants me to do this, it’s giving me a strange sense of foreboding.
Welp, let’s just get this over with…
Gulping down the saliva in my mouth, I move up my hand and place it at the center of the symbols. With full concentration, I summon chaos magic but the moment I do so, it gets sucked into the wall. At the same time, I feel my mana depleting at an alarming rate.
Thankfully though, before my mana pool dries out, the process stops. This time, the symbol at the very top glows— very brightly, at that.
And then…. Nothing happens. With silence in the air, Marianne and I keep staring at the glowing symbol with anticipation.
…
…
Wait… silence…
“It’s gone! The electric dome is not hitting us anymore! It’s gone!” I exclaim in astonishment.
But to my surprise, Marianne is still staring at the glowing symbol. She doesn’t seem to be celebrating just yet. And I get to know the reason just a second later.
“Woah!”
I almost lose balance as a powerful tremor runs through the ground with the WST as its epicenter. Before I even register what’s happening, the night sky turns bright. Looking up in confusion, I see that the top of the WST is glowing blindingly. A moment later, a beam of white light shoots towards the sky. But halfway through, this beam gets blocked by what appears to be multiple layers of thick transparent barriers— only for them to be utterly shattered mere seconds later.
“Impossible…” I hear Marianne’s faint voice. Looking at her face, she looks completely stunned by the turn of events. “Those barriers should be able to hold it back…”
“This is bad! You need to get out of here!” She suddenly grabs my hand, looking extremely worried now.
“Why? What the fuck is going on?” I ask, bewildered.
“Just come! I’ll teleport you—”
*CRAAACK*
Out of nowhere, the world freezes still.
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