Chapter 134 - Earthquake

(This chapter contains scenes not suitable for everyone, if you are easily s.e.n.s.i.t.i.v.e, I advise you not to read the following. An explanation will still be given in my discord server, to summarize what happened, without the scenes of the chapter itself)

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While Maple was running to the exit though, she stopped for a moment. In fact, from the haste of running away, she had gone the wrong way, and now, she found herself in front of a door, where she could hear various noises of people fighting.

'W..where am..I..?'

This thought opened her eyes slightly, previously almost completely closed while, with her paw, Maple opened the door, only to be in front of a scenery nothing short of spectacular.

In front of her, a fox with amber eyes, and with a specially groomed, bright black fur, opened his mouth and, at the same time as he did, Maple could see particles of fire form out of nothing.

This, brought the sobs she was making to a stop as her eyes, now completely wide open, had a new light, differently from the almost extinguished, and on the edge of despair look she had some seconds ago..

While this new sensation overwhelmed her dull soul, the fox closed his mouth before preparing to fling the fire out of his mouth. The latter was allowed to use such a dangerous technique, because of the high resistance of the materials with which the room was specially built.

Witnessing the scene of the fox who, without hesitation, flung fire out of his mouth, Maple could only cheer for him, using all the air she had in her lungs to make a sound which, when heard also by others, led them to turn before noticing that, the person who made that sound, was still at the door frame.

"...Did you like what you saw?"

With these words, the fox that had flung the fire previously, approached Maple while she, with her eyes still glowing, answered

"My Mama knows how to use a wave of flames, but seeing someone my age using that technique, made me feel like soon, I would be able to do the same!"

Maple, having grown up only with her incredible parents and relatives, could not help but make innocent comparisons. Although she didn't know that the way she expressed herself often infuriated people.

Wagging her tail, she was ready to ask the fox, her companion of the same race, to teach her how to make fire out of nothing, but, she had not even realized that while she wagged happily, the tail of the other fox was anchored to its position, while towards the end of it, it could be seen how the tail was, in reality, twitching.

In fact, Maple's words, upset the fox, who could only take offence from her words.

"..I'm..doing my best..!"

Saying this, the fox turned quickly before moving to his instructor who, having observed the whole scene could only sigh.

Realizing that the fox in question had to be a fox that had just received the results of her evaluation, the instructor, decided to take care of her, but as he approached her to ask for what kind of training she had to do, he felt the ground moving...

Doubtful, he looked down, and could feel even better that, indeed, the ground was vibrating slightly but, after a couple of seconds, it stopped. This led the instructor's doubts to increase and, looking up, he could see that everyone else in the room had also realized that something was wrong.

"Could you feel..it..?"

"Yes..the ground, just now.."

But this conversation was immediately brought to a stop as, they could feel the ground started to vibrate again, but this time, with much more force.

Before they would have been able to even react, lights swung violently from the ceiling, and cracks appeared from the ground beneath...Fear and panic ensued as the ground shook up and down, as if the entire place suddenly fell from the sky and struck the earth with mighty impact. All of them scrambled up to their feet but most immediately lost balance and were reduced to crawling as they immediately decided to flee outdoors.

In this confused state, Maple, who a second ago felt so pleased to have seen an art of fire being carried out so closely, now felt her brain unable to make sense of the input from her ears and feet as instinct, told her to immediately take shelter but, she slowly realized what was happening as, her total inexperience was just what was making her freeze in fright her from the tip of her tail to her ears, which were the part that most clearly pointed out how scared she was. This, brought another primordial instinct to be triggered in her that, had nothing but a thought in mind while the ground, continued to shake violently...

'M...Mama...'

While Maple was froze in her spot, the instructor knew he had to help her in some way, but the fact was, Maple wasn't the only one who had no experience with this kind of catastrophe. In fact, the area where they lived, seismically was one of the quietest areas in the world as, the last earthquake occurred more than 500 years ago, and this has wrongly led the last queen to save on the production costs of buildings, believing that, if an earthquake had hit the area, an art from her would have sufficed to avoid any kind of catastrophe, which is not possible after the serious illness she had contracted.

But even though this harsh situation seemed to be the prelude to an enormous catastrophe, given even the magnitude of the vibrations, the instructor didn't want to give up so easily. In fact, he tried to take command to re-establish control, but it was all totally useless as he tried to calm down the frightened foxes, he could see how pieces of the ceiling were quickly coming down in chunks, before falling against the floor.

Seeing that a piece was was going to fall on a fox, led the instructor to immediately try to form an art of defence, which even the foxes were trying to do, but at the same time, another piece was fast making its way to Maple.

Feeling intense pressure on the neck, the instructor didn't know what to decide. On one hand, there was a fox who could have saved himself if he could only carry out an art of defence, which he had not yet explored through his lessons, and Maple, a fox who knew nothing about the arts, and therefore would have died anyway..

But knowing that he had no time to think about it carefully, the instructor could only tighten his heart before activating the art of defence on Maple while the latter, terrified, had her paws on her head and, although this was just another primordial instinct, she still had nevertheless tried to defend herself at the best of her ability, before feeling something like a shield, slowly wrapping herself.

'Please..Let it form in time.'

This high-level art, called [Long-ranged Shield], was able to form a shield from the distance, which only some special members of the fox generation derived from the queen knew, handed down by the latter in fact, like every single high-level art.

The only cost, was what they called spiritual energy, which was fundamental, in order to learn how to perform the arts. Once the shield was formed, the instructor could only feel his lungs completely without air, and this led him to inhale quickly, while he felt that even his own muscles were already failing to move.

Although spiritual energy was very easy to obtain, there were various risks in using it. In fact, if it was used faster than it was able to regenerate, this could cause an attack of fatigue, which made it impossible to fight. But that was not all. It had no limits regarding the distance from those who wanted to make an art as, the farther away from one's body the art had to be performed, the more spiritual energy it consumed.

In this case, although the distance separating Maple from the others was not that much, the speed with which the instructor used his spiritual energy was far too high, and with this level of fatigue, he already knew that he was doomed.

But, he didn't care at all. In fact, the sole purpose of many of the foxes descended from the queen was precisely to find a new one, with a very high potential, therefore, if his life had served to save the life of the next queen, The instructor couldn't help but be purely happy, and had no regrets as, after looking more precisely, he understood that she was Cinnamon's daughter.

In the utter confusion, the fox that was being approached by the chunk of ceiling, miraculously managed to save himself and, observing what had happened, could only stop on the fact that the instructor, previously transformed into his semi-human appearance, had now returned to his natural state while, his fur, which before was a radiant red that expressed his strong vitality, now had whitish parts, indicating that his spiritual energy was now focused on keeping the shields active, which he had just created for everyone else as well.

Seeing this, the foxes able to transform did so immediately, and although they were not grown enough to take on an a.d.u.l.t form, they had an expression on their faces that clearly indicated that they were determined not to let anyone die, even Maple, who they hadn't yet the opportunity to know.

But, it was at the very moment when they were coordinating to decide the situation, that the ceiling, previously falling into small pieces, now fell down altogether as the very strong earthquake, as soon as it calmed down, had brought the total destruction, not only of this structure, but of the whole city in general, bringing deaths that amounted to about 40% of the population.

Although the shields that the instructor had previously created were of good quality, this did not mean that he had the strength to create a shield as strong as the one he had created for Maple and this sad, but hard truth, had fallen upon all the foxes that, as soon as pieces of ceiling fell upon them, their shields were not able to withstand the impact, as they had no time to add any other protection, and this, led them to be crushed to death in the rubble.

This was not the case for Maple though. In fact, the shield the instructor had created, managed to hold against the strong impact, creating a kind of temporary protection, which could collapse at any time, ending up killing her too.

As this shield protected her, however, the blow had led to a level of shock so high that she, inevitably, lost consciousness...

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(Alternate Titles: "Earthquake - Disaster", "Instructor-san, don't worry, at least one person is saved thanks to you.","Trapped, but still alive....")