Chapter 198 - To Safety (1)

"We'll keep going," Alex told us when a monster latched onto the car.

Alex messed with the buttons to shake the monster off, slowing the car down from reaching the next barrier. With the monster creating huge damage to the car with its claws, the car struggled to run with the high-pressure acceleration when we safely passed the barrier and the monster bouncing back behind us.

When I analyzed the displays inside the car, it unfortunately showed this car would break down soon since the monster held onto the engine this time. There was no way we were going to survive this by going on foot. However, as we passed through each barrier, which was more powerful than the prior, I noticed that the swarm stopped increasing.

"Good news, the swarm isn't increasing anymore after that last barrier, but bad news, this car will break down soon," I delivered the news while keeping an eye on what was going behind us.

"What?" Both Sienna and Cillian yelled.

"Is there any other hover car we can borrow?" I wondered.

"My distant relative has a mansion around here, I can ask for permission right now," Cillian began calling his relatives.

Cillian frantically punched in the number as he began to get more irritated with more rings. As soon as his relative picked up, he began blubbering through the situation, "I'm your great aunt's granddaughter's son's cousin and currently chased by a large swarm of monsters and will offer my gratitude if you let me borrow your hover car."

Not offering a further explanation, Cillian immediately showed the swarm of monsters trying to break through the barrier as he stuck his arm out the window. Her eyes widened as she quickly transferred the tag through her marble before informing us, "my mansion is one block from where you are."

However, the car already began to skid as it started to break down. Cillian threw an apologetical glance before hanging up as we prepared to sprint towards her mansion. As soon as the car stopped, we slammed the door open as we began to run while dragging the boy along with us. Unfortunately, we had no energy to hold him like before.

Using our mana to run faster, Cillian easily entered her mansion with the tag, letting the rest of us inside. With her warm consideration, the hover car was already stationed right behind the gate. The keys were hung on the handles, saving us more time as we soon returned our original positions, but inside a new car.

Before Alex could switch the acceleration on, Cillian had already pressed the button as he began to steer the wheel to place it outside the gate. But before we could stabilize the car, I covered my ears from the sound of the current barrier breaking. Shelly opened the window again to begin the attacks as Cillian switched into his role without any hesitation with her.

We were too focused on safely getting to the next barrier that both Cillian and Sienna seemed to forget their fear. By now, I knew each barrier was separated by a little more than two miles. Meaning that we had a little over nine miles until we reached Luke's mansion surrounded by the most fortified barrier.

I sighed as we still had twenty more seconds until we reached the fourth barrier. But at the same time, I didn't know how long the rest of us would last until we fainted from exhausting all our mana. I decided to switch positions with Shelly as a quarter of my mana recovered while I served as the lookout.

It was time to use the massive freezing spell this time. Everyone briefly turned to my direction when the air pressure dramatically decreased. I knew they were questioning me if I was dooming myself to death, but they never truly knew how fast my mana recovered. I started to manipulate the particles around the monsters in the arrangement I wanted before yelling, "freeze!"

Maybe it was a bit too much as I began coughing uncontrollably afterwards. Luke stopped barking orders to Alex as he began pulling out more bottles of medicine like before. Within a second, Luke poured all his bottles over my head before returning back to his role. To my surprise, I could instantly feel its effects while Shelly switched back to offense.

But things were noticeably easier than before as most of the birds turned into lumps of ashes. I knew a big spell was needed to make an actual difference. I returned to my role as the lookout and discovered I had earned us the seconds we needed to pass through into the next barrier. My body slightly relaxed when Luke shouted some good news, "from here on, all barriers have double the fortification than its prior one."

I did a high-five with Sienna as Shelly closed all the windows again. When Sienna noticed my wound, neatly bandaged by Luke, she looked like she was starting to understand the labels on the empty bottles littered on the car floor. Instead of appearing worried as usual, she oddly stayed silent.

I decided I would focus on the positive side of things for now, choosing not to linger on her odd action. I had other things to worry about, like the reason why we were going past the last two barriers a bit too easily. I could see the signs of monsters from miles away like they were giving up.

But smaller monsters only gave up when something more powerful showed up in its place.