Chapter 287 Run

[Third Person POV],

It wasn't that Andrew Dawn had died or anything but it was just as Ace had assumed that the backlash from taking the berserk pill had already caught up with Andrew Dawn.

In a nutshell, it just meant that while Andrew Dawn had achieved his goal of retrieving the dragon's heart, he was nothing more than just a paralysed body that couldn't move and could even be easily killed by someone like Ace at his peak.

What needed to be done now was to get out of the den because although the dragon phantom that was majorly part of the den shaking violently had been defeated, the den still did not stop shaking as the rocks started to even drop from the ceiling as the dust that came with it also increased.

From this, it was easy to realise that the den was going to soon collapse and it seemed like it was going to happen soon.

What Ace even thought was that perhaps it was the pit he was in that was affected and would surely collapse so he was unaware that while his assumption about the whole den being affected by the violent shaking of before, it wasn't that it was their pit that was going to get affected badly and it was the den as a whole that was getting affected.

But while Ace was unaware of this, his plan of wanting to leave the pit they were in was the right decision but the question was how fast could they leave the current location they were in before the den gave out?

As Ace thought of several things from the current situation to how blue was faring outside and so on, he made his way to Andrew Dan with all the strength he could still gather to get close to Andrew Dawn.

He wasn't the only one doing this as Andrew Dawn's men were also making their way rapidly to get close to Andrew Dawn but what Ace expected and did not expect at the same time was that just before Andrew's men could get close to their king, one of them collapsed to the floor just as Andrew Dawn just did.

"Another one...…", Ace muttered as he continued to make his way to Andrew Dawn while keeping his sights on Andrew Dawn's men, specifically the one that just collapsed.

It was not surprising that it would be Andrew Dawn who would fall first despite taking the same pills as his men but different from his men, he exhausted the energy and boost the berserk pill gave him as he still continued to put himself to the limit despite the berserk pill effect being already very weak.

This thought was not flawed because Ace could see that the man who just collapsed to the ground was the wind mage who kept moving around from one place to another during the battles with the mutated rats and the man beside the wind mag who was still standing was the earth mage who mostly only stayed in one location to attack and defend with his earth magic.

If one was to say who among the two spent the most energy, it would undoubtedly be the wind mage even though the earth mage worked just as hard as him.

The main difference between them was the energy they spent to achieve the same results.

In any case, two people collapsing at the same time just meant it was going to be harder to leave the den because no matter how strong they might have been in the past, right now, they were nothing more than burdens and Ace was not so sure he wanted to be a part of it.

The only reason he was still in the pit and was even heading to Andrew Dawn was because of two reasons.

One was the coins that Andrew Dawn had promised him for participating and the second which just happened to be the most important was that despite the dragon phantom being defeated, for some reason, the primordial chronicle still hadn't notified Ace of the quest being completed.

Perhaps if the quest had been a submit type one then Ace would not have been bothered by this but the thing was that the quest was supposed to immediately be completed the moment the objective of the quest was achieved.

Ace did not know what was happening and he did not want anything unexpected to happen to the quest status so it doesn't end up that he just risked his life for something.

This was what Ace had in mind as he made his way closer to Andrew Dawn.

Andrew Dawn's men were also on the move again, well, it was one of them which was the earth mage with the wind mage at his back.

Perhaps Ace might also have to do this which made him wonder when he first saw the earth mage carrying the wind mage that if he did the same with Andrew Dawn he might just end up being collapsed as well.

What he didn't want was that the other mage which was the earth mage to collapse as well because if this became the case, then it might be up to him to find a way to get everyone at the den.

This was the thought in Ace's mind as he finally made his way to Andrew Dawn a few minutes just after Andrew's men did.

When Ace finally got closer to Andrew Dawn, he noticed that Andrew Dawn was still awake but looking at his eyelids that kept falling occasionally, it was not hard for one to know that Andrew Dawn was going to fall unconscious soon.

This was something to be bothered about but Ace had his focus on something else as he was able to see the appearance of the dragon heart closely for the first time.

Unlike before when the dragon's heart was insanely huge, the dragon's heart had drastically reduced in size so that it could not be held in the hand.

The sizable dragon heart was red and was still beating. It was very novel to the curious Ace but the strangest thing about the dragon heart to Ace was not that it was emitting light but that the dragon heart even had little tiny scales all around its surface.

Seeing this, Ace was about to continue observing the beating heart that kept realising sounds that showed that it was a living thing which was strange itself given that it was nothing but just a heart that was connected to nothing, the dragon heart suddenly released a blinding light that caused Ace and Andrew Dawn men to close their eyes and when they opened their eyes again, they watched as the heart rapidly sinks into Andrew Dawn body.

It happened all too fast that no one was able to react.

What woke Ace and Andrew Dawn men from their daze state was the miserable scream of Andrew Dawn that came right after.

The scream was so loud and filled with pain but it then stopped all of a sudden as Andrew Dawn passed out from the pain.

From this, one could already imagine just how painful it must have been for the dragon's heart to sink into one's body.

Before Ace could ask Andrew Dawn's men what was going on, another situation occurred that made Ace unable to say what he wanted to say as he turned to look at the ceiling above him.

At some point, the ceiling had already gotten destroyed as big rocks slowly started falling from the sky and right above Ace's head was a huge rock that rapidly descended on them.

"Move!", The earth mage suddenly shouted as he kicked Andrew Dawn's body towards Ace and because of the force he used in his kick, Andrew Dawn's body coming in contact with Ace swept Ace off from his feet as two bodies flee to another direction while the earth mage himself took a big jump backwards to avoid the huge rock descending from above.

BOOM!

The sound of a really heavy object immediately sounded when the huge rock came in contact with the ground.

The rocks did not also split into different pieces even after falling to the ground from quite a high distance together with the speed gained during the fall.

This only went to show how strong the huge rock was and if any of the humans in the pit should have been hit by the huge rock in their current state, it was either they were going to get crushed to meat paste or at the very least, get crippled.

Either way, the situation was going to end badly for them which was why although it seemed rude and perhaps very bad for the earth mage to kick his king, it wasn't because doing this was at least better than having Andrew Dawn crushed.

The earth mage had already calculated everything and was even faster to react than Ace due to being quite the only one among everyone in the pit to still have quite good health.

He wasn't like Andrew Dawn that soloed the dragon phantom for a long time neither was he the wind mage that severely exhausted his energy or like Ace who courted death by confronting the dragon phantom in a close range.

Unfortunately for everyone in the pit, rocks of different sizes started to descend from the ceiling rapidly as everyone had to watch over their heads literally.

Ace had to do like the earth mage and carry Andrew Dawn on his back despite the pains that he felt all around his body.

To make matters worse, the pain he started feeling as he jumped from one place to another to avoid getting crushed by the rocks above made the pain feel unbearable as Ace even had a painful expression on his face to show it.

The main reason he was willing to carry Andrew Dawn was because of the familiar bell-like sound he heard immediately as the dragon's heart sank into Andrew Dawn's body.

Ace figured that the notification sounds he heard in his head were related to the quest which was also related to Andrew Dawn and the dragon heart so Ace didn't want to risk it and just carried Andrew Dawn as it was likely possible he was the key to their quest completion.

But first, they had to run.