Chapter 17 Escape

"Vincent… Do you know the difference between the Numbered Celestials and those who are not? My father told me that they are a lot stronger. However, Grandpa Raizen must know a lot more than him."

Kiefer asked while they are moving away. They have just left Vincent's house as Vincent brought a couple of backpacks he had prepared in case of emergency.

Vincent thought for a moment as he recalled how his Grandpa introduced the Celestials to him during one of his lessons.

"Well, I heard that there are thousands of Celestials around the world. However, there are special Celestials and they are called Numbered Celestials. They have literal numbers marked on their bodies… The places they are marked can be on their forehead, arms, legs, or anywhere, really."

He casually answered as he continued leading their small group. This is also his way to calm everyone down as they can hear the sounds of battle from afar.

No one knows what was happening there but they are aware of how dangerous to stay there. Some of them were worried about their relatives too but they can only hope that they are also going to their escape route.

"Oh… No wonder they are called like that… How many Numbered Celestials are there? Right, what numbers are those Celestials brought by the killer?" Millie asked. The others were also curious about this as they remained quiet.

"My Grandpa didn't see it clearly since we were a bit far, however, it should be in the nine hundred. There were only 999 Numbered Celestials anyway… and the smaller the number, the stronger they are."

"Nine hundred? So it means those two weren't the strongest?" Kiefer asked as he seemed like he couldn't believe it all.

He had actually seen their battle and he can still recall how they move like a ghost and easily overpowered the other Spear-Wielding Celestial. They did it without using much of their real strength and were only relying on their movement and combat arts.

He thought that they are already the Celestials that are standing at their peak!

"Yes… Let's move a bit faster. I think that the situation in the village is getting out of hand. We have to hurry." Vincent said.

Currently, they are moving closer and closer to the waterfalls not too far from the village. As soon as they could hear the sound of moving water, they hastened their footsteps to see its beauty…

Ssshhh~

They normally can't play around in this place without some adults watching over them. This is the first time they came here with only their group so they had a different feeling after arriving here.

"Ohh… I want to drink for a bit. I'm thirsty…" Kian, one of their friends, suddenly said after seeing the clean water in front of them.

"Alright, let's drink for a bit."

Vincent joined in seeing no harm to it. Anyway, they are already quite far from the village too.

Gulp!

Even though he had brought a canteen with him, he heard from his grandfather that the water here is cold and really refreshing. He wanted to try it for the first time.

'Good…'

After they have some refreshing drinks, the seven then followed a path made of rocks so they could arrive in the middle of the waterfall… Apparently, behind this waterfall is a secret passage and they had to get wet if they wanted to enter.

Knowing this, they immediately removed their outer garment leaving their underwear before getting in.

Of course, they can just simply let their clothes wet and have them dry later.

Anyway, they know that this secret place has supplies like clothes and food aside from a tunnel leading to the other side of the valley. However, they wanted to have less trouble so they decided to just remove some of their clothes and have Vincent protect them from getting wet.

"Ughh… If you have a lot more Mana, you can just make a larger umbrella to keep us from getting wet right?" Kiefer said as they entered the secret path.

It was quite cold so he was still shivering as he said this.

"It's difficult… I'm only a Journeyman after all. It's just the second stage in the path of a Magician."

Vincent weakly replied. To be honest, he already felt that he already reached his limit for some reason. Although he's still young, he can somehow feel that he won't advance to a Master Magician and get hopes to be promoted as an Adept Mage. This had greatly affected his plans as well since he could only learn Tier 1 Mana Arts.

He's unsure of the main reason why this is happening but after several months of observing his body, he had a guess.

Anyway, he looked around the secret place and found a glowing crystal helping them light up the place.

He then poured his mana into the crystal allowing it to have a stronger light.

"Ohhh~ It's not filled with dust… Someone must've clean this place before."

"Look! There's the door leading to the other side of the valley. Should we take a look?"

Kiefer and the others noticed the wooden door at the furthest back of the secret room. Aside from that, they also noticed that the place isn't damp at all. It was as if there was something in this room keeping it from being dampened by waterfalls on the surface.

Everyone seems relaxed not knowing the disaster that has fallen into their village.

"We can use the door now and get to the other side. Should we take a look?" Vincent asked. He's also curious about this escape route made by the Village Chief and Elders after all.

Furthermore, he wanted to know whether there are other escape routes considering there are only seven of them here. No matter how small their village was, there are still over two hundred of them. There's no way only the seven of them would be told to escape.

Perhaps, they will be able to meet the other villagers at the end of the passage.

After taking some of the supplies prepared, all seven of them decided to continue moving on…

It was at this time they felt the ground shaking as the power of the Celestial reached their current spot!

"You and everyone in this village shall die!"

A deafening voice of a woman echoed throughout the valley before it was followed by a series of explosions.

It was at this point that Vincent felt that his grandfather's Mana Signatures has disappeared…

"G-grandpa Raizen…"