Chapter 101: Chapter 101- Decision

"Acrypha?" Talon looked at his companion with confusion when he noticed her grave expression. He didn't understand why she was acting like this when she was fine a second ago.

However, the girl didn't reply as she kept staring at the sky for a while. Her eyes flashed with a weird glint as she finally looked down and said. "Get ready."

"Huh? Ready for wh-"

Before Tlaon could even ask what she was talking about, he felt a chill run down his spine as he heard a small noise. It was a very faint one, barely audible even for his heightened senses. But, he could easily identify it since it was a familiar sound.

'A heartbeat?' He asked himself as he listened quietly.

*BADUM*

The second time was a little louder than before and so was the third time and on forth. The sound of heartbeats echoed in the vicinity. It didn't sound like the heartbeats of a human, but they were similar enough for Talon to identify it with ease.

At first, he didn't know where these sounds were coming from, but it didn't take him long to find the source as it was as visible as the sun in the sky or perhaps even more. His eyes looked up into the atmosphere, exactly where the gate was floating. What he saw right there was a sight straight out of dreams.

The Core Dimension's gate was pulsing. Every two seconds or so, the gate's enormous body would expand ever-so-slightly and retract in a split second as huge amounts of Aetheris would explode from inside of it.

The Aetheris would quickly spread in the sky and disperse. But, that wasn't the most important detail that Talon saw, what caught his attention. The heart of the gate, or in other words, the black spot in the middle of it, was now shining in a bright blue as if it were some kind of monster core.

"What the fuck is going on?"

Acrypha exhaled a long breath as she looked at Talon. "Did you forget what I told you a few weeks ago?" She asked.

"Huh? What are you talking abo-..."

Suddenly, it hit Talon as he remembered something. Three weeks ago, exactly when he first came to the campus, Acrypha told him about something that would happen in the near future. She told him that the earth was going to expand and the world's entire ecosystem was going to change.

"Don't tell me..." Talon murmured with a blank expression, unable to articulate words. "The expansion? Is it going to happen now?"

However, Acrypha shook her head. "Not exactly now. But, it's starting. I can't say for certain when. But, expect it in the next few hours or days. Whatever the gate would decide." She explained.

"Few hours? That's when the battle will happen though!"

Acrypha stood there silently as she shook her head. "If the gate starts pulsating then there is no stopping it. You don't know how much time you have left before the world starts expanding."

Talon frowned hard. "This isn't good. This isn't good at all. If the expansion starts before or even mid-battle, we're all screwed."

"What... What can we even do? If it hits today, we won't be able to do anything except watch. Everything will go down the drain." Hyun-Jae's voice wavered for a moment.

"..."

For the first time ever, Talon really had no answer to her worry. He also didn't know what to do at all.

The two sat in silence for a long while as they thought of any possible solution they could come up with. However, there was nothing. Just emptiness.

"I think we should continue with the plan as it is," Talon spoke a while later.

"..."

"It seems like the earthquakes won't happen yet since the pulses aren't loud. So, our only choice is to bet on it not happening when we least want it to."

"Is that... Sigh, never mind, that's the only choice we have, isn't it?" Hyun-Jae asked as she tapped rhythmically on the table.

Inside the dark room, the duo stared at each other. They didn't need words to convey what they were thinking. The pressure on their shoulders had suddenly increased tenfold.

If their mission was dangerous before, then it was now bordering on the realm of impossibility. A huge chunk of their chance of success fell on luck... something that Talon hated greatly.

He did use luck many times to get out of bad situations, but it was never to this extent. Before, on all those occasions, success relied on his ability as much as it relied on luck so in a sense, he always had a hand in what outcome would happen.

However, now, it was far from that. If the expansion hits before or mid-battle, he is seriously at risk of dying along with everyone else.

"We will continue with the plan as before. Nothing will change." Talon exhaled as he finally said.

The decision was brutally hard to take, but, one had to take it and Talon didn't want to put the pressure of all the blame on Hyun-Jae's back if everything collapsed and failed. If there was one person who could handle this pressure, it was him.

"..." Hyun-Jae looked at him with a complicated look. She could clearly see that Talon was extremely conflicted. But, he didn't show that on the surface as his aura was still exuding endless confidence.

"Screw the gate. We will do it our way and win. Nothing will stop us, not after everything that we went through to reach this point. It's either us or us." He said as he clenched his fist.

"..." The girl blinked for a few moments before she nodded her head as she slowly regained her calm. "Yeah, we already achieved the impossible more than once, we have to do it once more, that's all". She said.

Meanwhile, outside, the gate's slow rhythmic pulses continued seemingly endlessly. The sight of that behemoth floating being was as majestic as ever. Floating domineeringly over the world like a god, it was slowly preparing a change.

A change that no one, not even Acrypha expected. Something that this world had never and will never see for as long as it existed. Earth is taking its first step into higher dimensions.

(A//N: Thanks to everyone who supports the book with power stones and golden tickets, you guys are the best:) )