The head monk had long ago taken control of the Emperor rank Tarantula by absorbing its soul, turning it into a puppet it controlled to do its bidding.
"You guys should get out of here, we will delay it." Blake screamed as he and Major Erik began charging their spells.
Although the Emperor beast was not at its peak strength due to malnutrition, it still wasn't what 3 demigods could defeat. So instead of getting everyone killed by running with the rest of the team, it was better to try and hold it off while the rest escaped.
Without a millisecond of hesitation, Blake activated both mind boost and neuron overload as well as lightning reinforcement. Having faced an Angel before, Blake knew that if care wasn't taken, his life could end in the blink of an eye without even knowing how he died.
'Please buy us a few seconds.' Blake said to Ebony and Ivory before releasing them.
GRRR!
The wolves growled at the Tarantula as Ebony went all out from the start and released thousands of flamebursts before creating a massive translucent solid orange dome of fire that enveloped them.
Seeing the thousands of spells coming at it, the weakened Emperor rank tarantula controlled the ground to erupt and block the attacks, but once it moved out of its cover it saw hundreds of water wheels spinning in mid.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Thousands of water and ice spells began raining down on the Tarantula, while Ebony continued to fortify the flame dome. Making sure that even if the tarantula were able to unpin itself from bombardment, the barrier would still be able to buy them enough time to prepare more attacks.
After watching Blake and Erik's group in ruins, the head monk revaluated their strength and ranked Blake as a higher priority than Erik because of Ebony and Ivory.
Its plan in this battle was to quickly eliminate Blake; which would deal with Ebony and Ivory, whom it saw as the products of an artifact, but from the looks of things it wouldn't be happening anytime soon, especially at this rate.
'With 3 demigods and my space spells, we should be able to hold it off for Camilla to escape the ruin.'
Before the mission, he had given Camilla a void dagger. So, with their spatial coordination, he would be able to open a spatial corridor that would lead to the spatial mark that he left close to the entrance.
[From what I can see, the chances of leaving here alive are actually very high especially since that guy hasn't even joined the…]
Before the system could even finish its sentence, Major Erik dashed for the entrance before sealing the entrance with a wind domain and a lightning cage.
"That bastard!" Blake cursed as he looked at the seals. He didn't have enough firepower to take them down, and if Ebony or Ivory were to take their mind off the tarantula they would all be dead.
'Hehe… who is laughing now?!' Erik felt satisfied seeing Blake's horrified expression.
He had taken the opportunity of Ebony and Ivory being distracted to escape while trapping Blake with the tarantula. This way Blake would put in even more effort to fight the Emperor's rank beast, thus buying him more time to escape.
[That fool had no idea that it would be best that we had a higher chance of surviving.] The system shook its head as it watched Erik fly away.
'Not exactly what we thought would happen, but our plan still covers it.' Blake had an evil grin on his face.
"Hahahaha!" The laughing voice of the cursed entity crashed his train of thought.
If the crazed head monk had a face, his lips would have curled up to his ears on seeing Erik betray Blake.
It had been bothered that killing the 2 of them would take a while; now that Erik had abandoned Blake it would put in more energy to kill Blake fast and then chase after the rest.
"Time for you to die!" The head monk screamed in a crazed tone as it controlled the weakened Emperor rank tarantula to use more mana.
Scrrrr!
The tarantula screeched sending out sound waves that countered hundreds of water and ice spells while cracking part of the walls and breaking apart stones and the rest of the statue.
The broken rocks began gathering towards the tarantula, forming a rock armor that allowed it to tank the rest of the spells.
BOOM!
The weakened Emperor ranked tarantula crashed into the solid flame barrier instantly causing cracks to form.
'We just need a few more seconds.' Blake said to Ebony and Ivory through their mental link before opening a spatial corridor for Camilla and the rest of the ash corps to arrive at the entrance of the ruin.
Awoo!
Hearing that their master still needed more time, Ebony cursed as it caused the barrier to explode outward, pushing the tarantula a few meters back.
"You can't stop me!" The cursed entity yelled in rage as it saw the first batch of humans escaping the ruin.
BOOM!
The tarantula released a burst of wind that instantly destroyed all the floating water wheels, before lunging back at Ebony and Ivory.
Grrr!
Ebony growled as it turned to spinning flames and crashing into the charging tarantula before being sent flying a few meters back. Almost instantly, hundreds of ice spikes were shot at the beast, but another burst of wind shattered all of them.
'It's time!' Blake said to Ebony and Ivory as he began falling into a spatial tear, but the tarantula was already going for him.
'Shit!' Blake cursed wishing that the force of gravity would magically triple, but luckily Ebony who had recovered as well as Ivory slammed into the tarantula, holding it long enough for him to escape.
…
Just right after all the ash corps had walked out of the spatial corridor and were now outside the ruin, another spatial tear opened beside Camilla and he walked out.
'Shit! Shit! Shit!' Blake began panicking on the inside and began summoning Ebony and Ivory back.
At the same time, the ash corps began noticing that a sort of red force field had begun forming at the barrier of the red zone. Without needing anyone to tell them what to do, everyone began retreating as far as possible.
'What the hell is going on?' Blake was even more worried as he was now filled with multiple emotions.
The red force field began squirming, and in less than a minute from its appearance, it shot at the ruin and began enveloping it.
Although the force field's motion looked slow, it unearthed the entire ruin in another minute, leaving it floating in the air for a few seconds before dragging it into the red zone.
'What the hell just happened?'
Just like everyone else, Blake was struck speechless by the event that just unfolded before their eyes.
"Is it me or did the red zone drag something into itself?" An ash corp couldn't help but ask.
What just happened was something that they wouldn't have believed if someone told them.
"Are you saying we were already in danger the moment we even came close to the ruin?!" Another ash corps said causing everyone to realize how lucky they were, but the word danger reminded Blake of something.
'They have been dragged into the red zone!' Blake screamed in his head.
'Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit! Shit!' Blake began panicking even more.
He stretched out his hands and continuously tried to summon Ebony and Ivory, causing everyone to begin noticing his weird actions.
"Major Blake, are you alright?" Camilla quickly noticed Blake's uneasy appearance, but she got no reply.
At this point, nothing else mattered to Blake all that was on his mind was Ebony and Ivory coming back to him.
'No… They can't be stuck in there forever!'
[Even if the red zone doesn't affect the summoning ability, it would still take some time to for them to get back here since especially since the ruin can be warped to anywhere in the red zone.] The system said trying to calm Blake down, but it was not working.
"Where is Major Erik?" The members of Erik's team soon realized that he was missing.
"...."
Although they received no answer from Blake, his mistaken silence was loud enough.