Chapter 993: Trapped Tunnels

Chapter 993: Trapped Tunnels



Further down the hall, Alex felt a burst of mana coming from behind them, and he chuckled.

'I knew he was holding back, but that is more than I expected. The kid's got almost as much mana as me. His growth is scary fast,' Alex thought, smiling to himself.

He wasn't the only one to feel the burst of mana, Violette and Kary frowning slightly before a fire grew inside them.

'I can't let him surpass me,' they both thought, simultaneously.

David could feel it as well, but he just smiled, his thoughts focused on what was to come.

As for the others, their mana senses were weaker, and the burst only brushed against their senses like an oppressing feeling. But given its direction of origin, they brushed it aside and focused on in front of them.

Kary was already signalling them to a halt with her raised fist, her eyes turning to slits as she saw something weird on the tunnel walls.

Everyone skidded to a stop, Alex walking up to her side along with Jin-Sil.

"What is it?" he asked, following her gaze but not seeing anything.

"That wall... There's something strange about it," Kary said, pointing directly at what she was seeing.

Jin-Sil walked forward, her perceptive eyes noticing what Kary was talking about, and she got closer to inspect it.

There, inside a small hidden overlap of stone, she saw a small tube, and at its tip, a droplet of a pungent liquid.

Looking at the other side of the tunnel, and further forward, she saw more of these hidden nozzle-like outcroppings, and she let out a chuckle.

"I think those are nozzles to shoot out oil or some other flammable liquid. There are at least thirty that I can see, over the next fifteen feet of tunnel. I think this is one trap they set," she said, pointing at the nozzle.

Alex scratched his chin, wondering how the trap activated and how do disarm it.

"Do you see a mechanism to activate it?" Kary asked, her reasoning following Alex's. "I don't, and that is what worries me," Jin-Sil said, taking a step back as a precaution. Kary nodded, taking a moment to think of their options.

But it was Aapo who came up with a solution first.

"Let's keep moving," she added, turning back to face the tunnel.

Some of them grumbled under their breaths about their now damp clothes and uncomfortable

heat, but they didn't dare voice their complaints too loud.

The group resumed running forward, hoping they wouldn't have to deal with too many of those traps before catching the fleeing kobolds.

"This is ruining my hair," Jin-Sil commented, eliciting a giggle from Violette.

"Better curly than burnt, right?" Killian replied with a smirk.

"Right," Jin-Sil said, smiling back at him with a fake smile.

In her mind, she was wondering why he even spoke up, but refrained from telling him to shut

up outright. They needed to stand united right now, and it was not the time to act with

hostility between each other.

Their respite from the trap was short-winded, as Jin-Sil forced them to a stop with a shout barely a minute later.

Grinding to a halt, Kary felt a tug on her robe as Jin-Sil pulled her back.

A clicking sound echoed in the tunnel, as a metal pole passed an inch from Kary's midsection,

going from one side of the tunnel to the other and piercing the stone wall.

Another dozen similar spears of metal stabbed into the stone over the next twenty feet in all directions, making Kary sweat in shock.

She turned her head toward Jin-Sil, nodding at her.

"Thanks."

Jin-Sil smiled in response, looking at the tunnel before them.

"If we'd kept running, a few of us would have gotten impaled. Good thing I spotted the pressure plate when I did..."