I felt pain filling my body. I opened my eyes slowly to find Elena staring at me with worry.
"Nox, you look like you're in pain — are you alright?"
I moved my body away from her, looked at her in silence, then spoke slowly.
"I'm fine."
My answer was brief. My head still hurt badly.
Elena approached me slowly and whispered quietly in my ear.
"Ronan came and asked what happened and I told him this..."
Elena told me the lie she had told Ronan. As soon as she finished she stepped back from me and She looked at me worriedly, fearing that her actions were unnecessary .
"Good job I don't want anyone to know about this ."
I nodded my head. Elena's choice was optimal — it would be a problem if Ronan knew what happened; I couldn't guarantee he wouldn't tell others about my power.
Elena sighed in relief when she saw my agreement.
I stood up from my place and prepared to make the vehicle. Mental exhaustion increases when I use my shard, but I don't have the option to rest.
Elena went and woke Ronan, then we all boarded the vehicle.
"We'll move fast and we won't rest. When one of us gets tired we'll switch. Even when night comes we'll keep walking."
I told them my plan. No one complained because they knew well it's impossible to overcome sixth-rank copies.
We cut across the road at top speed. When I got tired Ronan took over. Wind surrounded us and we flew fast, but his stamina soon ran out and it was Elena's turn.
Light finds it hard to take complex shapes, so she summoned a platform. Once we sat on it I ordered it to move forward. It was hard to climb the mountains with that platform, but at least it was faster than normal roads.
I took over as soon as I recovered my endurance. It was close to sunset, but the good thing was I could see the end of the mountain range.
"Just a little more, Nox," Elena urged me nervously as she sensed night approaching.
Swoosh!
The mountains flipped and the platform almost fell, but I flipped it quickly and made the chains dig into the ceiling and continue its path.
Darkness moved below quickly and our three copies appeared.
!!!!
I released a destructive aura that made breathing difficult for us. The copies raised their hands toward us and launched three deadly attacks.
I turned the platform into a dome to protect us, but in truth I wanted to prevent Ronan from seeing.
The dome's outer surface shifted and expanded at the points the attacks would hit. A huge darkness emerged as if it were a wave toward the incoming attacks, wrapping around them and swallowing them.
Fwoosh!
The darkness swallowed the attacks successfully and I recovered my strength, but the energy stored in the attacks was more than I could bear. Blood came out of my eyes and I felt my body exploding from within because of the excessive power. Luckily no one saw my miserable state.
I summoned a giant sphere of darkness outside and put all the surplus energy into it, then ordered it to explode.
Boommmm!
The sphere exploded destructively, obliterating the entire surroundings. The dome shot forward quickly because of the blast, surpassing the mountain range.
The dome rolled on the ground several times before spikes came out of it and fixed it to the ground. Once the dome stopped I canceled its summoning and took a quick look at the surroundings.
In front of me was the mountain range destroyed by the explosion. Three copies stood looking at us with murderous intent, but they didn't attack. It seemed they couldn't leave the mountains — they turned into darkness and returned to the sea of darkness below.
"Yessss, we did it. Well done, Nox. Your dome withstood an attack from three sixth-rank copies — that's an achievement that will go down in history!" Ronan shouted in triumph as he tried to hug me joyfully, but chains of darkness wrapped around him and stopped him.
Elena laughed when she saw what happened.
As for me, I didn't feel anything. I stood up from my place and looked back.
Behind us on the horizon a giant temple appeared, rising from the ground in huge steps, black in color, perhaps charred by an old fire. It was covered with a green layer — maybe vines wrapping around it.
There were inscriptions covering the temple, statues and giant pillars, but they were destroyed. The temple was in poor condition, but it was large and contained smaller buildings within its wall, which people may have lived in. The surrounding wall was square in shape, with towers at each corner. The main gate was completely destroyed, leaving the way to the temple open.
For some reason I couldn't see if there were any monsters. Maybe they were hiding inside the temple and waiting for the right moment to attack.
"That's our target."
The rest of my words came out of their joy as they followed my gaze toward the temple.
The two were surprised when they looked at it, but they regained their focus quickly.
"I think its name was the Temple of Courage, right?"
Ronan said, looking in awe at the great temple.
"You're right. Anyway, I'm extremely tired. Let's eat and then sleep. We'll enter the temple in the daytime. I'm tired of fighting enemies at night."
The others agreed with my words and offered me rest while they prepared the food themselves. I sat on the ground thinking about the current situation.
'We haven't seen any people nearby so far, and that's strange. I expected to find one or two people — maybe they entered the temple but died. That's the worst possibility. We need more people to complete the Corruption Gate. I was assuming the cursed Flower is on the seventh level, but looking at copies that can evolve without limits, the Flower might be on the sixth level or higher, and that would make it impossible for the three of us.'
I rubbed my head in annoyance at the current situation.
'I must stay calm. We need to destroy the heart of the gate, not kill all the monsters. Maybe the Flower guards the heart. If we had more members on the team I would have had them distract the Flower while we destroy the heart, or I could fight the Flower alone while Elena and Ronan destroy the heart.'
'But can I fight the Flower alone? I can't devour the vines because they are part of the Flower's body. After all, the Flower is a living being, so I can't devour it. Also, it would be a problem if the Flower catches me — I would become a puppet it manipulates, and that's the worst thing that could happen. It would mean Elena and Ronan would die by my hands; they wouldn't be able to kill an immortal puppet no matter how hard they try.'
I felt despair while thinking of ways to escape the Abyss world.
'Let's focus on the temple now. Should we enter it or blow it up from the outside? I doubt the key would be destroyed — it must be something extremely solid, or the Flower would have destroyed it itself from the start so no one could reach the floating island and kill the Flower.'
'But if I do that I will destroy the information contained inside the temple.'
I muttered bitterly. I'm curious about this world's history, so it would be a shame to destroy it all. If I destroy this temple I'll have to destroy the other three temples as well. That means losing more information and maybe we'll destroy the heart of the gate before the Flower, which would destroy the entire world and lose the information contained on the island. I want to know everything Adam once had — the reason for his disappearance and why the cursed Flower appeared.
"Who are you really, Adam? You are a big mystery. Enough that the gods themselves chose you — the same gods who kill and hate each other agreed to give you power. I wonder why?" Lost in my thoughts, Elena called me.
"Nox, come and eat."
I decided to stop thinking and went toward them. Elena gave me my portion and we ate.
"Nox, what do you plan to do tomorrow?" Ronan asked while chewing his food.
"We'll enter the temple. If the vines covering it can attack us we'll retreat and turn it into a war of attrition, but if it's impossible we'll destroy the temple." I looked at Elena when I mentioned the last part; she understood my words and nodded in readiness.
"What a brutal plan," Ronan laughed nervously when he heard my words. We returned to eating and then prepared to sleep.
"Nox, can we talk a little?" Elena approached me with a serious expression.
"What's up? Speak."
"Not here."
She motioned for me to follow her and leave Ronan behind. He looked at us with curiosity but decided not to intervene.
As soon as we walked far enough Elena stopped and turned toward me. She stared into my eyes with a serious expression as if she was about to reveal something very important.
"Nox, i think the Flower has...