Chapter 495: Turbulence (1/2)

“You sure you need me for this?” Ogras said as he looked at the modified Teleportation Array with some trepidation. “It might cause less strain on the array the fewer people who goes, it might be better if I just stay behind after all.”

“This is our only shot, and I might not be able to deal with this alone,” Zac said. “Besides, what are you whining about? Even a teenager is going, and you’re afraid?”

“Sending two or ten people won’t really make a difference to the Array,” Kenzie adding from the side, a hint of schadenfreude in her eyes. “As long as we enter the same time we have as good a chance of surviving as when going alone.”

“Don’t speak such unlucky words,” Ogras muttered, but it looked like he had resigned himself to going with the rest.

“Is there anything we need to know?” Zac asked the old Sky Gnome to the side.

“The moment the [Spatial Reinforcement Array] activates it will cause a clash with whatever the unliving have planted,” Gemidir said. “If you see new destinations appearing in the teleportation screen it means it's working. For the time being.”

“For the time being?” Zac repeated skeptically.

“Our array will probably only last a minute or two against the jammers of the undead empire, so you can’t dally or hesitate,” Kenzie said. “Immediately pick an option and we’ll all jump onto the array. We can’t waste a single second. Just make sure you don’t pick a town in the wrong direction.”

Zac looked around, his eyes turning to Joanna and her squad of six valkyries who silently stood behind her. Zac recognized all of them, as they were all among the oldest members who had followed him all the way from Greenworth. They had followed him to both close incursions and conquer the underworld. The constant battle had utterly reforged them into stalwart warriors.

Their gear was swapped out since the last time he saw them though. All of them wore massive shields made from chitinous shells on their backs, each one large enough to cover their whole bodies. Their goal in the upcoming fight wasn't to boost Zac's prowess, but rather use their newly-acquired War Arrays to protect the rear against unanticipated attacks.

He couldn't always protect Emily and his sister, but this group of six would hopefully be able to stall long enough for him to come to their aid. Zac took a deep breath before he turned to the ancient Sky Gnome who stood by to the side.

“Do it,” Zac said as he opened his teleportation screen.

It only showed the handful of teleportation arrays that were studded across the island, but nothing beyond that. He heard some tinkering sounds as the Gnome drew some lines to connect the final power outlets, and a hum suddenly echoed out from the array as Zac felt his vision doubling for a second.

However, Zac forcibly ignored the odd effect and immediately chose a town he recognized. It was one of the newly created settlements close to the shore of Pangea, as he figured a shorter jump would have a higher success rate.

Zac jumped into the array, dragging a swearing Ogras by his lapel just in case the demon chose to change his mind at the last second. The array whisked them away, and his surroundings were replaced by darkness.

However, something felt wrong. It was as though he was being squeezed through a too-thin a pipe. The discomfort quickly turned to pain, but there was nothing he could do about it. He wasn’t in control of himself during these types of teleportations, and he could only endure the pain and pray that the others were fine.

But the darkness of subspace suddenly cracked, and Zac found himself far up in the sky, heedlessly tumbling from the wind as droplets of blood rained down all around him. Screams echoed out from every direction, and he saw multiple bloodied people flailing about. He was obviously wounded as well judging by the blood around him, but they were flesh wounds at worst considering his sturdy frame.

However, his sister and Emily weren’t so lucky, and they were utterly drenched in blood as they fell toward the ground. The scene made his heart burn with anxiety, and four chains shot out as [Love's Bond] transformed to its backpack form. The emerald leaf appeared beneath him the next moment, and five seconds later the whole group was collected and safe.

Ogras and Kenzie had appeared on top of the leaf by their own means, whereas joanna had managed to throw out ropes to half the valkyries. Zac only needed to snatch up a screeching Emily and the rest of the Valkyries. Thankfully everyone was fine, apart from getting bloodied. No one had died and no one sported a crippling wound.

Only then did Zac take stock of their whereabouts, and he frowned when he realized they were above the open sea. No matter what direction he looked in there was nothing, just sky and water. There was a pretty nasty storm cloud in one direction, but there was not a hint of shoreline.

“Is everyone okay?” Joanna said with a hoarse voice from the side.

“I’m fine,” Kenzie said as she ate a healing pill. “I think they booby-trapped the subspace by filling it with spatial tears or something. If we had continued the whole way we would probably have emerged as chunks of meat. Thankfully we installed a failsafe in the array that would take us out of subspace if it got deadly.”

”You had?” Zac said with surprise.

”Do you think I would gamble with all our lives?” Kenzie retorted with exasperation.

“Where the hell are we though?” Ogras muttered from the side as shadows rushed through his alabaster hair and face to remove any blood.

“We can’t be anywhere close to the Dead Zone,” Joanna said as she looked around. “The array in the sky is massive, yet we can’t see it at all. I think we might be some distance away from the continent.”

“Well, we’ll just have to fly,” Kenzie said as she pointed in a certain direction. “We should hit land as long as we move in that direction.”

Zac guessed that Jeeves had calculated it for her based on the suns in the sky or something, and he unhesitantly sent a mental command to the leaf. However, Zac soon enough handed over the task of steering the vessel to Joanna as he wanted to take the opportunity to start leveling up in earnest.