My Space-Time System

638  Plan? Survive!

Once they were out of the pocket dimension, the group quickly scanned their surrounding in search of the Dusk Stalker. Unfortunately, they were unable to spot any traces of it, making them feel even more uncomfortable as they were unsure if it was still in the vicinity or had left.

Nonetheless, the group wasted no time taking flight. Except for Blake who didn't require wings to fly, the rest conjured water and darkness wings in conjunction with mana manipulation in order to stay afloat.

Blake and Damon used the darkness element to conceal the entire group as they sojourned towards the spire to avoid being targets for every cursed creature in the southern continent.

Two hours later from their point of lift-off, Brian who had been constantly scanning the plains and forests below pointed out.

"According to all the stories I have heard about this place, the entire continent is meant to be teeming with beasts, but we haven't seen any other one so far."

"And I think it's best it remains that way…" Carmilla shot Brian a glare that read 'You better not jinx it or else!'

"If the stories are accurate, then the silence means our current situation is problematic. However, I hope the stories aren't." Damon pointed out the flaw in her logic.

It was from Damon's statement that Blake began scrutinizing their environment even more as he began suspecting that something was truly off.

After one more hour of traveling, Blake whose brows had been unconsciously furrowing from his discoveries decided to make the team land.

"We are not making any progress." Blake who was at the helm of the formation turned and announced the bad news to the team.

"How do you mean?" Damon who clearly saw the terrain changing couldn't help but ask.

"We are in something called spatial distortion. The environment has been distorted in such a way that to normal eyes it is changing, but in terms of spatial coordinates, we are still in the same place. Whenever or if we ever get to the edge of the distortion field, we will be sent back to the beginning." Blake explained causing the team to look at each other in confusion.

As a locator, it was impossible for Blake to get lost. Among many other things, he always knew his spatial location and could instinctively know the distance between himself and his target even without using the locator spell. The problem here was that the distance between them and the spire never seemed to be decreasing.

"Should we try other directions?" Tessie suggested.

"It wouldn't change anything." Blake shook his head as he went on to explain. "The only three ways of escaping a distortion field is to directly warp out of the field or destroy it using sheer power or finding an exit point."

The first and second options were out of the question as they lacked the power to undo the distortion and their main aim was the spire. The last option was the only feasible one out of the three, but that was easier said than done.

"What should we be looking out for?" Camilla asked.

"The exit point could be anything; a tree, a rock, anything at all. The only thing we can hope for is that the locator spell can find it."

Blake explained as he was about to cast the locator spell, but it was at that moment that the ground began quaking.

"What the hell is going on?!"

Before they could understand what was going on, a large portion of the ground 10 meters away shot up. At the same time, the surrounding ground began squirming and more parts of the ground began shooting up.

"It… it feels like a mountain range is forming… We need to leave the ground!" Brian immediately alerted the group.

Without wasting another second, the group conjured their wings and took to the air in hopes of escaping whatever was going on below them, but it was then that clouds appeared from nowhere and blocked out the sky. n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"I have a bad feeling about this…" Brian voiced his concern as the group had to slow down their accent to ascertain whether they should proceed or not.

"Can you shut up already?!" Camilla and Tessie screamed in unison when they saw that Brian had no plans to stop jinxing them.

Ignoring the ruckus happening, Blake began analyzing the current situation they had found themselves in.

'Foresight tells me that flying towards the clouds means instant death, but at the same time we can't fly out of the changing terrain in time because it seems the entire continent is undergoing a similar change.'

'What of going back to the pocket dimension?' Cassius asked.

'We can't continue relying on that if we come across any issue. If we continue at this pace we would never complete our exploration.' Blake shook his head as he continued scanning the environment for a way out.

'Your lives comes first, we are not in a rush to complete the exploration.' Cassius reminded him.

'I haven't forgotten that, but my intuition tells me that this is our chance to exit the distortion field. If any of our lives are in danger, I'll send all of us back.'

Just as if the devil heard their conversation, Blake began noticing that wind was building up at one point hundreds of meters away, and it was getting stronger by the second.

At the same time, the plains below them could no longer be considered flat as the lowest parts had risen over 200 meters, while the tallest part was already nearing 400 meters.

"A cyclone is forming." Damon couldn't help alert Blake who has seemed to have dazed-off.

"I am aware." Blake replied as he saw that their wings need even more effort to keep them afloat.

"What's the plan?" Camilla was the one to ask as the situation seemed to be spiraling out of control every passing second.

"Try your best to survive."

Just like clockwork, the strength of the cyclone tripled, causing them to put in triple the effort to stay afloat, while uprooting trees and all loosely placed objects on the changing landscape.