Chapter 424

424 7.48 – The Ordeal Part 1 – War Of The Wickeds

One hour after the start of the ordeal...

The students swallowed hard, staring at the wondrous stars that sparkled against the soot-black sky. Gods, out of all times, did Silvia have to draw out the most difficult period of the day? They surveyed the vast panorama of tall trees, which cast eerie shadows onto the poisonous flora and fauna.

Taking a deep breath, they turned on their night vision, sniffing and remarking at the exotically perfumed odours that attacked their nostrils. They carried their rifles in a ready position while their headset display monitored their surroundings for any movements, heat signatures and threats.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

One of the beta males was too busy praying for not stumbling upon an EMP area. He barely had time to notice the warning sign in his thermal scope before a leech bored its way into his foot, “Aargh!!!” He gasped in surprise.

A hoard of worm-sized, squishy slug-like creatures suddenly wiggled out of the muddy ground and attacked the whole team. The alphas and deltas reacted instantly, using their powers to either protect or kill off the little beasts, not allowing anything to slow them down, “Protect the betas! I repeat, protect the betas!”

One of their members out would mean a whole team receiving minus points. Everyone wanted to show off their strength before the judges, but damn, this place was becoming more and more alive after every ordeal! It was one thing to read about how dangerous the animals and plants were, another to have some of their jaws trying to snap through your armour.

No matter how many they killed, there seemed to be no end to the waves that came out from the ground. They saw Silvia standing before one of the traumatised students without doing anything, “Silvia, you need to rebuff us! What are you doing?!”

(A/N: Buff – temporary body enhancement spell.)

“Collecting samples,” covered from head to toe in slimy leeches, Bing Shi used her cane to pierce through the leeches on top of her heavy armour. Making a slimy, meat skewer, she recorded her words into her microphone, “These sanguis are not normal,” she used the camera on her helmet to focus on the teammate before her, then took off the girl’s helmet, “Their intelligence seemes to have increased.”

.....

A mouse-sized bulge appeared under the girl’s skin. Horrified, the whole team watched how it made its slow way up, and around the beta girl’s jaw. They imagined what it would feel like to have something eating out the inside of their tongues and kept panting for breath as panic crept up to their necks. Had there been light, one could have seen the sweat pouring down their faces.

Ezikiel’s mocking voice pierced through their eardrums, making the situation even worse, “I fucking told you to avoid that area.”

“We avoided it as you told us!” A few voices responded to his obvious provocation.

On Ezikiel’s side, two of the drones scoured the canyon sides, the hiss of their fans were barely audible.

Ziek’s eyes shifted constantly, searching for the moving shadows as he leapt up onto a tree branch to save the two drones that he suddenly lost connection with, “Say it to that fucking beta, who stepped his fucking foot inside the region I marked as fucking red!”

That beta barely crossed the red area by a millimetre! Even though Ezikiel’s scouting skills were borderline sadistic, he wasn’t wrong. He kept them busy with the beasts they could easily deal with until now – they could only keep their silence bitterly. Everyone knew it wasn’t possible to pass the ordeal without sacrificing some teammates unless you were of Nathaniel and Damon kinds, who could pass the ordeal on their own. But they were doing so well until now, if only...Silvia began to heal them!

Another of Ezikiel’s notifications made the team groan out in frustration, “EMP area ahead, around five hundred metres away from Silvia’s position.”

Bing Shi squeezed the girl’s jaw to open her mouth and recorded the terrified quivering of her eyes as they jerked about in their socket, “The sanguis’s secretion probably numbed Bertha Hamilton’s nerves. She is in a state of shock, and doesn’t respond to any injuries the sanguis are inflicting on her. I got a notice from Ezikiel that there is going to be an EMP area ahead. After I heal her injuries, I’m going to let her keep a diary to document our progress once the signal is cut.”

She engulfed the largest leech in her protective barrier, locking away its pheromones from reaching the rest of the colony.

“...” What was she doing? Shooting a documentary movie? Some of the alphas smirked as they watched how the betas were losing their cool, looking more and more like pigs in a slaughterhouse. They’ve done enough to end up in the A-class already, so they weren’t as nervous as in the beginning.

“Alright, enough of mental breakdowns,” Bing Shi stretched her hands, pulling her gloves towards her wrist more tightly. She took a scalpel out of her medic bag and took this chance to practice her powers. No, not medical powers. She pushed her hand into the girl’s mouth and cut off the bulging pieces of flesh from Bertha’s tongue, “I don’t want to ruin your teen movie coming of the age turning point, but save it for when this ordeal ends.”

She crushed the queen sanguis within her palm, causing other sanguises to let go of their targets and move around in panic. The queen was the main reason behind their aggression, and she made it look like its death put a stop to their attack.

Before Silvia could receive a stand ovation for her heroic deed, Liam looked for a way to drop her status in the team. He stepped on a few confused sanguises as he walked towards the safer area, “Macmoriss, the problem on our side has been dealt with. Report your situation.” His question was answered by a shushing sound of a lost signal, “...” After a long pause, he looked up, “Macmoriss went into the EMP area without us.”

“Is he crazy!?” Everyone fumed in anger as they took a short break to replenish their energy. They wanted to say that the shorty was getting too cocky, but it would look stupid coming out of a team that just entered Ezikiel’s red area filled with evolved sanguises.

Bing Shi glanced at her lower-ranked teammates that were about to start another round of mental breakdown, “He might act like scum, but as you all got to know, he is a responsible scum. He will surely leave some hints for us.”

Liam gritted his teeth, “Since we can’t cut a road in a jungle that moves, I believe the hints won’t stay in their place for long. We should depart, immediately.”

Was Ezikiel trying to make them go through an ordeal within an ordeal?! They turned towards Silvia, waiting for her approval.

Liam rushed the still resting teammates to get up, griting his teeth, “What are you waiting for? Get going!”

“You heard him,” Bing Shi pointed ahead with her cane, “Go, go, go! If anyone drops in the ranks, they will earn a kiss from hell!”

All the betas couldn’t even relax for a second before being shot by a huge dose of adrenaline, “-!”

Walking at her own pace, Bing Shi followed her team towards Ezekiel’s latest coordinates. If she could affect the feelings of intelligent beings like humans to such a degree, would she be able to do the same on the low intelligent form of life too? Logically, it should be easier because the defences weren’t as high, right? She looked behind, a flicker of grey passed by her eyes as the panic-stricken sanguises slowly calmed down.