Chapter 97 Island
Standing in the innermost circle of the teleportation circle, the group of three was ready to depart at once.
Yet, instead of focusing on the numerous runes all around him, Mathias was nervously fidgeting with his fingers.
On the other hand, Bella was simply looking at Kassandra, while Nial's mana perception was glued on the runes.
There was a look of excitement on his face which was noticed by Kassandra, who wondered what exactly Nial was able to see while being blind.
'His senses seem to be on a completely different level than his peers. Maybe, he will be able to make use of this later as long as he is able to digest the information without thinking too much about his next moves.'
But, instead of saying any of that out loud, Kassandra simply activated the teleportation circle.
In the first seconds, nothing seemed to happen, and it was only after the teleportation circle had been activated that the runes on the ground began to glow faintly.
The glow became intenser over time and kept expanding to reach the spatial transmuted mana orb that also began to glow brightly.
Just like the ground below, even the spatial mana orb was engraved with runes, and a range of coordinates, all of which began to glow brightly enough to envelop the innermost circle.
All the three youths were standing in this circle and were enveloped by a bright, goldish-orange glow.
"Nobody is allowed to die! Keep that in mind!!"
Kassandra shouted a warning just before the teleportation happened, causing three different reactions in the youths.
While Bella couldn't help but shudder at her words, Mathias had a completely opposite reaction and calmed down.
Only Nial was slightly confused about the words she said as they were contradictory to the initial behavior of the Instructors.
At first glance, it felt as if they didn't care about the life of the Teradan military camp's participants.
However, this was likely to be something the Instructors had been told to say in order to make the participants believe that they were on their own.
The instructors wanted to pass on the message that the participants shouldn't rely on others, fight for their own survival, grow independently, and become the strongest.
As such, Nial took Kassandra's words as a sign that they did care about the lives of the participants they were supposed to Instruct.
With that in mind, Nial turned much calmer too.
Yet, before he was able to digest that Kassandra's voice was filled with a trace of worry, which was the only thing Bella had noticed, and caused her to stutter, Nial's senses were already overwhelmed by other things.
First, the position in which they were standing felt like the door to a completely different world.
It was almost as if space and time were twisting around them, and his body was being pulled and pushed at the same time.
This caused him to feel an extremely strenuous feeling to overcome his entire being, as his entire body was drained of mana.
A fraction of a second later, his senses were wreaking havoc within Nial, bombarding him with a lot of information, followed by a cold draft of wind that brushed his face.
After that, the mana that seemed to have been drained from his body returned at once.
Utilizing it at once, Nial tried to circulate it through his body that was still trembling uncontrollably as if it was a sprint that would stretch itself and return to its original shape only to repeat the process over and over again.
The experience of being teleported was hellish, and only the binding process of the Curse [Hodur's Heir] could be described as even worse than he had experienced so far.
As such, Nial could be considered as someone who had felt even worse before.
Yet, the nausea he felt only a second after the teleportation had caused his legs to give in as he fell to the ground and puked.
Moments later he heard the others next to him vomiting too.
Fortunately, after he was done retching and emptying his stomach, he felt the unease leave him, allowing him to sense his surroundings and feel the wet soil he was clutching between his fingers
Through his senses and mana perception, he was able to sense the surroundings at once.
However, he seemed to be in a hurry to figure out things instead of letting his body and mind calm down a bit. As such, it resulted in his head beginning to ache heavily.
Groaning in pain he took deep breaths only to notice that the backlash forced him to vomit once again.
His stomach was emptied at once, and the same occurred to Bella and Mathias, who whimpered beside him.
This caused Nial to shake his head when he was finally able to regain control over his entire body.
"I shouldn't have eaten that much…"
Smiling dryly, he couldn't help but feel extremely exhausted.
Taking a few more breaths, he regained some of his energy, only to notice something.
"Salt?"
Smelling that salt was in the air, he quickly got up from the ground, wondering where the smell was coming from.
The air was refreshing, yet it was something Nial had never smelled.
It was overwhelming his enhanced smelling sense that was manifold stronger than the usual smelling sense.
Yet, even Bella and Mathias couldn't help but be confused about what they smelled.
"Is..that the air that comes…from the ocean?" Mathias mumbled, not sure if he recalled the information his father had provided to him.
He had learned a lot about the ancient times in which mankind had reigned a part of the blue planet.
There was not much information about the time before the Dungeon's appearance, and even the exact data about the time when the first dungeons had appeared was not known.
Some scientists said that the first dungeons had appeared a century ago, while others were confident with their theory that at least a few centuries had already passed since the first dungeon portals had appeared.
Yet, in the end, nobody knew the truth and millennia might have already passed since dungeon portals had appeared.
After all, even the Old Ones of mankind didn't recall the time before the dungeon's appearance, let alone when exactly it had happened.
Interestingly, the existence of the Old Ones was not known by the vast majority of mankind!
Too many things were kept a secret, and one of these secrets was unveiled by Nial, Bella, and Mathais, all of whom smelled the air of the ocean.
Getting up from the ground, the three of them ignored their exhaustion from having been teleported as Nial expanded his mana perception, reinforcing it with some of his mana, only for Bella and Mathias to look in a particular direction.
Their eyes were gleaming in excitement, and their body began to move instinctively as Bella asked in a surprised voice,
"So…beautiful! Is that the Ocean???"
It was already dark and quite late, but the bright rays of the moonlight shone onto the tranquil surface of water that reached far beyond the horizon.
Standing on top of a small hill, they were able to look at the tall trees lined across the beach, only for them to see the seemingly endless ocean…for the first time in their life.
Yet, while Bella stared at the ocean, feeling mesmerized by the view, even Mathias couldn't help but mutter.
"It's even more beautiful than I imagined…"
Smiling brightly, the two young Originals exchanged glances, evidently exhilarated by what they saw.
This caused Nial to smile dryly, feeling a tinge of jealousy igniting within the depths of his conscience.
However, instead of being truly envious of them, he was happy that they were able to see something new.
He was able to sense, smell, and feel the ocean air, and his mana perception allowed him to perceive the beach that was covered with countless tiny grains of sand followed by the sound of waves gently crashing onto the numerous rocks and shore before they traveled backward.
Fine sand, pebbles and shells were what lay in front of them before they saw the ocean stretching upto the horizon, and Nial was able to perceive all of it.
Despite that, his mana perception was unable to reach the ocean, which caused him to take a few steps towards the direction his friends were staring.
At the same time, he used even more mana to expand his mana perception.
A moment later, Nial even changed his focus from perceiving his entire surroundings to one particular direction.
"I agree"
It was only when Nial agreed to their comments that both Bella and Mathias noticed what they had just said.
When they recalled that Nial was unable to see anything, sweat beads formed on their forehead before they turned to look at him.
Both of them saw a brightly smiling youth, whose eyes were directed at the vast ocean.
They knew he was unable to see anything, but the way he looked, it was almost as if Nial was able to see much better than any of them.
That made their sudden anxiety about having hurt Nial's feelings disperse into thin air.
Minutes passed in which Nial simply continued to stare at the sea, his lifeless eyes directed at the endless horizon while his senses were trying to perceive even the smallest detail about the new things around him.
Nial couldn't help but feel that he was dreaming.
After all, he never believed that he would come close to the ocean that was but a legend in Katu.
However, exactly the same could be said about entering an island, where countless beasts called the woods their home and were ready to tear every single living being apart.
This caused him to frown deeply as he spoke out what he had in mind, disregarding their mission at hand.
"How about we go to the beach for a moment?"
Nial's voice was low but filled with a varied range of emotions as he kept his attention on the ocean.
Somehow, it made him feel as if he was free, just like the seagulls that spread their wings wide and flew over the never-ending ocean.
The ocean could be a life-giver as well as a harbinger of death. On one hand, it contained a huge amount of water that harbored countless existences, and the very same water could flood the lands in an instant, taking away many more lives than what it nurtured. Somehow his mind turned philosophical as he perceived the ocean that made him feel even he could be like it; calm and gentle to those he loved while wrathful to those who would try to harm him.
Sighing deeply, Nial felt at ease, and his exhaustion blasted away as he heard Mathias mumble.
"Y-Yes. Let's take a look!"
Just as Mathias and Nial decided to walk down the hill to approach the beach in order to be closer to the ocean, they saw that Bella was frozen in place.
She had turned around to the opposite direction of the Ocean as her instincts told her to be vigilant of the surroundings.
"By the way, why did I know that we would get into trouble? Every single time she says something comforting or whatsoever it ends badly!!!"
It was Bella who was referring to Kassandra's comment that warned them to not die.
However, this was perfectly fine as even Nial felt like cursing her out for jinxing them.
After all, there was an entire pack of horned wolves advancing forward from the direction Bella was looking at.
Their yellow eyes glowed in the dark of the night, piercing through the shadows of the darkness.
Unfortunately, that was not even the worst because there were beings riding on them!
In fact, the said beings were human-like monsters Nial was already familiar with.
Goblins wielding spears that radiated strong mana currents were sitting on top of the wolves that growled aggressively, ready to pounce on Nial and his team.
Showing their thirst for their blood, the wolves opened their large maws and even the Goblins that were wearing leather armors were having a tough time controlling them.
Yet, the thing that made all of them stare at the Goblins was the necklace with the bright crimson colored gemstone that was embedded into it!
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