Freedom Jumper-Chapter 99: Chased to the Edge of Paradise

"We have no choice! We have to kill these beasts and traverse the caves as fast as possible! Pay attention to the incision marks on the walls and ceiling, that is the path we must follow!" Landon voiced while letting condensed beams of fire out from the tips of his fingers.

Despite the fact that their assault would end with the followers eventually reaching the escaping group, they persisted on. However, when looking back, Mikhail noticed Abel was nowhere to be seen. Just maybe, he had stayed behind to give them more time. Or even sacrificed himself...

Jagged caves with small stone tunnels in between was what the group continues to make their way through. Even a small waterfall chasm with a large number of random incisions made it obvious the path was below — A path without a path.

"What do we do?!" Leah frantically asked while throwing dense gusts of wind down the dark chasm.

"The obvious choice of course! Jump!" Landon grew a smile of excitement on his face. To him, this jump would be easy from the propulsion that would come from the bottoms of his feet.

"Novius, Alexia, Emery... hold on tight to my waist. I will take you guys down there and come back and get everyone else..." Leah was slightly disappointed in Landon's solution.

Landon watched as everyone below him made it safely to the bottom. Once the splashing sounds of water disappeared, a condensed beam of fire shot out from his fingertips, and caused a large portion of the ceiling to block the entrance into the cave. Muffled shouts of dismay were heard from the other side of the rubble, and what quickly followed was Landon's jacked fluttering in the wind as he brightly lit up the chasm he graciously fell through.

"I hate to break it to you all, but we must get moving faster. It's obvious Abel is not with us, and I doubt he slowed our pursuers down as they were just about to pass into the chasm." Landon explained.

"I suggest we take a detour and hide in a suitable place. Of course we would need to kill the monsters within the area, but we can also create distractions in the path we would originally take." Mikhail had a good idea that everyone agreed on. This would give them a moment of rest, and hopefully a chance to understand Theon's situation.

...

"They taste amazing right!"

"Did you make these Novius?" Leah asked with a smile on her face.

"Elijah did." Novius' response was neither ecstatic nor depressed.

"Amaris told me a little about Elijah. More so how he seemed to have the mind of an adult that inhabited a child's body. Also, his imagination was quite vast." Landon began talking in between munching on the date bars infused with nuts and dried fruit.

"You are talking about him like he is dead..." Mikhail said.

"Ha! You never even showed interest—" Landon's voice stopped with the sound of muffled voices. Currently, the group of ten was holed up in a wall they had carved out themselves. Mikhail had covered the wall with a gray agate crystal similar to the color of stone while leaving small holes as viewpoints and airways. At least a dozen people had — for unknown reasons — redirected their course.

"Hey! They are inside this cave somewhere! Find them!"

Small hand motions were exchanged between the three cyan core mages. Within a matter of seconds, the gray agate crystalline structure keeping them hidden was obliterated from three different elemental spells. The cavern trembled with Landon's explosion, and Leah's concentrated tornado of cutting winds. Fear was on the faces of everyone hiding in the hole — especially when a trail of blood began to flow towards their destroyed safe house. Both Landon and Leah rushed out from the hole after the surprise attack and were surprised by the purple ethereal glow leaving the bodies of the people they had just slain.

"LANDON!!!" A shout that was not of any familiar person echoed through the cavern.

"DEVAN! Why do you have to kill us?!" Landon asked while covering the torn limb of Devan, the water judge.

"..." Devan's face was full of blood, and his blue eyes and blonde hair glowed within the darkness of the cavern.

Landon began shaking his body for answers. For some odd reason, Devan made no effort to heal his fatally wounded body. Even the right side of his hip was detached from his body. "You were my friend Devan... Why?!"

"... no soul may escape." Devan lost the light in his eyes after his last words, and a subtle purple ethereal glow left his body — returning to the unknown.

Bam!

"Hey! They are over here!" Shouts from the distance bounced off the walls of the cavern. There were more.

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"Dammit! It's like everyone's mind is connected!! We have to go, and kill everyone..." Landon took the lead while leaving everyone behind with blank faces. Even Mikhail and Leah were flabbergasted by the events that had just occurred, but still followed suit.

Devan, The Water Judge, and also known as the number two strategist of the kingdom had just been slain — and in an obvious manner was being controlled by something. Novius began to think that if it is true these people are being controlled, it must take away from who the individual is. On the contrary, Emery and Alexia did not have a clue as to what was going on. The violence and bloodshed were numbing their minds from coming up with any rational reasons.

Mikhail stood in the center of the children while rolling Don against the rough stone floor. Trails of blood led them to the point where they had made a detour, and with the quick hand motions of Landon, the group of ten began making their escape again.

Three large caverns with an immense amount of level changes caused the group to slow down enough for their pursuers to catch up. Leah was in the back line protecting and dismantling the passageway they were following as much as possible. Screams of agony were constantly echoing after each and every spell Leah threw.

Eventually, the group made it to a skinny tunnel with a slight incline that gave them the ability to run at full force.

"HELP ME!!" Leah was fuming blood and hot breaths from physical exhaustion and wounds. Earth, fire, and metal spells of all sizes began to collide with Leah's harsh gusts of wind that tore the stone off the walls of the tunnel.

"Go! Keep going!" Landon motions to Mikhail to take the lead.

Novius and Emery bat eyes at each other while pushing Don forward as fast as possible. The kids were beginning to run out of fuel. There was only so much distance one could cross as a ten year old, and it became especially shorter with consistent obstacles one had to climb over.

There it was... A paradise.

The group funneled in one after the other that began with a steep drop into a bright blue pool of lukewarm water. The cavern was brightly lit with floristry that blanketed the ceiling, and a massive glowing mushroom that was smashing itself against the mossy ceiling.

"Watch your head!" A muffled voice caused everyone who had jumped into the pool to look up.

Boom!

An explosion filled with rocks that fell from the ceiling began splashing into the pool. Leah cloak fluttered in the air revealing her undergarments while Landon was right behind her with blood and dust covering his entire body.

Every single person made it to the dry land full of small mushrooms. Coughing, heavy breathing, and cries of pain created a depressing atmosphere amidst the flavorful lights that broke apart against the blue water.

Finally, waking up from a long slumber was a boy with bi-colored eyes and messy brown hair — whose reverberating voice sent a shock into the group.

"We need to get moving or we will die."