Lost Origins: SS Ranked Awakening-Chapter 173: Crack

"You good?"

Jake stud8ed the expression om Kieran’s face.

"Hmm"

Kieran nodded hid head and Jake’s attention switched.

"Well, we’ve got to make it to the centre"

"Thiught you would want to retreat, heh!"

Kieran remarked, suppressing a smile at how cautious they had been through out the mission.

"I want to, but we can’t. By the now, the fog should have engulfed the whole place. This seems to be the only place that it can’t penetrate, and I’m not keen on finding how long that’s gonna last. We’ve got to find the monster responsible for this and—"

"And what?"

Kieran interrupted Jake to be met with a blank face after his question.

"Find the creature, then what? Kill it?"

Kieran questioned. Times like this were where he fought against the battle driving instinct he had developed recently and sought to use cold logic.

’If it’s dormant, we might have a chance to kill it before it awakes. I don’t think that’d be long either.’

Cold lights flickered in his eyes as he looked at the room where the monster were still getting sucked to death.

"Well, can’t say I really thought about that. We don’t have much of a choice here. I’d rather think about that after I’ve seen what’s behind this."

Jake bared his line of thought to Kieran, who only rolled his eyes at the answer only Jake could have come up.

"Alright, we should start moving now then, before it’s finished with its meal over here."

He said pushing himself off the ground when he noticed that the pain was missing from his bandaged hands.

’Still numb, but far batter than I thought.’

"Hey, what did you do?"

He called out to Jake waving his hand at him.

"Mehh, some low level trick!"

Jake waved his hand in dismissal at the question, while Kieran squeezed his face, reminding himself to get it out if him when they got out of here.

’If we make it out if here, that is!’

"Lead the way!"

Jake said, tapping on his shoulder and just like he said, Kieran’s eyes turned gold, locking on the only place his eyes or another of his senses couldn’t pierce through.

It was still the same void space that appeared as a black sphere in his vision.

"That direction, same?"

Kieran looked in a specific direction and requested for some extra conformation from Jake who had a sharper sixth sense than him.

"Yeah!"

Jake said, morphing into the sleek amoured form which Kieran had never seen before.

"That’s new!"

’How did he recover that much energy already?’

Kieran commented and thought seeing that Jake had somehow managed to recover around 75–80% of his energy already.

That was crazy considering what he had put him through.

"You’ll have to fill me on what managed to put you in that state though!"

"Sure, if you can keep up that is!"

Jake said with his fangs peeking out from the smirk on his face before bursting into a sprint infront of Kieran who was about to ask what his words meant.

’??’

Kieran stood there stunned at the unexpected explosive speed shown by Jake before turning to follow in an instant, leaving the monster farming space behind.

While running they came across numerous hallways and passages like the one he had come across before, but this time they both moved with a target in mind, running like their lives depended on it.

Seeing Jake still ahead of him, despite giving it his all, Kieran gritted his teeth and showed some signs of transformation; his hair turning reddish along with his fangs peeking out.

’Should be enough’

With his partial transformation, Kieran pushed further, catching up to Jake almost immediately.

"The creature, now!"

He asked, ignoring the look of shock and surprise Jake tried to suppress in a hurry.

"Sigh. Well, we might meet it ahead and it’s pretty strong..."

Jake started, telling Kieran about all he managed to gather about the monster he fought and lost to.

’Would’ve won if I didn’t get a little tired from that disgusting horde that wanted to bury me!’

A wild aura gushed out from Jake before getting reigned in rapidly as his emotions fluctuated thinking about his battle with the creature.

’Weird. Was that always here too. Or did it come from outside the outpost?"

Kieran wondered. He wasn’t too sure about it.

The beast could have followed the fog and ended up in the outpost. While the beast were generally also affected by the fog too, they had way more resistance compared humans.

That aside, it could be one of those monster’s that had completely adapted to the fog. Jake had mentioned it using the fog as a tool in the fight.

’The fog...’

The long ignored topic came back to Kieran. He had no idea what the effect of the fog was.

It interfered with their watches and prevented them from contacting the camp and he definitely remembered falling back into the loop when the air from the fog hit them back then.

The fact that nobody who had survived the fog said or remembered anything about it could be due to this and also a couple other things at this point.

"Sigh!"

He shook his head, gathering his thoughts as they approached the place where his senses could get a read on.

"Anything more I should know?"

Jake said, looking ahead with dilating pupils.

"We might have to pick the fog."

Kieran said with a dazed expression looking at the huge black material, the same as this whole place was made of, blocking their path.

This mysterious material was the very material which was blocking their senses, no matter how much or hard they tried.

"What do you mean?"

Jake said, turning to face him.

"Sigh. I don’t know what this thing is, but it’s almost impossible to break through. Trust me, I’ve tried."

Kieran explained and Jake understood the reason behind his dazed expression.

"There’s no mistaking it, it here!"

Kieran whispered.

The fact that the black material stopped their senses from probing what laid beyond that point, it nothing about the overwhelming monster aura which flowed out from the place in waves.

It was beyond the level of the room filled with the monster.

’It’s even stronger than that beast!’

Jake’s expression darkened feeling the waves of aura hit him continously.

The both of them continously had to let their own aura out around them just to remain mobile enough.

"How the hell are we supposed to take on something that feels like this?"

Jake whispered pretty low, but Kieran’s sensitive ears caught it easily and he honestly had no words to refute that.

Deep down, he was also thinking that, and they didn’t have much time to come up with something.

The aura kept flowing out like the waves of a river giving the impression of a behemoth behind the that point

"How though even is this thing, huh?"

Jake asked again, walking up to the barrier and sticking his face up to it for a better view.

Kieran sighed at the useless question, Jake had never come in contact with it and even if he had, Kieran doubted it caught the eye of the recruit.

"It’s insanely to—"

CRACK!

The sound was like thunder striking both recuits in place and Kieran slowly turned his face to the side and asked Jake in an extremely shaky voice which did nothing to conceal the shock which shook his heart.

"W-wwwhat was that?"

"Uhm, I think you might have described the wrong material!"

Jake said, his eyes directing Kieran’s to his hand just above the barrier where the single crack came from.

"You broke it?"

He asked, his voice still filled with shock.

"I just knocked on it!"

Jake said scratching the back of his head nervously like he had done something wrong.

With steps which carried a sense of urgency, Kieran walked up to the barrier and raised his fist just above it, pulling it back a little just to throw a punch the next moment.

CRACK! CRACK!!

A louder sound was heard along with a bigger crack spreading across the barrier with some fragments of the material falling to the ground.

’The fuck!’

Kieran bent to the ground, picking up some of the fallen shards.

’It’s definitely the same thing!’

Kieran confirmed that it was the same material with the one he had been taling about, yet it had no idea what caused it to be so fragile.

"Uhm, I think we have our way in then?"

Jake’s voice came again, snapping Kieran out of his daze and his expression switched understanding Jake’s words as they both neared each other before throwing punches at the black barrier in rapid succession

CRACK!

CRACK!! CRACK!!

The cracking sounds became louder and clearer until a portion of the wall infront of them shattered abd they were pushed back violently by a surge of rancid monster aura.

"Ugh!"

Kieran and Jake both fought the urge to cough up the blood that had pooled at their chests. Even worse, under the immense aura which came from within the barrier, they couldn’t get to their feet despite burning their aura to its limits.

’How are we supposed to escape this?’

Kieran groaned in pain before freezing as a sense of fear suddenly washed over him before being replaced by a familiar tingling sensation.

But this time, he didn’t feel the urge to fight. It was to run.

"ROOOOARRRRRR!!!!"