Augen had never been more frustrated about the nature of his forbidden Casts than now. Conventional wisdom would have deemed visions of the future to be a massive tactical advantage, but the way the Cast only showed him bits and pieces of the future in such blurry manners actually lead them astray more often than not, expecting things to go one way only for reality to surprise them again and again.

“..How many people are still on the island?” Wu asked, as the rest of the chariots flew off into the air. However, more than a few also noticed the strange trajectory of the island, and they actually followed it closely rather than fly away right away.

“I…don’t know…” Lera strained, trying to extend out her Cast array further into the island to no avail. That was when suddenly, the three remaining strongholds’ gates swung open, and three individual squads stumbled out from within.

“What…what is happening?” One of them asked with confusion as the actual structures collapsed behind them, “I…what did we do…?”

“Are you okay?” Wu asked, and the man nodded before looking down at his own hands, “What do you mean?”

“John promised us a bright future! John promised that the Academy will be at the top!” A girl cried out in panic, “But when that scream came through…all of the memories were returning to us!”

John King utilized his brand of conversion to control individual Wave users, and the roles of these three squads were to set up specific Casts that were given to them by Mus Ongaku in the base of the three structures.

However, it appeared that Mus’s Melodic Disruption also broke through their conditioning, as well as activating the Casts that they have put up.

“Wait…so you are saying your boss betrayed you all?” Wu asked, “Why…why would he do that?”

“I…don’t know…” The man at the front lowered his head, “I…I never wanted the Academy to die like this.”

“A leader will only abandon his subordinates when his goals are complete, and he no longer needed the assistance of others.” Ver said, and Wu turned to him.

“So…the manuscript…you mean…” Augen murmured, “Oh no…”

“But where would he have gotten the extra-dimensional energy?!” The man asked, clearly aware of the three activation conditions.

“…If they got anything from the remainder of the Pinnacle Research Institute…” Lera continued, “Literally anything would have been dosed with energy after the explosion of the tablet…”

“What do you mean? Had the tablet already been activated?” The man asked again, but Wu cut him off right away.

“It doesn’t matter now. We need to gain all of the intelligence about the island that we can in order to save it.” Wu said, “This is crashing into the port city of the Ethereal Realm, and we need to find a way to stop it.”

“That’s my hometown!” Another girl cried out, latching onto Wu’s wrists, “PLEASE! Let us help!”

“Then we need to first gather all the help we can get.” Wu said, scanning around, “Help project my voice out.”

“On it.” The group of Casters gathered around him, using each other’s Wave to create an amplification Cast before Wu’s voice came through the speaker.

“My name is Wu.” Wu said, hearing the echos of his own voice cut through the air, “I…I want to save this island, and prevent it from crashing into the Ethereal Realm in minutes. To do that, I need all of you that are still around for your help! Please! Wherever you are, grab anyone that’s still around and gather around me!”

The chariots floating in the air and the people sitting within it simply watched, and frankly, no one believed him enough to risk coming down to the surface again. A handful of Ethereal Realm natives did come down, however.

“We might need some stronger persuasion here.” Fatera said, poking Wu in the shoulders. He looked towards her before turning her attention towards Lera, who nodded back at him.

“I…was summoned here by the Tablet.” Wu said, clearing his throat in the process, “I am the Fourth one that was summoned to this world, and I am powerless in the Wave, even as I am supposed to save the world. Without the help of you all, and the incredible people I have met along the way, I would not have been able to accomplish anything. But I can promise you one thing: I will do whatever I can to save this Academy, a place where so many called home. I will also save the realm down below, where it is actually the home to countless people. Please. I need your strength, I need your unity, and I need your help.

“The world…needs your help.”

“…thought they have already killed the one.” The man let out a chuckle, “That was all the rage back in the High Human society last year.”

“Welp. Now, the secret’s out.” Wu shrugged, looking at the chariots landing down near them in droves, “I never thought we would be able to hide forever anyway. If my return is to save this rock, then I will do it without question. Plus, it won’t matter if we all die here.”

“What do you need?” The groups of students still lingering around asked, and Wu turned towards the three squads that just exited the strongholds.

“You did something to the propelling Casts, correct?” Wu asked as they nodded simultaneously, “Then take us down there.”

The channelers grouped together, and they started tossing aside the massive pieces of rubbles as led by Fatera. The trio of tunnels under the three strongholds lead straight into the core of the Casts that were embedded into the island itself, and when the tunnels were revealed once again, Ver created three sets of portals that brought the groups down to the cavings again.

It looked just like the Casts at the basement level of the Ville college structure, but much much larger. Lera quickly went to work with the remaining Casters as they connected their own Casts with Lera’s, relaying information about the extent of damage to the propelling Cast itself.

“So…what are you plans?” Augen asked.

“If we can…we need to fix the propelling Casts.” Wu said, “Turning the jets back on, and use it to brake our current velocity. If anything, that will buy us more time.”

“Here!” Lera said quickly, her other hands out to the side before she conjured up a full scan of the propelling Casts with the help of Matty. It was an ancient Cast of ridiculous proportions, though it was immediately clear that the central nodes were completely jammed up.

“Shit…” Matty cursed, “That Cast was way too complicated to fix in minutes…”

“We don’t need to fix it.” Wu cut in, “We just need to make it work, somewhat. There’s the power core, isn’t it? So long as we can clear a path from the core to the outside, the blasts would continue.”

“But it would be an uncontrolled mess!” Shin added, “How could you possible control how much power is coming out?”

“…I have an idea.” Wu said, looking towards Lera who’s eyes opened, “But Lera is going to hate me for it.”

The plan was simple, and it almost had to be. There was no way to restore the entirety of the propelling Casts with all of its precise control of thrusts in all directions. However, if the first stage of their plan is simply to buy more time, then they can use a lot more of a brute force approach.

“I heard you needed help.” A head suddenly popped out from a tunnel in the wall, and Wez, the leader of the collegeless students popped out, “I am one of those students that call this home.”

“Wez!” Wu laughed, “Perfect timing.”

“Just so you know.” Wez said, “Where you are planning to go…it’s the hot stuff. It’s…exceedingly dangerous. The Wave was way too intense for any normal human.”

“Well, we have just to right tools to combat it.” Wu said, fixing up his suit as Lera stood by his side. Wez nodded with understanding before Wu turned around.

“The rest of you, work together to clear out a path from here where the Cast is jammed all the way to the bottom of the island. We need both a path straight down, and a path that’s directed in the direction of the Ethereal Realm in order to slow down our descent! Ver! You are in charge of group 1 that are digging towards the Ethereal Realm! Fatera, you are with group 2 that are digging straight down!”

“Ya, boss!” Fatera said, coating her entire body with the Wave before she started tearing through the earth right away.

“The rest of you, try to make sure that the entire rock is held together. Lily, you can lead them.” Wu said, projecting his voice to the helping hands still at the ground level, “Use your manifests, use your structure Casts. Use whatever, keep this rock together. However, if things go south…just get out of here as soon as you can.”

“What about you?!” Ver asked, walking up to Wu with a worried look, “If you go near the core…”

“We have our Void Domain.” Lera replied, “We will be fine.”

“Then keep in communications.” Ver said, forming a single scale over her knuckles before she ripped it off and placed it on Wu’s body, “I will come get you.”

Wu nodded back at her, and Ver looked at him with hesitation before coming in, hugging Wu tight and pressing her cheek against his.

“Don’t worry~” Wu smiled, “We’ve got this. Together.”

“Yeah…” Ver said, spinning around, “If you die, I will kill you.”

“See you all the other side~” Wu said, as Lera handed out pieces of her communication Casts to each of the groups present. And just like that, the four teams each moved into their positions in order to save the island and the people down below.

Wez moved through the tunnels, strands of Wave coming off his body as he excavated easily through the soil. The soil around them started to get warmer and warmer the closer they got to the core, and Wez stopped right as the soil started sizzling around them.

“I…I couldn’t go much further.” Wez said, turning as his body was drenched in sweat.

“It’s okay.” Wu said, holding him in the shoulder, “You go get out of here. We will take care of the rest.”

“Be careful.” Wez nodded back at him and Lera before he turned and dug his way back, “...See you on the other side.”

Sitting in the dark, lit with nothing but Lera’s light Cast, Wu then activated his Void Domain and held onto Lera’s hand as they both kicked forward, breaking into the core behind the floating island.

Now, the only thing standing between the island crashing down onto the earth and staying in the air is their Void Domain.