Zeel removed his hand from Lara's chest with a confused look on his face.

'Maybe I was mistaken?' Zeel thought, but soon his worries were proven correct.

Lara's body slowly dissolved until only a dark shadow remained on the ground. The shadow had vein-like red marks coursing through its half-transparent body.

Zeel smiled slightly at his suspicions being proven right, it would have been a blight on his pride if he killed the actual Lara.

However, the mere fact that Zeel thought he made the wrong choice highlighted just how much his senses were suppressed on the island.

Zeel was not someone to do things with uncertainty.

'What is it?' Zeel asked, scouring the Homo-Superior Database for the relevant information.

The Red Queen seemed just as confused 'I am not sure. Records not within the Homo-Superior Database,'

Zeel was finally intrigued "What are you?"

The shadow did not respond, but Zeel could tell that it understood his words.

Zeel asked once more, but the shadow slowly drifted into the Earth.

Zeel reached to subdue the Being but quickly withdrew his hand and jumped back, unconsciously using his divinity along the way.

His intuition was blaring, cold sweat trickled down his back. One thing was certain to Zeel at this moment, if that thing wanted him dead, it would have killed him at first sight.

Of course, he was not someone to easily die, but that shadow was clearly something unique.

Suddenly, Zeel felt his divinities weaken by a significant degree.

At first, his divinities were simply restrained, but now the island seemed to swallow a chunk.

Correction, it was possible the result of attempting to subdue the shadow earlier.

Zeel was familiar with this feeling of loss, it was the penalty evoked from the desecration of Sacred Relics.

"Whatever that shadow was, it is a relic or artifact of some kind," Zeel murmured noting the urgency of his situation.

Zeel quickly urged the nanites to sear a Hybrid Rune into his skin.

Seal!

The Hybrid Rune 'seal' would isolate his divinity from any active or passive action, but also left Zeel dependent on technology.

Yet, there were no better options at the moment. At least, the island and shadow could not weaken his divinity any further.

However, Zeel had somewhat miscalculated. He soon felt incredibly tired and fell to his knees panting heavily.

'Your divinity stopped the suppression from full activation. However, now you are under the full suppression of the island,' The Red Queen said.

This was not a major cause for concern since Zeel was simply reverting back to his normal Homo-Superior strength level.

The only issue was the energy within his body was barely keeping up with the consumption his body required.

Seeing Zeel's furrowed brows, The Red Queen decided to provide some good news 'With your divinities sealed, you can access Hybrid Runic Technology once more.

This will consume energy from your surroundings and body, essentially weakening you further, but it should still be useful in some situations,'

Zeel smiled bitterly "That news was not as 'good' as you initially thought,"

The Red Queen quietly retreated into Zeel's Mbeamer without any response.

Zeel stretched, spat out some shrapnel, and continued deeper into Yamatai Island.

He was more cautious this time around since the island obviously had more threats than he was initially prepared for.

'Hopefully, nothing else will go bad after this,' Zeel thought.

∞∞

Twenty Minutes Earlier

After separating from Zeel mid-air, Lara angled her body into a diving position.

It would be a lie to say she wasn't concerned about Zeel's survival, but the concern would not help her current situation.

It only took a split-second of spiraling for Lara to regain her bearings and identify the safest location that would bear the highest chance of survival.

Luckily, the blast sent her spiraling towards a mountainside dense with trees.

The helicopter exploded about 150 feet in the air, the blast added extra momentum to her fall, but the situation was not unredeemable.

Lara focused her mind and zoned out everything else, and then she saw it… a chance.

The water trickling down the incline did not escape her sensitive ears, and water was exactly what she required at the moment.

'When had my ears become this sensitive?' Lara thought, but the will to survive just made her grateful that they were that sensitive.

Thirty feet above the ground, Lara spread her arms wide, hoping to gain enough wind-drag to slow her descent somewhat.

*Woosh*

*Woosh*

*Whip*

First came the trees, but they were not much help. Lara managed to grab hold of a couple branches, but could not hold on.

Her hands were burnt from the attempt to grip thin branches with her momentum.

The lashes from the branches also caused red marks to appear all around her body, but that was not the end of it.

Lara quickly hugged her knees into her chest as she collided with the ground.

Luckily, the ground was inclined at about sixty degrees.

Perfect angle to collide with the ground but disperse her momentum over an extended distance.

Lara rolled along the mountainside as lacerations appeared all over her body.

Still, she kept her knees tucked into her chest.

Suddenly, Lara felt something was amiss, she untucked her body and pushed off the hill with all the strength remaining in her battered arms.

*Swtt*

The moment she pushed off, Lara felt a sharp protruding rock spike graze along the left side of her cheek.

If she had not pushed off when she did, Lara had no doubt that she would have been impaled instead.

*Splash*

The next moment, Lara felt her body submerged in a small body of water.

The water was somewhat shallow, so her body was slightly grazed by the rocks below. When Lara resurfaced, she finally had the opportunity to examine her surroundings.

"Pretty," Lara said admiring the thick foliage of leaves around, complemented by the small lake within which she now resided.

Lara slowly climbed out of the water, careful not to cause any more injuries to her body.

She was surprised that all she suffered were cuts, some were deeper than others, but nothing life-threatening considering the height of her fall.

"I must be superman or something," Lara murmured examining the relatively minor injuries on her body.

Still, she was more concerned about Zeel's wellbeing at the moment.

He didn't just fall in the direction of a rocky area, he also suffered shrapnel piercings from the explosion of the Helicopter.

It was highly unlikely he survived, but something inside Lara told her that Zeel was the king amongst cockroaches.

Everyone knew that cockroaches could survive a nuclear explosion, much less a fall from two hundred feet.

Lara slowly stood up, she required a place to set up camp, it was nighttime after all.

The explosion in the skies only allowed a brief period of lighting, but the darkness would soon return.

With darkness would come dangers she was not willing to tackle with her weakened and disheveled state.

Without notice or control of her body, Lara tilted her head to the right.

A small dagger flashed past her face at inconceivable speeds.

Lara didn't even have to guess where the dagger came from, her eyes followed the blue streak that traced the dagger's trajectory.

The dagger was obviously Zeel's doing since he gifted her a similar dagger previously.

Lara did not find this weird about the situation, she had long accepted that Zeel was probably someone who had access to advanced military technology.

This was a solid assumption with all variables considered so Lara believed she had a small chance of being wrong.

Lara slowly started to walk, following the blue streak of light left behind by the dagger. Hopefully, Zeel would not toss about more daggers anytime soon.

Zeel had entirely forgotten about the effects of QuickSilver-Xth on weapons.

Maybe Zeel remembered and simply did not care.