As they were running on the bridge, the number of roars continue to increase. The danger wasn’t coming yet from the beasts under the bridge as they didn’t have any means to climb up. However, the risk was that the beasts in other parts of the ruins would be alarmed by the roars and caught up from behind them, or worst ambushed them from the front and cut their path. Adrien and Edward were running as fast as they could, trying not to think about all of the beasts chasing them right now. As they were arriving at the other side of the bridge Edward glanced back.

What he saw made a chill run down his spine, the beast that had freed itself at the bottom of the bridge was advancing like a drunkard, bumping and hitting the other pods on his way, which made them dysfunctional and turned to red. In turn, the beasts in those pods were also starting to struggle and to free themselves. The ones that manage to get out were also knocking the other pods, damaging them, it was a real chain reaction. Already a sizeable portion of the pods had turned to red, with more and more beasts coming out.

Shit!! If we don’t find an exit right now, we are down for. With this many beasts in the ruins, we won’t be able to sustain for long. Even if we find a place to hide, we will end up stuck there, we won’t be able to go out of the hideout and avoid that many beasts. The only thing we can do is go on and pray that we find a way out.

I don’t know if this is the adrenaline or not, but I don’t think that I ever run that fast before in my life. I feel like I could compete with an Olympic athlete, how fast are they going, ten seconds for a hundred meters? I don’t know my exact speed but I don't think I am that far from it.

Edward started running again catching up to Adrien. As they were running, they saw some doors on the side, but this time they didn’t stop to hide inside. In their situation, they only had one chance to go out, and this was right now, if they didn’t take it, they would end up stuck in those ruins forever. While they were continuing to run, they saw some stairs leading to their path from below.

Great, and now those beasts can come upstairs, just great. At least they are not that fast since they have only awakened a few moments ago and still need some time to adjust. Is this corridor never-ending? How much time have we been sprinting? Two minutes, three minutes?

At this point in time, they heard the noise made by the beasts chasing them, it wasn’t the beasts from below but rather the beasts that came from other parts of the ruins. Those beasts were awake for at least a few hours and they were able to run at their full speed which was quite faster than Adrien and Edward.

“They are catching up to us,” Edward said between two breaths.

“We must carry on, this corridor must lead to somewhere,” Adrien answered him.

They continued to run, the sounds of the monsters running after them getting slowly, but steadily closer. Some beasts were beginning to come up from the stairs too, Edward and Adrien were able to avoid them and to continue running for now, but at one point one of those beasts would manage to block the passage in front of them. As they were encountering more and more of the beasts coming up and were starting to despair, they finally left the stairs area.

“Hahaha, we made it!!” Adrien exclaimed happily, relieving some of the stress that was building up while avoiding those monsters. He then turned back to take a glance behind him and immediately came back to reality. The path behind them was packed with monsters trying to eat them, and they were running fast.

“Shit!! They are still closing in on us.” Adrien said rectifying his previous statement.

“I think I can see something,” Edward answered him.

There was a white light coming from the end of the corridor, they run towards it hoping it would be the exit they were expecting for. However, as they came closer, they realized it was a dead end. The passage was ending in a medium-size room with nothing of interest in it except the back wall which was a mural depicting mountains standing in front of a forest. Above the mural, the name Shele Nalore was written. On the ceiling were several white stars providing the light, contrary to the other rooms they had seen before, here the stars were linked together forming constellations.

Edward and Adrien stopped in their tracks, having nowhere else to go, while the monsters were rushing towards them. Clenching their teeth, they turned to face them, having no other options but to fight, even though they knew they had no chance of winning.

Edward took a step back to adopt a crouching position, holding the dagger that he retrieved from the ruins in front of him with one arm, and using his other arm to hold the one holding the weapon. He hoped that he would be able to somewhat contain the impact from the beasts coming at them this way, using the strength of the beast against it, to make it impale itself on the dagger. Seeing what he was doing Adrien took the same posture, they didn’t have the time to do anything else as the beasts were almost on them.

The firsts beasts rammed into them, as Edward wanted, his posture managed to somewhat countereffect the force of the beast. What he didn’t expect, however, was for the impact to be that powerful. Edward was thrown away from the force of the clash, as he was flying in the air, he felt something sipping in him through the blade.

Suddenly he gained absolute clarity as if he had been sleeping this whole time and had just opened his eyes right now, time seems to flow in slow motions. Edward wasn’t able to move, but he could see everything around him in great detail. As he was still in mid-air, he noticed that an inscription was written on the wall towards the mural direction, that’s why they hadn’t seen it while coming it. The inscription was Oshle Tirion.

What is happening? I am probably about to die in that fight, and yet, I feel almost…serene. It is as if I am out of the time frame, everything seems frozen in time around me. How did it happen? Is it an effect of those daggers? But then why didn’t it happen before? Something flew into me from the dagger. Has the blade absorption proprieties? Did he take something from that monster and gave it to me? But it is completely different, it is not the same as when I was absorbing the blood of those wolves.

Focus Edward, what exactly happened is not important right now. First, you need to find a way out of this situation. I can’t move, but neither can everything else, so I can’t act, I can just plan my next moves. That won’t change anything in this fight, we are outnumbered and outclassed. What can I do? I need to analyze the environment. This inscription feels wrong somehow, you can’t see it when you enter the room but you can only see it if you are coming from the mural direction. And, it doesn’t have any meaning, I should be able to understand it but it comes as just a name to me. It is the same for the inscription above the mural. It would make sense to name the place that the mural is depicting but then why also put a name facing the mural? Is that inscription, the name of the place we are in right now, Oshle Tirion? That doesn’t make sense to put it here, you can only see it from the mural. Unless…you can come out from the mural?

That sounds impossible but I don’t know the extent of the magic in this world. If that race was able to build portals to another world, maybe they also built portals to travel to different places in this world. That would make sense in a way. It is our only chance to get out of here.

Just as he was having that thought, his flow of time went back to normal, and he crashed against the mural. Thankfully, as he already had absorbed some of the force from the beast, his impact with the wall wasn’t too violent.

“The mural can teleport us out of here!!” he shouted at Adrien before putting his hand on the mural to support himself.

The moment his hand got into contact with the mural, he felt it drain him of something, the next instant all he saw were kaleidoscopic lights around him before he slammed on the floor. He laid there, feeling groggy with a growing headache, he blinked his eyes trying to improve his blurry vision.

Urgh…where I am? I don’t see any monsters and I’m still alive, so I guess it worked. I don’t know what I expected but I thought teleportation would be nicer.

He then opened his eyes wide.

Where is Adrien? He is not here. Shit! Was he unable to reach the mural in time? Fuck, he can’t die like that. No, maybe there is another explanation, he could have been teleported somewhere else. But only one name was written on the mural…

Edward banged his fists on the floor.

“No…this can’t be…Not you too. Am I the only survivor of this expedition? Everybody died by my fault, why didn’t I give the amulet to Marc? He wouldn’t have had to break the barrier and those beasts would never have come out.”

Edward felt his heart tighten, “This is a freaking nightmare. People died left and right just like that for nothing. Adrien was with me just now, and now he is gone forever…He didn’t deserve to die.” Edward stayed on the floor for quite some time mulling over everything that had happened since he arrived in this world.

For the whole expedition, he couldn’t do much because he wasn’t strong enough. He couldn’t oppose Marc when he was abusing his authority, he couldn’t face the powerful monsters he encountered, and he couldn’t protect anybody.

I have to become stronger…I can’t let something like that happen ever again. I need the strength to protect myself and others.

This was the first step on Edward's journey, where he found his resolution to go forward and gain in strength to face the obstacles that would be on his way.