NOVEL NEXT Chapter 187: Lagging
As nightfall arrived, a cool breeze blew across the top of the hill, giving some relief from the heat and humidity of the day.
It caused some of Lukas's teammates to rub their hands, trying to get some heat against the cold.
Everyone glanced into the distance on alert in case there were demonic beasts advancing towards them.
Lukas stood near the edge of the small hill.
He had a different focus from the others.
Using his Ether Realm ability, he glanced towards the direction of the fog where the Apex demonic beast was within his realm.
The target marked red was still in the same location where he had seen it earlier on the airplane.
Things were still going according to plan.
He deactivated his Ether Realm ability next and came out of his realm.
Lukas pondered what the ability of the Apex demonic beast could be.
And whatever it was, he would have to think of a plan to counter it with the other awakened.
Time went by, and Lukas was interrupted by a familiar voice.
"Ho ho. Thanks for the hard work, time for us to take over now." Kevin said as he approached Lukas.
Lukas was surprised that two hours had passed so fast.
He nodded at Kevin and went to rest with his teammates.
It had been a long day for him, and he closed his eyes after a few minutes.
...
Slap.
Kevin slapped himself, trying to keep himself awake.
His teammates had their own ways to do so.
Some stretched themselves and some jogged on the spot.
Astrid did something different.
She held a mint leaf in her hand, trying to make use of the minty smell to keep herself awake.
At three in the morning, it was the time that was hardest to stay awake.
Whoosh.
As the wind blew again, the plants surrounding her rustled and swayed in the wind.
Her body tensed up when she saw the rustling didn't stop.
It turned direction and headed towards her.
Astrid quickly used her ability and tried to make use of the plants to stop whatever was coming.
But when she tried to do so, a shimmer of light came at her from within the plants.
Astrid tried to turn around to warn the others, but she could see that her movements were slow, as if she were in a slow-motion movie.
Her eyes opened wide when she saw something come out of the plants and lunge at her.
They were several snake-like demonic beasts.
One of these demonic beasts wrapped itself around Astrid's neck, while the other four slithered towards her teammates.
As the snake-like demonic beast lifted its head back, ready for a strike at her neck with its fangs that were engulfed in a red glow, Astrid tried to use her ability on the mint leaf she had in her hand.
The mint leaf grew slowly, extending itself towards the snake-like demonic beast.
Astrid could only see the fangs of the snake-like demonic beast moving twice as fast as her.
Meanwhile, Kain was jogging on the spot as he glanced at the areas in front of him, trying to see if there were any demonic beasts.
Thud.
His feet landed one after the other on the ground, making a muted thud in a monotonous rhythm.
However, a shimmer of light suddenly came at him from behind.
And the rhythm broke.
The sound from his next step didn't come at the expected time.
Kain realized that he was now moving two times slower than normal.
He lowered his gaze and turned around.
A snake-like demonic beast was coming at him.
Kain quickly tried to conjure a boulder.
But the boulder formed slowly.
It only took a few moments for the snake-like demonic beast to reach him.
Kain then opened his mouth and tried to shout.
His jaws moved slowly, and his voice came out as a whimper, barely audible to the others.
The snake-like demonic beast was now at his feet.
It opened its mouth and darted at Kain's feet with its red glowing fangs.
Plop.
Both the snake-like demonic beasts that were trying to take a bite at Astrid and Kain dropped to the ground.
The commotion had woken up Lukas.
He observed and saw that the snake-like demonic beasts were able to make Astrid and Kain move slower.
"Wake up!" Lukas shouted, and everyone sprang into action.
Kevin, Bjorn and Erik activated their rock armor before they were hit by the shimmer of light from the snake-like demonic beasts.
The snake-like demonic beasts tried to lunge at them but couldn't.
Lukas had used his Gravity ability and made the gravity of the surroundings six times stronger.
The snake-like demonic beasts thrashed around as the gravity pulling them to the ground caused pain to their organs, making them go out of place and squishing them.
Boom.
Lukas punched at the snake-like demonic beasts, and the airwave emitted by his fist ripped the bodies of the snake-like demonic beasts into pieces.
He got the three snake-like demonic beasts that were near Kevin, Bjorn and Erik.
When he turned and wanted to deal with the other two snake-like demonic beasts left, something came at him from the air.
Boom.
It was a blast of a sonic wave from a huge bat.
The sonic wave hit the ground, causing an explosion.
"Lukas." Harianto cried out as he shot his plasma cannon at the huge bat flapping its membrane wings.
Boom.
The huge bat shot out another sonic wave at the plasma shot from Harianto.
They collided, and an explosion ensued in the air.
The huge bat then flew higher, and it opened its mouth, blaring out a high-pitched sound.
"Argh!" The high-pitched sound caused sharp pain in everyone's ears, and they covered their ears with their hands.
And not only that, everyone also felt their minds disorientated.
The ground and the sky were turning non-stop in their vision.
It was, however, not over for them.
Howls could be heard as demonic wolves leaped up the ridges.
Harianto glanced at where Lukas was, and he felt a sense of relief when he saw Lukas had disappeared.