Free Web NovelChapter 489: Miraculous Survival
Lane sat on the bars at the bottom of the cage, playing with tentacles out of boredom. The stingers on them grazed his skin, turning the water around him red, but Lane didn’t care. Rather, he welcomed that - although he was going to claim that he got rid of the monsters before they fully woke up, sustaining no injuries would still be suspicious, and the little scratches that the monsters had left on him during their actual fight were hardly enough. If Lane wanted to make his ’miraculous survival’ convincing, he had to try harder than that.
Although, at this point...
Lane glanced at the screen of his scuba equipment, his face dark.
He was slowly running out of air, and help still hadn’t arrived. He was still safe for now, as after using the oxygen, he could once again last for a while without it, but...
If he had known that it would take so long, he would have possessed one of the monsters. His real body would have entered a comatose state with all the bodily functions slowed down, including breathing. While it would still need the oxygen, the bottles he had would have lasted him longer...
Alas, it was too late to regret it now. The monsters were all dead and cold, possessing them was impossible. The only option Lane had now was to wait and hope that the air supply would last, or...
He glanced at the bars underneath him. While it was true that none of his abilities was powerful enough to destroy this cage, perhaps if he were to file the bars long enough, he would be able to break through... He had a sword that might just do the job. It would take forever, but it was better than drowning.
The problem was that by doing that, he would expose his strength. No A-rank Esper was strong enough to do that, not with the material the cage was made out of. Especially not an agility type one.
’Five more minutes,’ he decided.
He would wait five more minutes, before he started filing. Cora and Arlo should have already notified someone about the fact that he hadn’t returned, and the Allen Guild would have no choice but to take action. If they didn’t want to raise any suspicions, that is. They were inside a dungeon, after all, so every incident had to be taken seriously. Even by the Guild members who were in on it.
Besides, it had been so long already that it would have been safe to assume that Lane was dead. There was no reason to delay sending the rescue team...
Time passed, Lane quietly counting seconds in his mind, his mood dropping with every number. Twenty... Sixty-five... One hundred and ten... Two hundred eleven... Two hundred ninety-nine... Two hundred ninety-nine and half... Two hundred ninety-nine and three-quarters... Two hundred ninety-nine and... What was supposed to go next?
Three hundred, it seemed.
And three hundred seconds was five minutes.
The time was up.
Lane closed his eyes for a moment, quietly letting out a sigh. He didn’t have a choice, did he? There was no way that he was dying here...
As he thought of it, a short, mirthless chuckle escaped his throat. His parents really did a great job with this. Even though Lane was far more powerful than they knew, he still ended up trapped, getting dangerously close to a slow and painful death through asphyxiation.
Almost. Of course, their plans were still going to fail, as Lane couldn’t be killed off so easily.
Wasting no more time, Lane took out one of his swords from his spatial bag, the most powerful sword he currently had. He hadn’t used it much so far, only taking it for a test ride once, since it was big and clunky, nowhere as fun to use as his twin daggers, but he had kept it with him, just in case. And today, it would finally get to be useful, even if not in a way that it was initially intended... ƒreeωebnovel.ƈom
Just as he flipped himself onto one knee, locking his feet against the bars to stabilize his position to help with the filing, he suddenly noticed a distant light in the darkness.
And it couldn’t be the so-called ’light at the end of the tunnel’, since the oxygen in the bottle hadn’t run out yet.
He paused for a few seconds, watching the light float in the water. As it continued to get closer and closer, he realized that it wasn’t just one light, but a few... Coming from similar flashlights that Brian had previously used.
Except that those were not faulty, of course.
Help was finally here.
Lane couldn’t let this opportunity slip away. Unless he did something, it would take way too long before he was found. The rescue team would probably search the lake outside the cage first, since Brian and Lane should have never ended up inside. So, he put his sword back in the spatial bag, quickly rubbed the tentacles against his exposed skin, increasing his injuries, and grabbed Brian’s limp body, tying him up to himself. The Guide was already far beyond saving, but the least Lane could do was to bring him out. fгeewebnovёl.com
With Brian’s body floating behind him, Lane kicked his feet, and swam towards the lights, as close as he could before the bars blocked his way. There, he held onto it tightly, and started banging the hilt of one of his daggers against the bars to make some noise and attract the rescuers’ attention. It took a while, but eventually, two of the lights headed his way...
After that, everything went smoothly. One of the members of the rescue team swam back to the surface to alert people on the shore about the situation. The divers (all wearing scuba equipment, which they had at the ready, apparently. It was just Brian who hadn’t been aware of it for some reason) gathered around the exit, ready to fend the monsters off - they weren’t aware that they were all dead yet, since Lane couldn’t exactly communicate it to them underwater - as the cage’s door opened. Lane was finally let out, and escorted to the surface...
Of course, even though he was out of the cage, it was still too early for Lane to relax. He had only survived stage one.
Now, he had to deal with the aftermath.
