Seed of Titan

"What's happening?!" Auri frantically remarked as she felt the floor beneath her shook.

"I'm scared…" Flo fearfully muttered, holding Natalia's arm tightly. Natalia herself remained silent as she readied herself for whatever was going to happen, her eyes looking sharp.

Meanwhile, Jian quickly brandished his sword, his eyes filled with anticipation. Whether it was an enemy or treasure, both were equally enticing.

Suddenly, a large stone slab slid up from beneath the entrance, completely closing it off and turning the whole room pitch black.

Auri and Flo shrieked, but Christo's commanding voice immediately resounded.

"Everyone keep calm!"

Following this, he took out a small electric lantern which quickly filled the room with a dim yellow light.

The light casted dark shadows on the members' faces. Some of them looked worried while others seemed vigilant.

Meanwhile, the small tremors kept growing. The members could now feel the stone floor under them rapidly shaking.

"You think this is a launching pad?" Jian jokingly remarked as he imagined the whole building flying in an arc over the nearby mountain.

"Not funny!" Auri hissed as she was already quite stressed out by this unexpected development.

However, Jian's words slightly hit the mark because right at this moment, the building started to move, but downward instead of upward.

"An elevator?" Christo remarked as he felt a familiar descending sensation.

"Should I break us out, Christo?" Drai suddenly asked.

The house wasn't descending too quickly, so there was probably plenty of time for the group to escape if Drai were to smash open the walls or roof.

Christo briefly contemplated before saying, "No. Let's see where this leads us to. Everyone stay alert and get ready for combat. Auri and Flo, get yourselves together! This is what we've been training for!"

Hearing Christo's reprimand, Flo gritted her teeth before letting go of Natalia's arm. She then stood near Drai and put one hand in her satchel. Tears filled her eyes and her limbs were quivering, but her face was showing determination.

"Don't worry, Flo," Drai quietly reassured as he stood a bit closer to Flo.

Meanwhile, after hearing Christo's words, Auri shook herself and quickly took a combative stance while readying her spells. She glanced at her friends and saw that aside from Flo, the others looked relatively calm and alert.

'Even that idiot Jian wasn't fazed at all by this. Turns out I'm really a spoiled princess like he said. How pathetic…' Auri thought bitterly.

Minutes passed by and the building kept descending into the ground. Even if the group decided to escape now, it's likely impossible for them to climb all the way up to the surface.

Eventually, the descent started to slow down and not long after, the building came to a halt.

Silence ensued as the party was on full alert. Suddenly, the stone slab closing off the entrance slid down, leaving it open.

Unexpectedly, from the entrance shone a bright light which blinded the whole party whose eyes had adjusted to the dim lighting of Christo's lantern.

"Drai, let's check outside. Everyone else, stay put," Christo said a few moments later after slightly recovering his sight.

Following this, Christo and Drai exited the building while covering their eyes. But the rest of the members only had to wait for a few seconds until they heard Christo's voice again.

"Come out, everyone."

One by one, the rest of the members passed through the entrance. But what they saw outside was way beyond anything they had expected.

What greeted the party was a mindbogglingly large opening filled with countless vegetation that formed a jungle. Interestingly, it didn't feel like they were underground as a bright light was shining from above akin to sunlight. However, the air was humid and quite hot unlike in the forest above.

"What the f**k..." Jian muttered.

The group dazedly looked at the vast jungle before them, wondering what place they had just stumbled into.

"It's like being in the tropics," Auri remarked as she wiped her face that was starting to sweat.

"I don't know what you're talking about, but this sucks," Jian said annoyedly, feeling the humidity. "Just how large is this space? I can't even see the ceiling and sides. We're not outside, aren't we?"

"No. There's no place in Rivideria with this climate. Just like what Auri said, the air resembles that of a tropical country," Natalia replied.

"It's like being in a greenhouse too," Flo said as she took off her coat, leaving her with a white tank top.

What Flo did stunned the others momentarily, but they soon followed suit, taking off their outerwear. Jian even tried to go topless but was quickly stopped by Auri with a slap on his back.

"I didn't know you had a tattoo, Christo," Jian said upon seeing the subtle shape of the lion tattoo through Christo's white T-shirt that was a slightly drenched.

"Oh, this? Yeah, don't mind it. Anyway, bad news, guys. There's no signal here, so I can't communicate with the HQ."

"What?! So what do we do now?" Flo worriedly asked.

"Sorry. It's my fault I didn't let Drai break us out earlier. I didn't think we would be sent this deep to such a strange place. I had my reasons for doing that, but I'll let you guys decide whether to proceed or get back."

"Since we're already here, might as well take a look around, don't you guys think so?" Jian said, trying to persuade the others to explore the place.

"I believe we should go back. This isn't what we signed up for. And there's no telling what's waiting for us in there," Natalia said as she gestured at the trees nearby.

"I agree," Auri said. "If the higher-ups end up sending a senior party here due to our report, we can still try asking them to let us join the venture. Even just reporting this finding will give us a lot of merit, so there's no need to take anymore risks."

"You're no fun. What about you, Flo? You must be itching to inspect all these new plants, eh?" Jian said temptingly.

"I am… But I do think that it's better to be safe than sorry," Flo replied.

"Jian… Let's just report back first," Drai said.

Hearing this, Jian's shoulders slumped. He sighed as he nodded in resignation at Christo.

"Since you've all agreed, we'll head back to the academy and report this strange finding along with our original assignment. Flo, there's no need to investigate the plants on the way back. There's probably more than plenty here to satisfy the higher-ups," Christo ordered.

"Why don't we bring back some plants? They can prove that our report's genuine because I think the HQ will find it quite absurd," Auri suggested.

"I think that's a good idea. Flo, go find some interesting plants to bring back. Not too many though, just the right amount to convince the higher-ups and maybe a bit for yourself if there's anything useful," Christo instructed.

Flo nodded happily and quickly walked to the edge of the jungle that was just a few feet away from the group.

The group watched as Flo inspected various plants, putting a few leaves, branches, and flowers that seemed to pique her interest into her satchel.

As Flo was heading toward a cluster of herbs near a large tree root, Christo suddenly roared, jolting the rest of the group.

"DRAI, PROTECT FLO!!!"

Hearing the command, Drai didn't hesitate a bit and instantly dashed forward. Christo wasn't one to joke around like this, and Drai had long trusted his friend's judgements.

Flo had also heard Christo's shout, which made her stop in her tracks. But before she could even turn around, the large tree root she was walking to suddenly shook and cracked the ground. It then bent upwards, pulling out the rest of its body and revealing a towering lance-like root.

The pointy tip of the root immediately launched toward Flo with plenty of speed. Flo, who was stunned in place, could only wait for her imminent impalement.

But as the root was only inches away from skewering Flo, Drai slammed into it, smashing the tip apart.

A thin rope suddenly wrapped around Flo's waist and flung her backward. Drai turned to see that it was Christo who had thrown the rope. After a short flight, Flo was caught effortlessly by Natalia.

However, the fight wasn't over as the large root once again launched forward, this time at Drai.

Drai, who was currently watching his friends, was caught off guard as the root stabbed him. The broken tip failed to impale Drai, but he was blasted off, shooting above his friends and slamming into the cave wall beside the entrance.

"Drai!" yelled the rest of the group aside from Flo who could barely stand up.

"I'm fine," Drai said as he emerged from the pile of rubble. But his face quickly turned grave as he shouted, "Duck!"

Hearing this, the group ducked right away and a strong gust of wind immediately hit them. They watched in horror as Drai's body slammed into the wall once more.

As if holding a grudge, the root that was extending right above the members' heads didn't retract into the jungle but kept whipping repeatedly at the wall where Drai had slammed into, launching clouds of dirt all over the place.

"The entrance!" Auri exclaimed in horror as she saw the root slam into the wall around the arch, collapsing the space behind it.

"We need to run. Let's tread along the edge of the jungle first," Christo ordered.

"But what about Drai?!" Natalia asked, shocked that Christo would leave their friend behind.

"He'll be alright. We'll just be a burden if we try to help him," Christo replied.

"How can you be so sure?!"

"Intuition… And I know him better than you do."

Natalia didn't know what to say after hearing this, so she stayed quiet. Seeing that no one else was protesting, Christo turned to Drai.

"Drai! We're running away first! Follow the cave wall to the right! We'll be waiting!"

After conveying his message, Christo led the group as they crouched their way out of the vicinity of the root. After arriving at a safe distance, the group finally stood up and ran along the cave wall.

As Jian looked back at the root in the distance, he felt an urge to slash it with his sword. But he wasn't sure whether he had enough power to cut it off entirely, so he suppressed his eagerness as he didn't want to end up being targeted by the raging root. After all, if he were in Drai's shoes, he would've probably become a pile of meat and bones by now.