The Rise of the Black Plain

2749  Invasion Alert!

The moment Minos moved, Sol acted as well, bringing out several corpses from his storage item, three of which stood in defensive positions around her, while four others attacked him.

Minos, however, surprised her by overcoming the limitations of this prison and momentarily raising his cultivation from level 115 to level 118. Meanwhile, Deryk's eyes widened as he fell to his knees on the ground, mortally wounded by Minos' quick attack.

"You!" he shouted as he saw his eyes darken.

"You still have to help me before you fall," Minos said with a strange glint in his eyes, his cultivation fluctuating to a higher level, reaching level 119 and then threatening level 120.

The corpses attacking him prevented him from attacking Sal in the same way he did Deryk. She was prepared to deal with him, of course. She knew Barnet had died, and she was facing him head-on to take him down in this place.

But even Sal had made a mistake by not simply ordering Minos' imprisonment and trying to stand up to him. When she realized he had powers that could make him able to bypass the Cursed Rock's defenses, she wanted to retreat. Unfortunately, the dense door between the prison staff area and the prisoners had already been closed by the enemy's own actions.

She found herself inside the prisoners' area and cursed the gravity powers that the enemy had mastered so well.

"Minos!" she shouted his real name as she saw him open his mouth and silver flames rise from his throat.

Minos was stronger than ever, but much of his strength was currently being used to ignore the formations that threatened to limit his cultivation to level 115.

He wouldn't be able to do against Sal everything he could, if he were outside that area, with the same peak of power.

Deryk died just before Minos' silver flames consumed 5 of the 7 of the 12th stage undead, causing Sal herself to use her defensive items to avoid being caught in his fire.

When the silver flames subsided and Sal took out the shield she had summoned to defend herself, she saw part of the walls of the area melting like magma from a volcano. Meanwhile, her undead had almost completely disappeared, leaving only a small amalgam of melted bones in front of her, where the last of them had lost their essences to defend her.

Deryk's body had melted by over 60%, sending a shiver down the woman's spine. But what struck her most was the sudden disappearance of Minos!

'Where is he? What happened?' Her eyes moved from side to side, as other undead emerged from their spatial storage item around her.

The creatures immediately went into a defensive formation near her, while she stared pale at the end of the corridor ahead.

'There are only two possibilities.' She swallowed her saliva as she clenched her fists tightly. 'Either he's waiting for me to open the door and then he'll try to escape through here, or he's escaped into the depths of this area.'

The first option was possible. Although Minos had closed that door himself with Chaotic Gravity, he had already shown great skill at impersonating others. All he had to do was pretend he was still inside the prisoners' wing and assume the identities of the prison's Guards or Jailers and he could attempt an escape.

This possibility frightened Sal and made her sit still for a moment.

But the second option was definitely the most likely. Even if he could pass himself off as a third party, getting out of the Cursed Rock wouldn't be easy. And with all the defenses in the area, formations and the very structure of the mountain interior that covered them, the chances of him escaping were slim.

Rather than risk it, Sal stood still and communicated with the people on the other side of the thick door behind her back.

"We have an invasion of the Cursed Rock. A strong cultivator with the ability to bypass the restrictive effects of the prison is loose.

He is dangerous and must be dealt with by lethal force!

Don't hesitate in his presence!" she shouted into the communicator linked directly to the Cursed Rock command area.

...

While Sal was initiating the prison's maximum security alert, Minos had moved away from the passage between the prisoners' and administrators' areas of Cursed Rock.

His cold sweat had dried up by this point, as he used the cultivation advantage he had borrowed from Deryk to hide his movements as best he could. He did this while descending several levels of this prison, using the Nautilus' Compass as best he could, given his circumstances.

The Nautilus' Compass was a little compromised in this space, showing weaker signals and from a smaller area than Minos was used to. But it was working, nonetheless, and he was quickly heading towards the depths of the inmates' wing.

In the middle of his sped up path, he knew that he would have a minute and a half, or at most two whole minutes, before his cultivation returned to level 118 and threatened to be restricted to level 115 by the formations of this prison.

With this thought in mind, he tried to move faster, passing many prison cells, but none of them noticing him, of course. Given the way all the prisoners were kept with hoods over their heads, hardly anyone would notice him in his movements.

Only when emergency sirens sounded in that place would the inmates gradually realize that something strange was going on.

By then, Minos had moved a long way from where the whole incident began and was gradually understanding where the Nautilus' Compass was leading him.

'This aura is getting stronger and stronger...' he thought to himself as he moved more slowly, realizing that he was getting closer to someone special.

'The Traitor!'

He felt that person's macabre aura not long before he reached the last level of the prison, where he found a single cell, surrounded by a dark mist that made him open his mouth in shock.