Saga of Atlantis

Chapter 78  Space Warp

[First-person POV: Nadya]

"Nadya!"

Elysia's urgent voice pierced the chaos around me, and before I could fully comprehend what was happening, a sudden impact knocked the air out of my lungs.

Pain radiated through my body as I tumbled away, disoriented and struggling to regain my senses.

As the world stopped spinning, I found myself firmly restrained, unable to move. Panic surged within me as I realized I was now placed on the shoulder of a member of the dark church.

My attempts to break free were futile; the grip on me was unbreakable.

"Release me! Let me go!" I shouted, desperation filled my voice. I thrashed and flailed, but my efforts were feeble against the overwhelming strength of my captor.

"SHUT UP!" The dark church member's icy command cut through the air, extinguishing any hope that my pleas might sway him.

"My grandma will kill you!" I yelled, attempting to threaten him, but his response was a sinister laugh that echoed with an unsettling lack of emotion.

"Hahaha, you don't understand, do you? They have abandoned you," he taunted, relishing in my distress. The words struck a nerve—a fear I tried to push away.

"No! They did not; she will come to save me!" I shouted, refusing to accept the possibility that I had been abandoned.

"That woman had a choice to either save you or save the other girl, and she chose the other girl. You are abandoned," he said, his voice laced with madness as he relished in the revelation. He didn't pause in his running, the cruel truth hanging heavily in the air.

"No! No! No!" I screamed in denial, my desperate protests echoing in the cold silence.

My heart sank, the realization settling within me.

Despite my hopes, I knew deep down that Dania had chosen Elysia over me.

The reality of being left behind, abandoned in the clutches of the dark church, gnawed at my spirit. Betrayal and hurt mingled with the fear that gripped me.

The world around me blurred as tears welled up, but I fiercely blinked them away.

"Hahaha, I will surely enjoy breaking you," he sneered, the chilling certainty of his words sinking in.

We were now far removed from the rest, isolated in a situation that seemed increasingly dire.

As I regained my full senses, I started to feel his emotions—a twisted mix of lust and madness that sent shivers down my spine.

The unsettling aura around him became more palpable, and without a word spoken, I knew what was going to happen to me if they had me.

"LET ME GO!"

In a desperate attempt to resist, I began to struggle against his grip. However, my struggle seemed to only irritate him.

"Bitch!"

In a brutal response, he ruthlessly punched the back of my head.

"Arghh",

The force of the impact sent a searing pain through me, and blood trickled down my nose. The world spun, and my head felt as though it had been split into two.

"Let... me... go," I whispered, my voice barely audible as the world around me blurred into a haze. My head pounded with pain, and the darkness threatened to consume my consciousness.

"Mo...th...er..." I whimpered, the word escaping my lips—the last thing I wanted to see. As the darkness closed in, I clung to the last straw of my fading awareness.

"AHHHH!"

As my consciousness reached the edge of oblivion, the cry of agony from my captor echoed in my ears. Suddenly, I felt a violent jerk in my body as he loosened his grip.

To my relief, a gentle and firm hand replaced his hold, supporting my weakened form. Struggling to keep my eyes open, I looked ahead, only to find a masked boy in front of me.

"N...ei...l."

 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

[First-person POV: Eden]

[A few minutes ago]

"What will happen if I kill Elysia now?",

I asked, flying as I crossed over the city wall, arriving in the forest. However, she didn't reply; instead, a screen flickered in front of me.

=======================

Quest Title: Aid Elysia Odette Melisande.

Quest Type: Side Quest

Quest Level: C-Class

Rewards for Success:

●20,000 Experience Points (XP)

●Increase in Luck

Or

Quest Title: Rescue Nadya Odette Melisande.

Quest Type: Side Quest

Quest Level: S-Class

Penalty for Success:

●Hatred of the World's Will

=======================

"Is this your way of saying think twice before you act, huh?", I asked, looking at the quest screen in front of me.

[Yes]

"But this didn't answer my question," I said, closing the screen in front of me. I don't need to accept quests manually, as I don't have a choice here.

[You can't] n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

"Is that a challenge?", Narrowing my eyes, I asked.

[No, you can either save Nadya or try to kill Elysia; you don't have time for both.]

"Tch", I clicked my tongue at her response, but she isn't wrong tho and I know what is more important for me now.

Propelling myself forward in the air, I arrived above Elysia and Linda. I observed the surroundings from the air as I looked around the whole place, now filled with the corpses of different people, most of whom were men.

"They are really brutal", I mumbled to myself. The dark church is kind of a messed-up place where one can find every type of evil, but one thing is common in all of them: their negligence towards human life.

"She is awakening her bloodline, Athena's bloodline", I mumbled as I looked at Elysia.

The atmosphere around her seemed to thicken with an undeniable aura, and there she knelt, lost in a daze.

The destructive aftermath of her awakening was evident, as the land surrounding her lay in ruins.

I then looked around, noticing two more fights were going on right now, both intense fights with the intention of killing.

I positioned myself in alignment in the same way where Elysia was looking at the daze, suspecting that another individual from the dark church might have taken the same route as he did in the game.

{Star Sense}

Inhaling deeply, I triggered the star energy within me. With a deep exhale, I released it from my body, allowing it to resonate with my surroundings, and with that, an overwhelming influx of information surged into my mind.

A three-dimensional map of the surrounding area formed in my head.

"Argh",

I groaned in pain as thousands of space and time nodes from different locations entered my brain.

I quickly adjusted the amount of Star Energy leaving me with just space nodes in the air.

Quickly finding the farthest node, I established a link, connecting it with me by a thin thread of Star Energy.

Then I stopped the flow of mana into my wings, making it disappear and leaving me suspended in mid-air for a moment before I began to fall rapidly.

{Space warp}

With that, the space around me began to distort, and in an instant, I vanished from my original location, seamlessly transitioning through the distorted space and arriving at the node with which I established a link.

Without pause, I found out another distant node and swiftly established a new link. Following the same steps again, the thin thread of star energy acted as my guide, allowing me to leap through space once more.

After following the same steps several times, I found what I was looking for—the man from the dark church who had Nadya on her shoulder.

"LET ME GO!", As I heard Nadya shouting, I didn't think twice before acting. Taking out a dull blade from my inventory, I began coating it with star energy. A very small fraction of Star Energy left my body, engulfing the blade entirely.

{Space warp}

Tracking the man's trajectory, I connected with a space node in his path as he continued to run. Timed perfectly, I leaped through space, thrusting the blade into his fibula, breaking his front leg bone.

"AHHH!" His agonized scream echoed as he loosened his grip on Nadya. Swiftly, I caught her as she was thrown into the air, gently enfolding her in my arms.

"N...ei...l."

Holding her bleeding head tightly, I heard a weak whisper from her before she went unconscious.

'It can only hold once, huh?' Observing the blade, I thought, The weapon began to crumble as soon as I stopped supplying it with Star Energy.

"Hah...hah.... Who are...you, how..hah.. could you arrive without...me... noticing..." The voice of the man from the dark church interrupted, marked by huffs and growls.

'An origin level 9, huh, hard to see them nowadays.'

Instead of answering, I made a gesture, placing my index finger under my thumb and forming a small space distortion in front of it.

I filled it with three-fourths of the remaining Star Energy, creating a cracking sound in the space as the distortion increased.

"Die with that doubt." I flicked my finger, causing the crack to move towards him.

Despite his attempt to crawl away, the space distortion reached him, engulfing his upper body and swiftly killing him.