Chapter 258

Chapter 258

Chapter 258

ARIA

Thirty minutes to navigate through a spherical chamber filled with deadly obstacles, claim a crystal guarded by a massive winged creature, and escape to wherever the next trial section was located. All while our air supply steadily depleted and our ability to think clearly degraded with each passing moment.

“We need to figure out how to control our movement. We can’d so this and pray for luck to be on our side,” I said, my mind trying to work through the physics on how we would be able to navigate something this crazy despite the oxygen deprivation already affecting my thinking.

“Can’t just push off randomly or we’ll end up in the spikes or the lava. Need to calculate the trajectories, use precise force, not too much and not too small, and we need to figure out a way to navigate through three-dimensional space without gravity to anchor us p>

“I’ve never done zero-g navigation,” Ivory admitted, looking sheepishly which was supposed to be impossible considering the fact she was upside down. But I guess this was the first time, she had ever confessed she wasn’t capable of an expert in doing something which wasn’t even supposed to be in a list of something that could be done. Ands now I was rambling p>

Ivory words broke me out of my thoughts as she continued speaking.

“Never trained for it. Never even considered it as a possibility p>

“Neither have I,” I said. “But we don’t have time to learn gradually. We need to figure this out immediately or we die here p>

I tried to orient myself, tried to identify which direction would be “forward” in a space where all directions were equally valid. I decided to use the crystal as my reference point, since that was the goal. I designated that as “ahead” and tried to push off gently toward it.

My hand found Ivory’s shoulder-she’d drifted close enough to reach me, as I felt a lot more confident with her beside me. I pushed against her, using her mass to propel myself toward the crystal, trying to keep the force gentle so I didn’t send myself spinning.

It worked. Sort of. I was moving in approximately the right direction which was the plan. But I was also rotating, my body tumbling end over end, and I couldn’t figure out how to stop the spin without something solid to push against.

I rotated twice, three times, my view of the chamber spinning around me in nauseating circles

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around simultaneously.

Then I saw what I was spinning toward: the spike wall.

The rotation was carrying me directly toward six-foot razor-sharp spikes that would impale me in multiple places if I couldn’t stop my trajectory. I tried to arrest the spin, tried to push against the air, but there was nothing to grip, nothing to use for leverage.

“Ivory!” I shouted, panic cutting through my attempt at calm. “I can’t stop! I’m going to hit the spikes p>

Ivory was already moving, pushing off from wherever she’d been floating, intercepting my path with precision that suggested much better awareness than I possessed. Her hand grabbed my ankle just before I would have hit the first spike, stopping my forward momentum.

But grabbing me sent her into an uncontrolled drift. The physics of it-action and reaction— meant that stopping my movement had imparted momentum to her body. She was now spinning toward a different section of wall.

The lava section.

I watched in horror as Ivory tumbled toward flowing magma that would incinerate her on contact, her body rotating too fast to control, no way to arrest her momentum before impact.

The golden shields manifested instantly, Aryada’s blessing activating in response to mortal danger. Light erupted around Ivory, creating a barrier between her and the lava, deflecting the heat that would have killed her.

But the shields were solid. When they hit the lava wall, they didn’t pass through and melt her into a moltening mess. They bounced. Reflected. Sent Ivory careening in a new direction with even more momentum than she’d had before.

We were both tumbling now, both uncontrolled, both heading toward different deadly obstacles with no way to stop ourselves.

This was impossible. We couldn’t navigate like this. Couldn’t control our movement precisely enough to avoid all the hazards. Every action created an equal and opposite reaction that sent us spinning in new unpredictable directions.

We were going to die here. Going to tumble helplessly through zero gravity until we hit something that killed us or until the air ran out and we suffocated while floating in the center of this nightmare sphere.

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Then I heard it. A sound that made my already oxygen-deprived heart race faster.

The winged creature’s breathing had changed. Became faster, sharper. The rhythm of something waking up rather than sleeping.

And when I managed to orient myself during one of my tumbles, I saw it clearly.

The creature’s eye was open.

Massive. Violet, matching the crystal it guarded. Fixed directly on us with intelligence and purpose that suggested it had been watching our pathetic attempts at navigation with interest.

Its wings began to unfold.

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