Chapter 122 Unexplained

Chapter 122 Unexplained
Grand Elder Ragab stood frozen in the ruined dungeon chamber. His massive frame trembled with disbelief. The heavy manacles hung empty from the walls. Only deep indentations in the stone floor marked where the prisoners had once been buried up to their necks. No broken concrete. No signs of forced escape. Just gone.

The other three Grand Elders followed behind him. Their expressions shifted from concern to outright suspicion as they surveyed the destruction in the room.

"Where are the prisoners?" Grand Elder Loraina demanded, her voice sharp.

Ragab's mouth opened but no words came out. His mind spun in circles. How could he explain this? This was the exact room where he had left them chained and suppressed. Now it was nothing but empty space and rubble.

"Answer us, Ragab," the other Grand Elder, Phillipus, pressed. "Have they reached this place? What happened here?"

The weight of their combined gazes bore down on him. Ragab felt the ground should open and swallow him whole. Sweat beaded on his forehead. His hands clenched into fists so tight his knuckles cracked. He could not fathom how they had vanished. One moment he had them completely at his mercy. The next, nothing.

"What is wrong? You suddenly look so pale," Grand Elder Dalien said. "Did you suddenly forget where you kept the prisoners?"

Ragab looked like he had aged several years in one second. His face was very pale and he burst out in a heavy sweat.

"I... they were right here," he finally stammered. His voice sounded weak even to his own ears. "Chained. Suppressed. I interrogated the white-haired boy myself."

"This is impossible!"

Ragab’s voice rose into a frantic shout. "They were right here! I buried them myself!"

"How the hell are they... just... gone!" He was screaming at this point. He looked around frantically as he stepped deeper into the room and began gesturing wildly to show exactly where he had buried them in the ground, all five of them.

He shouted for the guards. Two of them rushed in, faces pale with fear.

"Where!?" Ragab roared.

"Where what, sir?" one guard asked, trembling.

Ragab's hand closed around the guard's neck and lifted him off the ground.

"Answer me!" he yelled, spittle flying into the guard's face. "Where are they!?"

"Sir, I... do not... know," the guard struggled to reply.

This only made Ragab more hysterical and furious. He squeezed tighter until a loud pop sounded from the guard's neck and his struggling ceased.

The second guard immediately turned and tried to run, but gravity slammed him into the floor. The force pressed him down so hard that he began to flatten. He screamed and begged for mercy.

"Please... I... I..." The guard could barely speak before he was crushed completely into the ground, reduced to a flattened paste of blood, organs, and bones.

The Grand Elders exchanged uneasy looks.

"Ragab, are you saying you lost the prisoners?" Grand Elder Loraina asked with an appalled expression.

Ragab did not answer. His lungs seemed to have forgotten how to take in air. His breathing grew ragged. His vision blurred at the edges. This was a complete meltdown. One of the most powerful men in the Resonance Council complex stood there utterly humiliated, with no explanation for how a group of injured captives had disappeared from a maximum security dungeon he had personally secured.

Meanwhile, a haze of brilliant white light shimmered high above the distant shores. Six figures dropped from it, falling fast. They crashed face first into the soft dirt and sand with heavy thuds. Dust and grit flew everywhere.

Vandal groaned and pushed himself up on shaking arms. His body still burned from the aftereffects of the berserker state. The others stirred around him. The sea stretched out before them, waves crashing against the rocky coastline. They had appeared in the middle of nowhere.

Sabine sat up quickly, her face pale. She looked around frantically. "Elder Shekini... we left her behind." Her voice cracked with guilt. "We have to go back. We cannot just abandon her."

Jaclynn nodded fiercely, tears of anger and shame glistening in her eyes. "They will torture her worse than before. We have to do something."

Vandal shook his head, still breathing hard. "Going back now is suicidal. We barely escaped with our lives. Ragab and the entire Council will be on high alert. We would all die for nothing."

"But she saved us," Sabine insisted. "My mother sacrificed herself so we could get her out. And now we just left her there?"

Vandal met her gaze, his expression pained but firm. "There was literally nothing we could do. Elder Shekini was kept in a completely separate prison space from where they held us. I could not reach her even in that state. We had no choice."

Sabine looked at him, her eyes filled with a storm of emotions. Even after what he had almost done to her in the dungeon, part of her still wanted to trust him and trust in his course of action. But the guilt over Elder Shekini tore at her heart.

Jaclynn looked away, fists clenched. Anger and helplessness warred on her face. The group fell into heavy silence broken only by the sound of crashing waves.

She trembled. "She does not deserve this. None of this."

Chan wiped sand from his face and stood up slowly. "What do we do now then? We need to get word to the Unseeing Faith Sect. But we are in the middle of nowhere. No idea where this coastline even is."

Before anyone could answer, the sand around them began to shift. At first it was subtle, a low vibration under their feet. Then the entire landscape trembled violently. The ground bucked like a living thing.

A monstrous roar split the air. Sand exploded upward as a colossal earth worm burst from the ground. Its body was thick as a house and covered in armored segments. Thousands of teeth spun in rotating rows inside its gaping circular maw. The creature screamed, a high-pitched sonic wave that slammed into the group.

They realized the danger too late. The scream carried a paralyzing effect. Vandal's muscles locked up. His limbs refused to move. Beside him, Sabine, Jaclynn, Chan, Jaden, and Sera all froze in place, eyes wide with shock as the massive worm reared back. Its mouth opened impossibly wide, rows of teeth spinning faster as it lunged forward to swallow them whole.