The Messenger of Death

It's been 22 minutes since Camron heard any noise from behind. When they left Alex and chased after the rest of their teammates, they heard a loud explosion and saw a bright pink light that could be discerned clearly, even with the thick mist.

Adrian and Emma who were present during the entrance test of the academy, in the cave, could recognize that pink light. They were also victims of that terrifying lightning that day. Only at that moment after they saw the pink light in the mist, did they connect the dots. They realized that Alex was the cause of what happened in the cave.

At first, they were filled with fear and later on respect. He has such powers but still laid low, he didn't flaunt or rub it in their faces.

The two of them were cultivators that didn't have any affinity with any of the elemental pillars in the school, and they have been mocked and insulted by others because of that. When they met Alex for the first time, he was being mocked by Drake but he didn't do anything.

Even the fight that he had with Drake and Katherine was proposed by them. Someone that was a realm lower than they were didn't let his presumed status affect his bearing.

Although they saw him as an arrogant person, he was worthy of his arrogance. Adrian and Emma had started to see Alex in a new light of their own.

"Will Alex be okay?" Katherine voiced her concern.

"Who cares if he's alright or not?" Amelia uttered.

"I do!" Adrian, Emma, and Katherine said at the same time.

Camron was startled to hear that from Adrian and Emma. The two of them always kept things to themselves selves and they haven't had much contact with Alex.

'Are they concerned because he's the one that's going to be providing them with energy crystals?' He thought.

"Really? I understand if the girls have a crush on him, I mean he is handsome. But you Adrian, why do you care?" Amelia arched a brow and asked him.

"Because if anything happens to him, 50,000 merit points will be deducted from us." Adrian didn't say the true reason why he cared, but he did give a reasonable reason.

Amelia scoffed. "He should have thought about that when he watched the rest of our teammates being drag away in the fog. 14 people are already missing from our group, do you want me to do the math for you?"

Adrian stayed silent, he already knew what she was talking about.

"When a team member dies on a mission then 50,000 merit points will be deducted from the total merit points of that team. Since three teams that were initially different from each other chose to go out on a mission together we became one team.

Meaning that whatever loses one team bears the other teams on the mission with that team will bear the losses together with them." Regardless of Adrian's silence, Amelia decided to Explain.

"Now there are 14 people that are already presumed to be dead. 14 multiplied by 50,000 is 700,000. There are 3 teams so 700,000 divided by 3 is approximately 233,333. Each team will have that much deducted from their cumulative gathered merit points.

If the 16 of us including Alex, make it out of here Alive then every one of us will have at least 14,583 merit points deducted individually from us.

That might still be a long way from the cut-off mark for expulsion, but it is still enough to make us hate our stay in the school; In other words, we are already f*cked, so what's one more life lost to us?" She finished.

"Your calculating prowess is frightening," Drake whispered.

"I'll hate to disappoint you, Amelia. Even if no one is going to survive this, Alex will." Camron interjected.

"And that's the truth." Sara concurred.

"Why do you say that? The two of you know something about this Alex that we don't, what is it?" Amelia got curious amidst their difficult predicament.

"It's obviously something that you shouldn't know so don't expect any of us to say something about it," Sara said sternly to her friend.

"Okay," Amelia said dejectedly.

They continued to journey towards the exit of the forest, retracing the places they had left benchmarks on while they were mapping out the forest. Even with the misty weather, they could still spot the benchmarks that they made.

"Another one." Lenny rejoiced. They had numbered the benchmarks to know how far they had gone, so when Lenny saw the number under the benchmark he was happy. At least they weren't heading the wrong way.

Once they got out, they would be safe from the berserkers.

"Let's keep on going," Sara ordered.

After traveling for half an hour they started to feel a difference in the temperature of the forest. The mist had started to slowly clear too.

"What's going on?" Drake questioned. Everything about this forest had his blood curdling, he had a bad feeling about the temperature that changed so suddenly.

Sweat started to ooze off their backs, armpits, and face, but that didn't stop them from running. Soon the mist cleared like a flash and they found their selves in the desert.

"How!?"

Amelia screamed out when she saw herself in a desert.

"There are no deserts in the western continent and it has been like that for hundreds of years, so how!?"

All of them stopped moving forward, they turned and looked behind them; hoping to see the misty forest there.

But unfortunately for them, it had disappeared. The only thing they saw behind them was an endless desert, the same view as what was in front of them. Amelia dropped to her knees and used her hands to scratch and ruffle her hair.

"Arrghh!!" She screamed out and tears were about to fall out of her eyes.

"Is this another Illusion?" Camron calmly observed their new climate and environment.

"If it is an illusion, then how could it feel so real?" Lenny thought out loud as he grabbed a handful of the hot desert sand.

"The last illusion that we were in felt very real too." Adrian pointed out.

"Alex had to burn the vegetation to get us out of the illusion, perhaps if we did the same we would be able to get out of this one too," Emma suggested.

Camron who still had a torch in his hand threw the torch at a random location, expecting his environment to change back into that of the forest. He waited for a minute and nothing happened. The piece of wood that he had set on fire to use as a torch just kept on burning on the ground.

"Nothing is happening," Camron said dejectedly.

Those that still had a torch in their hands did the same, hoping that theirs would do what they had expected to happen. But for the umpteen unfortunate time, nothing had gone as they wanted it too.

"Am I really going to die in a place like this?" Amelia started to sob.

Sara sighed and shook her head at her friend's attitude, although she too was feeling emotional about the predicament that they were in, she didn't act uncontrollably like her friend.

"Do we keep on going or we wait here? Maybe Alex can catch up with us. His eyes are very good and useful in situations like this." Camron asked.

"We wait here for him." Many of them said…

"What if he doesn't arrive here? What if he sees through the illusion and avoids it? What if he's already been captured or dead? What if the berserkers find this place before he does, what do we do!!??" Amelia cried as she infected them with her depressed and pessimistic thoughts.

"For our sake, I hope not," Camron whispered. He too had contacted Amelia's depression…

They brought out their tents and set camp under the blazing sun and decided to take turns standing on the lookout…

Lenny and one of the female blue badge students in his team stood with him on lookout. Nothing had happened since they appeared in the desert.

"I shouldn't have agreed to join them on this mission, but it sounded too good to reject." Lenny lamented.

The girl beside him sighed, she too was regretting this decision of theirs...

-BAM!!

Suddenly, Lenny and the girl's views changed, they were now laying on the ground facing each other. The pain they felt from the crash, it was as if their shoulder blades shifted.

-Ouuff!!

Their cries of pain were muffled like someone had their hands over mouths. A tear dropped from the girl's eyes as she stared at Lenny who was also on the floor next to her. They felt something sharp puncture a part on their Cheeks.

A few seconds later the pressure that they felt on their mouths eased. Lenny was about to call out for help but he couldn't. His lips were heavy and numb now.

'Don't let them scratch you or bite you.' Lenny recalled when Alex had warned them about this.

'No, it can't be. The berserkers are here.'

His eyes were wide open in shock and fear. What shocked him the most was the fact that he still couldn't see what had pinned him to the ground.

-Blleee!!!

The creepy but familiar cry of the berserkers reached their ears. It was louder than usual though.

Lenny and everyone that was within the range of the loud cry, felt like their eardrums were about to burst open.

Lenny closed his eyes tight. He was paralyzed from the mouth down, but he could move his eyelids.

As soon as he opened his he was stunned by what he saw. They weren't in the desert anymore, they were back in the forest.

It was at this moment he recalled the excruciating cries they heard the last time they were snapped out of an illusion.

'It wasn't the fire, it was the siren.' He thought.

Lenny turned his eyes and he was greeted by the ugly grin of a berserker.

His heart was beating too fast and loud for him to notice that there was more than one of the berserkers present.

-Blleee!!!