Solar Mage

Chapter 53: Shitty Warp Gate

I lay with my eyes closed, trying multiple sleeping positions for five minutes, until I finally get up and open my red eyes, not of fire, but of the terrible nights I've spent in the dungeon, all that stress coming back to me all at once, the moment I relax my muscles.

Ugh, I feel like shit. I guess Pyro's healing is limited to just physical injuries, or that it can only heal injuries that are present at the time of healing.

I fall back down on my back.

Damn, it hurts just thinking about it, can't my Heavenly Martial Body or whatever do anything to help it? I swear, these skills and blessings can save me from life threatening attacks and injuries, but can't do anything against sleepiness. How logical.

And this constant loud whirring! God, it sounds like there is a tornado beside both of my ears, constantly erupting my eardrums every second for the past five minutes!! God– I'm never stepping into a warp gate made by someone who can't prove their rank. I thought that the portal master would at least be a 2nd rank, but it looks like he was just a 1st rank, apprentice gate master! If I ever see him again, I ought to send him to learn gate magic so that he can at least become a 2nd rank.

Abruptly, the already slow white light begins to slow down even more, until the lights come to a stop.

Though I struggled slightly, my body managed to get up and stand, mostly, upright. I turn my head, looking all around the tunnel, now completely still, as if time had stopped.

What the hell is happening? I've never seen this happen before in a tunnel! It's like time has stopped...

I immediately flick my head around, behind me, quickly preparing and shooting out a giant beam of orange light in an instant, before jumping back.

My Heightened Senses didn't even react! Did I get it?

My facial expression softens and relaxes for a moment before quickly returning to seriousness, and extreme caution. Activating Heightened Senses and Body Enhancement on my eyes and ears.

The moment the blinding light particles fade away, I am hit with surprise, as doom lingers over me.

There's nothing there??

I quickly jump back to my original position, and look back to where I was just at.

What? There's nothing there either? What could be causing this phenomenon then?

The white light begins moving again, but instead of passing behind me, they move from behind, forward. The lights gradually gain speed, until they reach the maximum, still visible speed like before; but the lights continue speeding up, beyond the maximum, until they get so fast that the light lingers, and looks like a constant beam.

What the hell? Could it be that the mayor found out that I went in here and that the gate regulator is pulling me back?!?! That's impossible, a 1st rank gate regulator being able to do that? That's unheard of! What could it be then?

I swing my head around, examining the lights in the tunnel again.

The lights are getting dimmer, it can't be– the warp gate– it's being hacked!! The destination's being tampered with!! The moment the lights die out, signifying that I've reached the destination, there will be no coming back!! The only thing I can do as the passenger in this situation, is to wait, and hope that the gate regulator will defend me!

***

Back in Ashland, Henry, the gate regulator sleeps soundly on his wooden chair, his hat over his eyes, blocking the sunlight, and his head tilted up to keep the hat from falling. The man happily dreams of gold coins as drool drips from his chin and down his neck, snoring loudly.

***

No!!! The light has almost completely faded! What is that useless bastard doing?!?!

***

In Henry's dreams, he rides, laughing joyfully on a sheep, while also eating mutton coated in gold.

***

The lights stop and disappear, leaving the tunnel in complete darkness.

Damn it, I can't even see a single thing since there's no light! That means we've arrived at our new destination set by the warp gate manipulator, but still, how can something be this dark?

Out of nowhere, the void of a warp tunnel is lit up again in white specks painting the black canvas of the void like stars in the night sky.

It's beautiful... Does that mean that that shitty gate master actually managed to defend the gate from manipulators? Even though it was a close call, I'll still give him the benefit of the doubt. I will spare your life if we meet again–

The white lights begin to move, but instead of them passing behind or in front of me, they start to move above me.

What?! If the lights are passing me, and going up, that can only mean one thing, that we are going down!!

The lights are passing by faster now!! I can't even see their speed anymore, but I know that they are still there because I can still see Rachel! That means that we are going to be reaching our destination soon, and that when we get out of the warp gate, we're going to be falling!! Rachel's still unconscious, I need to get her–

Out of nowhere, we are transported out of the void and into a light blue sky, with the sun high above us.

Shit, not the sky again!! I just fell from it less than an hour ago!!

I immediately create a sort of plate with high air resistance, below me and Rachel, making us fall much, much slower.

So Swift Win can do things like this too huh? It's basically like wind magic. But from all the things I've discovered from this, there is one clear difference between wind magic and Swift Wind. Wind magic, like any other elemental magic, creates physical things from mana. While Swift Wind, uses mana to manipulate already existing air in the physical plane.

With a sense of relief, from the Swift Wind used below us, I thoroughly examine the sun and our surroundings.

Looking at the position of the sun, and factoring in the time that we spent in the tunnel, and finding the difference from the positions of the sun, it's about 20 minutes higher than it should be. That's... not too bad, what would've been the worst case scenario would have been if day turned night, that would be the worst case scenario because it means there would be a gate master powerful enough to make a warp tunnel faster than light itself. But it looks like my path back to Dustin will be delayed, yet again. I really can't take my time anymore, I'll kill anyone who stands in my way if I have to.

But damn, my eyes kinda hurt. I hope Rachel can get up soon and heal them, otherwise, its gonna be a rough journey home, my senses being dulled by around fifty percent.

I look down from the sky above me, and down at the ground below me.

"Ha, would you look at these guys?

They look like they're just a ragtag group of bandits who managed to get ahold of a kinda pathetic looking gate master. I would say he looks like a 2nd rank gate master, 3rd rank at most. They even got themselves a little spike trap down there. I guess they didn't care about the life of their victim, they just wanted to take whatever valuables they had, and leave, huh? I don't need to worry about troublesome things like holding back and sparing their lives. I'll just kill them.

I remove the majority of the plate of high air resistance, and begin quickly accelerating as I fall, my clothes catching the wind, sort of acting like a parachute. While the remainder creates a bubble around Rachel as she slowly drifts down.

I'm coming for you!!

***

"Hey boss, didn't that mage say that there were two people in that warp tunnel or whatever? I can only see one. And I think that they are still conscious, I can feel the rage of the sun coming from him or something–"

One of the bandits says before another stuffs his mouth with their hand.

"See, now you're just spouting bullshit, how could you make eye contact with someone that far away? And how would you tell if they were conscious or not? Stop fooling around and get back to work, if I see even a single spike not drenched in that expensive poison that merchant gave us, no food for any of you tonight!"

"What do you mean that the merchant gave it to us boss? Haha, we killed him and stole it from his inventory, hahaha!!"

All the bandits laugh together, while the gate master trembles heavily in the sidelines, even more so as the bandit boss begins to approach him.

"Dumbie did make a good point though, didn't you say there were two? I only see one. What you tryna do? You think I'm dumb? I'll cut your tongue off if you're lying, tell me, you tryna set me up? Is that person up there gonna kill us?"

The gate master crawls backwards.

"No-no– I'm certain of it, there were 2 people in that warp tunnel! And how could I set you up when you're so much smarter than me?"

The bandit boss pulls the gate master's long brown hair, and holds him up like a toy.

"Of course I'm smarter than you. But are you trying to say I'm blind? Because I only see one man up there! You promised me two!"

The gate master grovels and tries to release himself while he pleads.

"Pl-please, I don't know what happened, but I'm not trying to set you up!! There must've been a malfunction with the gate or something!!"

The bandit boss drags the gate master to the spikes and dangles him over them.

"LOOK! YOU LOOK AND TELL ME HOW MANY PEOPLE ARE UP THERE!!"

The gate master keeps his eyelids shut as tears fall out of his extremely red eyes.

"THERE'S ONLY ONE PERSON!! I'M SORRY!!"

He continues crying as he waits for his death to come, but neither the bandit boss or anyone else says anything or makes any moves.

Slowly and afraid, the gate master opens his eyes, only to be struck with the same fear as the rest of the bandits, as he looks upon the glorious art of a man, holding a sun that covers the entire sky.

"An Angel?!"

The man exclaimed in joy, before the sun started to leave the man's hand and fell down.

"WHAT THE HELL?!?!"

***