Author's Note: Unedited Chapter
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Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah! Pah!
The sound of their giant feet stamping heavily against the stair reverberated across the vicinity.
One of them stepped on a trap but the group seemed unconcerned as a white glow appeared around all of them.
"Absolute cancel," Captain Ostril voice rang out as a massive shadowy figure hovered above her.
The whitish glows surrounding them instantly dissapeared while the group continued to charge forward.
"We shall be the first to arrive ay the summit!" Captain Ostril stated.
"Osu!" The group chanted powerfully.
'I will show the Midelies that I am fit to lead,' She swore internally with a determined expression.
The group of Dracons made their way forward with nothing managing to hinder them at the moment since they had Captain Ostril.
Groups they had left behind couldn't help but notice they were missing a pivotal figure... Strum.
It seemed as though Strum didn't join them to partake in this challenge. Regardless, the Dracons were one of the fastest groups scaling the monolith. They were already at the third layer while many other groups lagged behind them.
Planet Wildreck were currently the fastest group scaling the monolith. Due to their speed, they had surpassed a bunch of groups from the very start and unlike Angy who had to slow down due to the other earth participants, every teammate on Planet Wildreck was very fast.
Planet Ozious participants were one of the most fortunate groups due to their ability to redirect energy so long as they were quick enough to imprint on it.
Captain Vilax who was the best in the use of their signature abilities, managed to prevent his subordinates from the effects of triggering a trap. However, unlike Captain Ostril absolute cancel, he had to redirect the energy elsewhere and unfortunately, the groups around them had to suffer the effects of the redirection.
At this point, groups were trying their bests to stay far away from Planet Ozious group so as not to have the fate of a planet Ozious participant who triggered a trap, transfered onto them.
Other planets that had managed to reach the third layer as well included, Oxlrk, Tribetes, Xillion, Klaxosapes and a few others.
A lot of planets that were initially ahead of earth were still struggling to get to the third layer after getting sent downwards multiple times.
The second layer was no doubt a little trickier than the first. While there wasn't much difference, multiple groups had restarted from the base of the second layer a few times after triggering traps.
Surprisingly Gustav and the rest hadn't gotten to the bridge before the second and third layer yet due to some complications.
Aildris hadn't been spotted since they reached the 97,000th step.
"Did he get lost?" One of them questioned.
Gustav made use of God Eyes to stare downwards, zooming past more than fifty thousand feet as his sight phased through the fog.
"He's at the base of the second layer," Gustav stated.
"What? How did he get there?"
"He's just dragging us back now,"
"What happened?"
The group was very surprised to hear this but they didn't realise that this wasn't all.
"He's surrounded too," Gustav added.
"Surrounded?" E.E voiced with a tone of confoundment.
"Yes... a group is trying to attack him," Gustav could more or less tell how this must have played out.
Aildris must have triggered a trap and got sent to the start of the second layer along with a group of participants. Whatever grievances they bore, they must have felt they could gang up against him since he's like the blind guy of earth group and the only one down there at the moment.
"This should end fairly quickly," Gustav mumbled while watching.
At the base of the second layer, the group surrounding Aildris charged at him while shooting out flaming spikes from their mouths.
Pah! Pah! Pah!
Aildris moved like a phantom despite his eyes being closed and swept his hand in a circular motion.
He caught every single one of these flaming spikes and they instantly turned to black and white existences.
Aildris proceeded to stab all six he grabbed into the shoulder of the closest alien participant.
"Kurrrhh!" Blood trickled out as Aildris flung the participant towards another one of his teammates in the next instant.
-"Damn it! He is fast!"
The others missed as they swung out attacks, while Aildris reappeared behind another one of them, kicking him forward.
The participant body traveled across the air and slammed heavily into the barrier at the edge of the second layer base.
Every single one of them moved to attack at the same time and at this point it was getting a little tough since they were warrier of him now.
They initially thought that even though Aildris was atrong they'd be able to win since he was surrounded and this made them conceited. They were no longer conceited so their attacks were more precise and they moved with more caution while engaging him.
Aildris took a few hits as the battle continued for a few minutes but he managed to remain calm and stayed ontop of the situation as he took them down one after the other.
Other group participants were arriving at the base of the second layer as this fight ensued between Aildris and the Sifiwl but of course most of these groups didn't pay heed to them.
Battles were occurring on different places all through the monolith so this looked like a normal view to them.
"We can't keep staying here we'll get delayed," Yonda voiced out with a tone of satisfaction.
"As much as I hate it, I agree with this dude," Matilda voiced from the side.
"The captain is the only person that needs to reach the peak so we don't really need Aildris. We should keep going," Yonda added with a strong tone.
"He is kinda right... we're still up to eighteen so even if we have to sacrifice four more people to access the other layers, we have enough," Matilda buttressed the point.
"Finally someone with common sense," Yonda smiled.
"Don't push your luck," Matilda rolled her eyes.
"While you two are making a lot of sense, there is one vital information are unaware of. I will be needing Aildris due to this vital information as he is one of the few I trust to be capable of handling the task when it comes in the future," Gustav responded.
"Uh? What can he do that the rest of us can't?" Yonda questioned with a dissatisfied glare.
"A lot," Gustav replied before jumping downwards.
Fwwwhiiiii~
His body descended with speed as the wind brushed his hair upwards. Leaping further than a particular number of feet or stairs wss prohibited but since Gustav was descending, there was no problem.
It seemed like Guatav had been falling forever since the distance between his initial location and the base of the second layer was more than fifty thousand feet down.
Gustav flipped his body in mid air, nose diving to move faster as he cut across more distance within a couple of seconds in this posture.
After about one more minute...
BAM!
He landed between Aildris and the last opponent.
Gustav's right fist drove into jaw of the shocked participant before him.
Bang!
The body of the red faced alien traveled across the air and slammed into the barrier on the edge of the second layer base.
Crash~
It broke through the barrier and the body of the extraterrestrial being began to plummt downwards uncontrollably.
"Overkill... I had him," A smile appeared on Aildris face as pulled out a flaming four feet spike from his shoulder.
"No doubt..." Gustav responded before passing a med pill to Aildris.
"What happened?" He proceeded to ask Aildris.
Aildris went on to explain how he got distracted by this bunch who were climbing the stairs without caring about traps. He was unable to warn them and they all ended up getting sent to the base of the second layer.
However, he had no idea how to pinpoint exactly where the last person who went before him stepped. Everyone was already far ahead.
He managed to scale about six hundred feet without triggering a trap when he toiched the monolith in relief and triggered one unknowingly.
He had no idea that the monolith walls had traps on them. Gustav was also quite surprised since he wasn't aware of tbis as well.
They just subconsciously refrained from touching the monolith while climbing the stairways. When he thought more about it, he felt it made sense since some participants directly climbed the monolith walls.
The Handlers must have already suspected this was possible and placed traps on them as well.
"Don't get distracted this time," Gustav voiced while charging towards the right stairway.
"Sure," Aildris replied while following closely behind.
-Four Hours Later
At this point, Gustav and the others were currently scaling the second layer.
They had managed to go through the third layer without too much issues but the moment they reached the second layer, everything changed.
Not only were they now in outerspace, the stairways no longer existed.
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