Chapter 288

"What is this place!" Max cried as he held his hands on his head and looked around him. Noticing the black ground, the dead trees and the pools of lava everywhere. These were things he had only read about but he never dreamed he would end up being here. "Hey, do you think this is still part of the training?" A student asked. "Yeah, it might be the hunting ground made to look like the shadow world or something." The other half of Del's class had been teleported to a new location. In this group, there were fifteen students that included two of the upperclassmen and there was also the professor Springett. Springett bent down and picked up pieces of soil from the ground. She was trying to sense something and closed her eyes. The look on her face remained the same but something in her mind had clicked. "All students please gather around I have an important message for you all," Springett said. The students then started to gather still mumbling about where they were, but when the other students saw the worried look on the two upper-class students faces, they feared the worse. The upper-class students had already gone through their training before, when they had come out of the teleportation circle, they already knew that this wasn't meant to be part of the test. "I'm going to be honest with you all, this is not part of the test." She said, "And even worse, it seems like we have been transported to the shadow continent, the soil, everything around us is filled with its dark energy." As soon as Springett said those words some people broke down in tears. They wanted to go home, thinking why us, what had they done to deserve this. "Hey is what she saying true?" Max asked Kaito who had also been transported with him. "Yeah, this place matches up with exactly what I was taught from the empire." Kaito said, "The good thing is at least we weren't transported into one of their fortresses, it seems like we're just in the middle of nowhere at the moment." "And that's meant to be good news!" Max said. "Most likely the teleportation circle, they couldn't completely control where it would go. My question is how did the teleportation circle change its destination? It had to have been planned from the inside, not only that but the crystal had suddenly changed and was being consumed with dark energy, without someone physically being with us at the time that just wouldn't be possible." "You mean there's the chance that someone at the academy is working for the shadow? We have to tell the professor." Before Max had even taken two steps, Kaito tucked on his sleeve and pulled him back. "Max, we don't know who the traitor is, we can't trust anyone." Just then as the students were starting to get a hang of their bearings, someone spotted something from one of the trees in the forest. "Look at that, it's a monkey!" A female student pointed. The monkey's fur was bright white and was easy to spot between the dark trees. It had two tail's instead of one and was the regular size for a monkey. But professor Springett wasn't a fool, all beasts that were in the shadow continent had already been infected. On its white fur, there were patches of purple and small bits of foam appearing from its mouth. Springett drew her sword. "Everyone, get ready for combat!" she shouted. At the same time, the monkey opened its mouth wide, displaying two large fangs. Out from its mouth, a loud yell was heard which was piercing to the ear. "Oh no!" Kaito said "What, what's wrong," Max asked worriedly. "The monkey, it's crying for help, it can see that we outnumber it and now it's calling for its friends."

A few moments later, the monkey had stopped yelling and from the trees around it, around twenty more monkeys had appeared. "Breakthrough!" Springett wasted no time in activating her breakthrough, her hair started to glow and strange energy surrounded her. The army of monkeys charged forward each climbing down from the tree's and running towards the students. "Everyone, stand and fight, don't split up!" Springett ordered, but even so, the students were only low class and many of them had never experienced something like this before. Around half of the students had ignored Springett's orders and decided to run away in the other direction. The first monkey that charged forward was met with a quick end as Springett managed to slice it in half, but then the monkey's behind it started to run around the students that stood their ground against the monkeys. They split into two groups and quickly ran around them and instead went for the students who decided to run away. The student's path was quickly blocked by the army of monkey's and before they could even activate any spells, the monkeys had jumped on top of the students clawing their eyes out, cutting their bellies open and ripping out their organs. The other student's watching the scene unfold in front of them felt sick, they went down on one knee and start to spill their guts at the site. It didn't take long for the monkeys to finish off the seven deserters and now, they had their eyes set on the remaining eight. "Everyone, stand behind me," Springett said, as she went to the front of the group facing the monkeys. Behind her where the two upper-class students, Kaito and Max, Princess Norah, and two other low-class students. And in front of them where nineteen basic tier monkeys' infected by the shadow which gave them a power boost of that of an intermediate tier. The monkeys started to charge forward and so did Springett with her blade. "We have to support the professor!" Norah said. She then clapped both of her hands together and the two upper-class students had done the same. Then as if the three of them were performing a synchronised dance, they lifted their hands up in the air, a wall of black earth had come up with it from the ground. Then each of them threw out their fists and the pieces of earth broke free and fired out earth balls hitting the monkey's running towards them. "Wow, I had heard that people from the Cryterian Kingdom specialised in earth magic but I didn't expect their princess to so skilful," Max said. "Yeah and it looks like those two upperclassmen are part of her guard as well," Kaito added Max didn't stand around and do nothing though, water started to gather around his hand and he started firing water blade after water blade out at the monkeys. However, Kaito stood there still. "What are you doing Kaito, don't you have a wand or something? Help out." "I can't, my magic is too weak!" Kaito replied. He then held out his hand and fired out an energy blast, but it was small and only the size of a fist. It hit one of the monkeys but it hadn't even pushed it back. The situation was bad, although the professor was skilled along with a few of the others, they were still outnumbered. The two lower-class students continued to shoot out energy balls to stop the advance of the monkeys but there was just too many of them. Then when they thought things couldn't get any worse, a loud wolf's howl was heard, in in the distance a giant black wolf could be seen coming towards them.