Chapter 296: The Unawakened Bombs

I wasn’t even thinking, I was just digging through the rubble with the single minded purpose of trying to get the people out from under there.

I was so in shock over what happened that I did not even stop to think about the fact I had Geomancy powers, merely focusing on trying to physically dig out the rubble with my bare hands.

I managed to pull out several big chunks of earth to reveal a crushed building underneath and shoved the debris aside, only to see the splattered remains of a person who had his head crushed by a fallen pillar and a rod piercing through his chest.

The sight made me pause as I felt my heart clenching at the sight of it, which I felt was a manifestation of my failure to protect them.

That was when I felt someone pull me back by the arm, causing me to stumble back and almost lose my footing until I recovered my balance.

I realised the person who did that was Olivia as she placed herself in front of me, right as an Anomaly burst out from the ground where I had been standing on to claw at where I had been.

Olivia gave it a punch in its chest, sending the creature flying off with its chest caved in before she turned around and picked me up in her arms.

She leapt out of the crater and turned to Khar with furrowed brows.

"Burn it!! Burn the entire hole!"

He looked at her in alarm, "But... But..."

"I said burn it!! Those that have died will turn into Anomalies!! Those that survive will just be killed by them! It’s not worth it! Burn it now!!"

Khar hesitated, clearly not willing to be the one to burn the remains of his own city.

And that hesitation was paid for by Evul.

Before anyone could react, an Anomaly suddenly latched onto the ledge and pulled itself up, its hand reaching out and grabbing Evul who had also been standing at the edge of the crater.

She let out a scream and ice gathered around her, probably to freeze or attack the Anomaly but she never got the chance as the creature snapped her neck in its grip, prompting her body to go limp.

Dan was already moving even before the Anomaly let go of the woman’s dead body, his shield up and using it as a battering ram as he charged into both of them.

His shield slammed against the Anomaly, sending it flying back into the crater alongside Evul’s corpse, the Anomaly letting out a roar of frustration as it lost its grip on the ledge.

Khar finally snapped out of his stupor and raised up his hands, gathering flames in front of him before he shot it into the crater.

The fireball exploded and started burning a large portion of the crater, but it was obviously not big enough to consume it.

Nuul moved next as he raised up his hands to blow a gust of wind that swept through the top of the crater, fanning the flames and spreading it with his wind.

Soon enough, the entire crater had turned into a blazing inferno, burning through anything that was left in the hole.

I was still in shock over what I had just witnessed and could just do nothing but stare blankly at the fiery crater in front of me.

I then felt Olivia grab my shoulders and shake me back to my senses, "My Lord! Please! There’s nothing you could have done! No one had known about this! Do not blame yourself for this!"

The only thing I could think of while she was shaking me was how she knew me well enough that she could answer the question in my own head that I did not even voice out.

Siti came up to me and gave me a sad look, "It’s been a few years since I’ve awoken and I’ve already forgotten how it might be for someone like you..."

I watched as the Mortal Goddess leaned closer to whisper sadly, "You can’t save everyone, Qing... Despite us being called Mortal Gods... We don’t have the power to save everyone. And if we had to pick people to sacrifice, we cannot pick ourselves... The most important thing... No. The most important people are ourselves. It’s not arrogance for us to say something like that, it’s just an objective fact."

I stared at her, knowing that what she said was true and... That I did not like it.

I sighed and gave her a nod, "I got it, I got it..."

She continued looking at me for a moment before stepping back.

Nuul gestured at the hole, "What... What even happened? How... How did the entire ground cave like that?"

Maylene stepped up, "It’s an outside force for sure... The blast came from outside, that means someone had set up some explosives at key points to separate the earth and cause the top to crash into the city."

"Can... Can those monsters... Those Anomalies do that?" Khar asked.

Olivia was quick to shake her head, "The Anomalies of this rift should not be able to do that, since we have found no examples of them using tools so far. This was not orchestrated by them."

Nuul immediately furrowed his brows and kicked at a loose dirt on the ground, "Those good for nothing unawakened pieces of shit!!"

Shit... So that means this was done by those survivors that didn’t awaken any powers...

Then it hit me.

"Those... Those survivors back at the camp! That truck!! We saw that truck in the garage of that underground bunker!!"

There’s no doubt about it, that was definitely the truck we saw back then.

But if it was driving away from here... That means they knew about this place and they went to get the truck just to bring the explosives here to blow this place up.

And if they got the explosives to blow this place up...

"We’re heading back to camp, right now!" I called out to them, already creating the teleportation door even as I gave the order.

The door appeared and I jumped in first, ignoring the gasp of protest coming from Olivia.

I was worried about returning to a camp that had also been blown up but... Thankfully, it seemed like everything was fine.

I let out a sigh of relief as the others also stepped out from the door behind me, all of them also looking around the camp to see if anything changed.

"Seems like they didn’t do anything here," Diana muttered.

Khar gritted his teeth, "I want to talk to them. Let me talk to them."

I turned to him, "Wait... I know you’re angry but..."

"I just want to talk... I just want to talk..."

I pursed my lips and nodded, especially since I also wanted to talk to them as well.

I mean... I know that they were definitely pissed at the powered survivors given what they have done to them... But for them to just blow up the ground like that it would also mean that they were also killing the people that were enslaved, right?

Did they even know that? Or did they blow up the ground thinking that it was only the powered survivors underneath? That’s what I had to know.

In the end, both Khar and Nuul decided to follow me and my Guardians to confront them while Siti and Diana went back to the command tent to debrief their own group.

I marched up to the other side of the camp with my group, pausing when I found the centaur guy standing there with his arms crossed and looking at the survivor’s camp.

The odd thing was that... There were no guards standing at the entrance of their camp anymore.

He seemed to have sensed my presence and turned around, the centaur jerking slightly in surprise before he quickly bowed his head.

"Divine One! Forgive me for not welcoming your return!"

I gestured at the camp, "What happened here? Where are they?"

He straightened himself, "That... Well... Just shortly after you left, all of them said that they didn’t want to stay here anymore and left. We decided not to stop them and right now I just gave the order to clean out their camp since I don’t think they would be coming back anymore... Should I have not done so?"

I scowled at his answer.

I’m guessing these guys definitely set out to go and blow up the city and they figured that we might also figure out that we would link this back to them so they ran off first before we returned.

Khar was just as pissed as he roared an expletive before kicking the ground, his fists flaring up with flames.

I was also about to let out a curse on my own when out of the blue, a flash of light came from the direction of the camp and I was suddenly engulfed with extreme heat...