CHAPTER 313: FIVE FEET WIDE...

Victor looked up in bafflement and then his eyes widened upon realizing what was happening.

"Oh hell no!"

The massive red runic circle above them was beginning to tremble. The once stable circular formation now quivered as its outer edges fractured like glass.

And then the circle began to shrink.

"No no no no..." Victor’s voice dropped an octave.

The circle was closing... and it was their only way home.

"Shit!" he cursed as his head snapped toward the distant horizon.

At the Drakenar Fortress, the students were still scrambling up the stairway Elyra held up.

Some were still climbing while others were screaming for help. Although, their numbers had significantly reduced from over five hundred to around a hundred, it was still a lot.

It seemed unlikely that all of them would be able to get in before the circle completely closed up.

Victor’s chest tightened. "I don’t have time for this..."

He glanced back at Aiz’s still form with his other arm still intact.

"Lucky bastard," he muttered, and immediately cut off the Void Emperor Domain.

The world crashed back into motion as time resumed around Victor. The air exploded outward with a violent boom as dust and debris scattered everywhere. Commander Aiz blinked, dazed and unsteady from the sudden temporal whiplash.

Before he could even process what had happened, Victor who he recalled to be trapped under the volcanic arms he conjured had vanished.

For him it was like extremely confounding because one second, he was about to release a powerful strike and the next, his weapon and all the volcanic arms he conjured were gone.

His eyes further widened the moment he spotted that his right arm was gone.

"Shadow Crescent Strike!"

Victor’s sword erupted in black light as he appeared before the commander, swinging in a wide, brutal arc.

The crescent-shaped shadow wave slashed across Aiz’s chest, sending the massive Drakenar flying through the ruins in a shower of sparks.

Victor didn’t wait to see him land. He was already gone.

He activated Shadow Blink twice, draining more qi as he reappeared further away ans on the second activating, he eappeared atop the Drakenar Fortress.

The winds roared around him as the red light above bathed everything in chaos.

"Hold on, I’m here!" Victor shouted.

Dozens of wide-eyed students looked at Victor in awe and then at the sky above.

The portal above had shrunk to less than 30% of its original size and was barely three hundred feet wide now.

To make matters worse, its contraction was accelerating.

Victor gritted his teeth and extended both arms. Void qi spread from him and wrapped around a cluster of students.

With a flick of his hand, he threw seven students at once upward.

The group screamed as they shot into the air and disappeared into the glowing portal.

He didn’t stop... he kept wrapping his Void Qi around students like invisible arms and threw up them up into the sky.

Ten more... then another seven... and more and more...

He was moving on instinct now as each throw tore more out of him.

His entire body felt like it was being ripped apart from the inside. His qi reserves were scraping bottom.

Sweat dripped from his chin as his Void Emperor markings flickered weakly.

"Come on... come on!" he shouted.

Another group flew upward, then another.

The fortress trembled violently beneath his feet.

Soon, there were only ten students left.

The red circle above had dwindled to just over a seventy feet wide and was closing faster than ever.

For something that covered the entire skies in this area and even the whole of sector k-22... being only around seventy feet wide now meant that it was less than 10% of its original size.

Elyra who was standing at the edge of the fortress top with her face pale from exhaustion, met Victor’s eyes.

He gave her a strained grin. "Last batch!"

He wrapped his qi around the final group and hurled them upward with everything he had left.

The qi surrounding his being sputtered as it reached its last straws. His knees hit the floor hard.

But as the last of the students disappeared through the narrowing portal, Victor finally exhaled and collapsed backward with a grin of relief.

"...And that’s how you do it," he mumbled weakly.

"Are you going to be..." Before Elyra could complete her sentence, Victor interrupted.

"I’m fine I’m fine... still have enough juice to jump in. Don’t worry about me, go!" He said to her.

"No!" Elyra responded defiantly.

"We go together, or I’m not leaving," she added.

"Don’t be stubborn, there isn’t enough time for an argument. Just go," he stated once more.

"You’re the one being stubborn," she voiced before reaching out her hand.

Victor stared at her hand briefly before smiling in defeat.

"Alright," he chuckled while reaching out to grab her hand.

She pulled him up in one fell swoop and now they were standing side by side in this world of chaos.

The circle was now less than thirty feet wide but still enough for them to leap through without issues.

"Let’s go!" Victor stated.

Fwwhwoooomm~

A small ripple of wind swept across the surroundings as their figure asdended into the sky with a single leap.

In mid air, a massive explosion echoed behind them.

Victor and Elyra turned their heads eyes to see Commander Aiz emerging from the ruins with half his armor shattered, one arm missing and his eyes burning with fury.

He shot across the sky at astonishing speed, with a stream of volcanic eruption following his figure upwards.

"This dude never just quits," Victor muttered weakly.

Elyra swung her sword down at his ascending figure, sending a blinding green light towards him.

An explosion erupted and the commander’s figure got buried in it.

"Well..." Victor muttered while forcing a smirk despite the blood dripping from his mouth. "Guess round two’s gonna have to wait..."

He turned his gaze towards the circle above which was just two feet away.

Just as their bodies phased through the red circle, a hand reached out from below and grabbed Victor’s left leg.

"Uh?"

Before they knew what was happening, Victor was yanked back out of the circle with immense force.

"Victor!" Elyra yelled as she tried to change her trajectory inside the circle but she couldn’t.

The circle pulled her in further, giving her no chance to head back.

Outside the circle, a bleeding scarlet light fell from the sky as Commander Aiz’s one-armed figure descended with Victor.

Victor struggled mid-air with his qi nearly bled dry as Commander Aiz’s arm remained coiled around his leg like an iron chain.

Wind howled past Victor’s ears as they plummeted together toward the ground below.

"You minuscule human!" Aiz’s voice rattled through the air like distant thunder. "You thwarted my plans! I will make you pay!"

Victor gritted his teeth as his lips curled into a tired grin. "Yeah, well... get in line."

Using the last flickers of qi he had left, he thrust his palm forward.

"Gale Strike!"

A typhoon burst from his hand, tearing through the clouds and slamming into Aiz’s chest.

The Commander tried to block with his arm and subconsciously let go of Victor’s ankle but the sheer pressure hurled him downward even faster, turning him into a falling comet of rage and flame.

Victor spun mid-air and pressed his palms together.

"Wind Glide!"

A platform of wind condensed formed under his boots like solid glass, freezing his descent.

With one mighty kick, he launched himself upward, slicing through the air.

The crimson runic circle above was shrinking fast and was no larger than a carriage wheel now.

If he missed it, he’d be stranded in this place forever.

He rose higher, cutting through the dying light, when a blur of molten energy shot up from below.

It was Commander Aiz again. He rose across the air at an impossibly fast rate despite the missing arm.

His fist which was wrapped in volcanic aura, streaked toward Victor like a meteor.

Victor activated Wind Barrier on instinct since this was the only technique he could use that wouldn’t completely drain him of all his qi left.

A translucent dome wrapped around him just in time to meet the blow.

BOOM!

The impact shattered the barrier instantly, hurling Victor sideways like a ragdoll.

His body twisted in the air and pain spread through his ribs as he spiraled away from the portal’s center.

His trajectory was forcefully changed in mid air due to the punch, causing him to miss the circle.

The red circle was shrinking by the second and would be gone any moment.

"I don’t have time or qi for this..." he hissed through his teeth.

Drawing in a sharp breath, Victor fired a series of rapid-fire Wind Blasts from his palms, propelling him sideways like a rocket with each detonation.

The momentum seared through his bones, but he ignored it as his eyes locked on the fading circle, in a bid to get back on track.

Eight feet wide...

Seven...

Six...

Below him, Commander Aiz bellowed something in his native tongue, slamming his fist into the air.

From that strike erupted a whip of molten rock and fiery energy that cleaved through the sky toward Victor.

"Oh, for crying out loud—!" Victor snapped.

Five feet wide...