RUMBLE!…
The Volcano, which was sitting peacefully throughout the entire game, was trembling none stop, making rocks and boulders all around it to start rolling downhill while colliding against each other.
Yet! This was nothing compared to what was happening inside of it!
Felix, who was escaping in the opposite direction of the labyrinth entrance immediately did a 180 degrees turn and bolted with cold sweat covering his back.
The players didn’t give a shit about him or the Crown anymore after seeing the tunnels trembling like they were struck by a major degree earthquake!
Crack!
The ground before Felix suddenly broke into two parts, forcing him to reflexively jump the newly emerged chasm with a mortified expression.
‘Holy shit!’ After taking a glimpse beneath him while mid-air, his heart almost leaped from his throat at the boiling lava rising slowly upward.
Thud!
The moment he landed on the other side, Felix rolled forward once and used his hands to propel him back up to not affect his acceleration.
He knew that he couldn’t afford to slow down as Meliodas told them that the alarm would last merely two minutes before the big eruption.
Sadly, this earthquake was the alarm!!
He, just like everyone else, got totally blindsided by the volcano’s early eruption!
He always believed that it would erupt at the last 5 minutes or even 10 minutes. Yet it had to erupt precisely two minutes after the 15 minutes countdown began!
No one saw it coming!
Meanwhile, hundreds of meters in front of Felix, Mr. Frosty and his party were running for their dear life as well.
No one was bothering with the golden beam of light that was approaching them from the rear…Except for Mr. Frosty!
‘If I am not winning this game, then no one is going to!’ His expression twisted with spite as he glared at the golden beam.
‘Listen up! use all of your destructive abilities at the ceiling after we enter the next tunnel!’ Mr. Frosty sent this bone-chilling order to his party, making them all glance at him in shock.
Unbothered by their reaction, he sent another message, ‘Are you resigned to losing this game in such a humiliating fashion?! If Landlord won, this game is going to be viral since he broke the record of holding the Crown by miles from the previous holder.’
He evaded a falling rock as he said lastly, ‘I don’t know about you guys, but I am not going to let myself be a stepping stone for Landlord’s fame!’
After hearing the term stepping stone, no one hesitated anymore. Their expressions hardened while looking at the entrance of the tunnel that was getting nearer and nearer.
Mr. Frosty smirked faintly at their silent approval and created three ice lances above his head. The players activated their abilities as well and kept them prepared, waiting until they pass through the tunnel first.
“FIRE!” The instant they entered it, Mr. Frosty yelled as hurled the three ice lances at the ceiling right above the entrance.
BOOM! BOOM!…
The players fired simultaneously with him, striking the same spot with tens of destructive abilities.
FA-THUD!
The ceiling which was already collapsing slowly due to the earthquake, couldn’t handle their combined abilities and collapsed on the entrance, sealing it shut!
“GOOD JOB!” Excited and overjoyed, Mr. Frosty did a fist pump while looking at the closed entrance.
While he was celebrating ruining Felix’s chance to safety, Leader Emma almost had a heart attack after seeing them succeed in their scheme.
She knew that destroying this tunnel’s entrance was going to doom Felix, as it was the only near shortcut to the labyrinth exit.
By destroying it, they left Felix with only two options, go back and take a longer route or dig a hole through the rubbles!
None of those options were viable in such a short amount of time!
Just as Emma assumed, the instant Felix’s eyes landed on the mountain of rubbles, his lips parted in slightly as he froze before it.
Felix heard the loud noise of the collapse, but he didn’t take it seriously as he thought that it was merely caused by rocks dropping on the ground.
After all, this earthquake was for warning them not to bury them inside the Volcano.
This made him discern that the players were the ones responsible for this!
‘Shit! I need to take another route!’ Not planning on wasting time moping about getting screwed like this, Felix turned back and sprinted while huffing through his nose, pushing his body’s limits to the extreme.
‘Queen, time!’ He asked in agitation.
‘1 minute and twenty-second are remaining.’
Her response made his heart sink as he was certain that he barely had enough time to leave the Labyrinth.
Don’t even mention the volcano and leaving enough distance from it to not get smashed by the molten rocks, which would rain its premise!
Meliodas split the screen into two halves, one showing Felix and the other was showing the closest route to the exit that Felix was currently taking. He wasn’t done yet as he swiftly added a timer on it, showing exactly the time needed for Felix to actually reach the forest from his position.
Five minutes!
A whopping five minutes was needed to survive the eruption for Felix! But he didn’t even possess two minutes!
“It can’t be!”
“This is bullshit!! Stop spewing lies, there enough time for Landlord to escape to safety.”
“Sigh, he shouldn’t have entered the volcano in the first place.”
“Finally, that cockroach is going to die.” Unsurprisingly, Mastermania was watching the game in a VIP room all by himself. After all, how could he miss seeing Felix getting ganked up by the players due to his proposed bounty?
Alas, throughout the entire game he was served only disappointment after another. But at last, Felix met the only opponent, which was impossible to defeat even by him.
Mother Nature!
Mastermania’s eyes were brightened up in excitement and eagerness to watch Felix finally meet his maker.
While the spectators were giving up on Felix and doubting his chances of survival, he wasn’t losing heart yet!
His brain was working at full capacity to seek a solution to get him out of this shit hole. Meanwhile, his eyes were examining every single detail in the tunnel with full clarity, making him feel like he was seeing everything in slow motion.
The falling rocks, the cracking floor, the red fumes spewing from those cracks, everything was clear in his eyes, giving him whatever he needs to gain inspiration and create a plan that might let him live to tell the tale.
He didn’t know if it was the doing of adrenaline or something else, but his brain was already occupied with his survival to bother about this matter.
Suddenly, his slits enlarged at the sight of a flat-surfaced long rock, resembling a surfboard stuck underneath a massive boulder.
‘That’s it!’
The moment he saw it, an insane plan was formed in his mind, taking root and refusing to leave!!
‘Are you f*cking nuts?!’ Asna immediately scolded him after reading his mind and seeing what he was planning on doing, ‘It’s not going to work! You will just get yourself killed.’
‘Do you have any better plan?’ Felix retorted while changing his direction, heading towards the surfboard-like rock.
‘Nothing? Then be a good girl and don’t bother me for the next minute. I need complete concentration.’ Felix informed her calmly while having his hands on the massive boulder.
Asna went mum after hearing him say so.
“What is he doing?” Confused, Meliodas looked at Felix pushing the massive boulder instead of running away.
THUD!
After pushing with everything he got, Felix exhaled a long breath through his mouth as he watched the boulder fall to the side.
Not taking a single second to relax his muscles, Felix lifted the surfboard-like rock and put it underneath his armpit.
It was long and a bit thick. But still, with Felix’s superstrength, he didn’t feel like it weighed that much. Probably, it was just the adrenaline still being pumped, making it seem easy.
‘Queen, time!’ He asked again while carrying on his journey.
‘1 minute!’ She replied.
‘1 minute before the full eruption, this meant I have even less to get into the perfect position.’
Instead of fretting about it, Felix lowered his head and charged recklessly through the falling rocks, not bothering anymore to dodge small sized ones.
Thud Thud!…
His head and shoulders were smashed by small rocks every once and a while, making Felix grimace in pain. Instead of bearing through it, he activated an aura and used revitalization to heal his wounds while still on the move.
29 Seconds later…Felix sighed in relief the moment he exited the labyrinth, stepping into the long straight tunnel, which was leading upward to the volcano’s exit.
He lifted his head slightly and the light of the sky on the other side of the tunnle was shown before him.
It was so near yet so far.
Without further delay, Felix turned on his infrared vision and looked downward but slightly behind him.
‘Holy!’ He sucked a deep breath after seeing that everything was in red and orange!
The floor was about to be literally lava and Felix had to find high grounds as soon as possible!
‘There!’ He started sprinting towards a large-sized boulder. It wasn’t the ideal one for his plan, but it was the biggest one near him.
After reaching its side, he climbed on the smaller rocks, which were stacked near it until he got close enough to throw his surfboard-like rock on top of the boulder without worrying about it breaking after contact.
Whoosh!
Next, he jumped easily on the boulder and immediately looked behind him. The boiling lava could be seen rising slowly from one of the many chasms in the ground.
RUMBLE!
A sudden additional earthquake struck the tunnels, making Felix lose his balance and almost fall down.
Yet, Felix’s focus was entirely on the chasms behind him, which were spewing boiling lava everywhere, filling the tunnel behind him first, before rushing fiercely towards the one he was at.
Without asking the Queen, Felix knew based on the increased speed of the lava, that the eruption has begun!
The entire reason the sea of lava underneath the volcano didn’t rush in a few seconds explosively, was to give the players those minutes to back off.
However, after they ended, nature was back in course!
‘Good luck Felix.’ Asna wished him luck softly while holding her breaths in worry.
