FALLEN ORACLE

**Chapter 5: The Ruins (1)**

**Chapter 5: The Ruins (1)**"Ahhh! You killed Chen Yi! I'll kill you!"Carl was consumed with rage. His Clay Giant had just finished summoning, and he commanded it to charge at the demonkin, trying to knock it off the cliff.But the demonkin was nimble. It quickly jumped clear of danger, pushed through the barrage from Liv and the others, and reached Carl in an instant. One hit—and Carl's robe shattered."Run. I'll hold it off." Seth pulled a long spear from his storage ring.Phil said, "Fall back, Carl. Chen Yi is dead. We can't take this demonkin. All we can do is retreat and hold out until the professors arrive."Hearing this, Liv was stunned. Even after only a few days, she felt devastated by Chen Yi's death. Thinking that he had died covering for her, she was so ashamed she wanted to kill herself.But how could her brother stay so calm?"No! I'm avenging Chen Yi!" Carl refused."Listen to me! If you throw your life away now, it'll be for nothing. Get stronger, then come back and kill it.""How many years will that take? Ten? That demonkin will be long gone by then."On the other side, Seth, working with the Clay Giant, was barely holding the demonkin back with his spear."Seth, Natalie, you two retreat. I'll cover you. Nika and I swore we'd die together," Bill said.His girlfriend Nika was still unconscious, severely injured. In this situation, no one could carry her to safety. She was as good as dead."Shut up. How can a Psionicist cover anyone?"Without Chen Yi, the group had fallen into chaos. Their different principles and attachments made it impossible to compromise under pressure.With a crash, the Clay Giant crumbled back into sand after taking three magical attacks from the demonkin.Seth, left alone, quickly faltered too. The demonkin's hand blade sliced through his strengthening magic and the spear itself in one stroke.So many spells thrown at it, and all they had done was leave a few light scratches."We're all going to die here," Phil thought in despair.Just as everyone had given up hope of survival, a bolt of lightning struck down from the clouds with unparalleled force, hitting the demonkin square on.Everyone flinched at how close the lightning had come. When the dust kicked up by the strike settled, all that remained was the demonkin's charred corpse and the acrid smell of burnt flesh."Did... did it just get struck by lightning?" Carl couldn't believe his eyes.Could that even happen?"It struck only it, not us? That's way too lucky," Seth marveled.Bill gathered his courage and kicked the demonkin's corpse twice."It's dead for sure.""Quick—go find Chen Yi at the bottom!" Phil realized.The joy of surviving didn't last long. Though the seven of them had made it, Chen Yi had fallen off the cliff before their eyes.Even if hope of finding him alive was slim, out of friendship and loyalty, they couldn't just leave without seeing his body."Bill, stay here with Nika and wait for the professors. Seth and I will go down with them to search," Natalie said.Bill nodded. He and Chen Yi hadn't been close, but he remembered their discussions in the library. And today, Chen Yi had commanded his teammates to save them. He felt a pang of loss.---Meanwhile, at the bottom of the cliff...Chen Yi brushed the dirt off his robe, slowly closed his spellbook, and exhaled deeply. His Psionic Lock no longer sensed the demonkin.*I hope I didn't hit any of my comrades,* he thought. *Thunderstrike really lives up to its name—one shot and that thick-skinned demonkin is dead.*In fact, when he decided to save Liv, he had already planned his next move.Given the situation, once the demonkin regained its composure, it wouldn't give him another chance to cast Thunderstrike. So he had decided on the spot to lure it toward the cliff.If luck was on his side, he could knock it off. If he fell instead, it wouldn't be a loss.The reason was simple: he trusted the protective spell sequence the goddess had taught him. He had realized its defensive power far exceeded anything he knew. So even if he fell a hundred meters, he would probably be fine.As it turned out, his gamble paid off. He landed at the bottom unharmed and immediately began casting Thunderstrike.Thanks to the Psionic Lock already on the demonkin, the spell wouldn't miss even without line of sight.The demonkin, believing Chen Yi dead, wouldn't pursue. That gave him plenty of time to complete the complex spell without interference.Originally, casting Thunderstrike in front of everyone would have violated the goddess's "keep it secret" request. But in an emergency, rules could bend. He had planned to ask everyone present to keep quiet, given that he had just saved their lives.But now, since his comrades thought he was "dead," they would likely dismiss the lightning as a natural phenomenon—a lucky coincidence that killed the demonkin.That was the other benefit of willingly falling off the cliff.When it came to secrets, the fewer people who knew, the safer.With the demonkin no longer a threat, his friends would surely come down to search for him. So his best move now was to stay put.He checked his protective spell. After being hit by the demonkin and falling off the cliff, the sequence had lost less than ten percent of its durability.At this rate, very few things on the entire continent of Alpha could actually hurt him now.With nothing else to do, Chen Yi pulled out the competition map from his storage ring and tried to estimate how long it would take Phil and the others to circle down to the bottom."Looks like at least half a day," he muttered to himself.He was about to put the map away when something caught his eye.This shape... Could it be?Chen Yi was astonished to find that a marking on the White Sand Rainforest map almost perfectly matched the pattern from the goddess's ankle wound!He quickly pulled out his spellbook and carefully compared the pattern he had recorded that night with the map.No mistake. They were identical.So the goddess must have wanted him to go to this marked location.The spot on the map wasn't far from where he had landed. Chen Yi hurried toward it.As for Phil and the others searching for him? Well, let them look a little longer. No harm done.