41. Buried in the Tunnel

Buried in the Tunnel

Another distant explosion shook the ruins.

Several tons of fractured concrete and brick, lifted by the blast wave, howled over my head. Dust and soil sifted down through the cracks like gray rain.

None of it truly fell on us while we huddled below. The invisible dome I had made stopped it. But I could still feel the enormous weight pressing above us.

Most of the load was resting against the tunnel walls. Some collapsed masonry had wedged itself over narrow gaps, but what remained was still more than enough to make me sweat.

The bubble-shaped forcefield alone could not hold all that weight.

“Do you think that was the last explosion?” Cheng Rui asked while working on his armor.

Half of his mechanical suit was buried in the collapse. Most of it lay outside the dome, in the fully caved-in section of the tunnel. I had no idea whether it could still be repaired, and I suspected Cheng Rui did not know either.

“I think there will be plenty more,” Chi Li answered from where she sat cross-legged in meditation. “There have already been several major explosions across the city in the past few minutes alone.”

“Judging from the scale of the blasts, the burning exhaust trails, and the speed of the projectiles… I think the army is trying cruise missiles now.”

So it was probably not only the army.

Still, she was right about the bombardment. Even if my senses were not enough to track the exact positions of missiles or explosions, I could feel the shockwaves spreading around us. When it came to fire and heat, my best friend’s range far exceeded mine.

“So what?” Cheng Rui asked, his tone making it very clear how little he liked the idea. I agreed with him. “We just stay here until they stop bombing?”

Where we were now left a great deal to be desired. It was, after all, a collapsed storm-drain tunnel. But the problems were not limited to cramped space, foul air, and a complete lack of entertainment.

“I don’t know about you two, but I definitely can’t keep holding this all day,” I said.

As if to make sure they understood the issue, another aftershock shifted a car-sized slab of concrete I had been holding up, and I grunted, forced to adjust my grip.

“The forcefield itself can’t take that much weight. And unlike the field, I do eventually get tired.”

Especially after being drained over and over in battle.

Those damned demons.

“Taking the tunnel was a mistake,” our resident superpowered nerd said, anger and frustration sharp in his voice. “We would have been much better off aboveground. More open space to move. We could see anything that showed up suddenly. Instead we’re trapped like rats—again!”

“Yes, because being hit by a missile would definitely be better,” Chi Li replied dryly. “Or getting caught by the converging enemy army, or being struck by the lightning towers the moment our cover was destroyed, or—”

“You don’t know those things would have happened,” Cheng Rui insisted, scowling. “The army and the invaders are busy killing each other. They probably haven’t even noticed three people moving around in an active war zone, much less decided to waste effort and ammunition on anyone trying to leave the fight.”

“We would have been fine! My armor can handle a few missiles coming at us—the laser turrets were built for exactly that.”

“But our amateur girl-mage decided we’d be safer in this deathtrap of a tunnel just because she put a spell on it!”

He kicked the cracked wall. A stone shifted beneath his foot, causing an entire section of masonry to sag and the rubble overhead to drop several more centimeters.

“Do you know how the enemy’s divination magic works?” Chi Li snapped, abandoning her meditation and planting her hands on her hips in that classic scolding posture. “Of course you don’t, nerd.”

She glared at him, unconsciously stepping half a pace forward and “looking down” at his roughly five-meter-tall suit.

If the situation had not been so serious, I might have laughed.

“Fine. Let me explain. That kind of magic tracks threats. Any one of us has destroyed more monsters than any single missile has.”

“The enemy won’t lose us in the chaos, and he won’t let us go when his troops are only one or two streets away. We had to use the tunnel to stay hidden.”

“Brothers and sisters, could we maybe have less arguing and more helping?” I broke the angry silence after their brief clash. “I’m about to lose it over here, and you two are bickering like a married couple.”

“Shut up!”

“Shut up!”

“Yeah, because identical reactions definitely don’t make you seem married. What’s next? Finishing each other’s sentences?”

They both flinched back, out of anger, annoyance, embarrassment, or some messy combination of the three.

I went on, and every hint of levity left my voice. “If the two of you die because you were too busy blaming each other to help, I swear I will get an ability that resurrects you as conscious zombies.”

Fine. Maybe I was frustrated and angry too. In my defense, holding up a tunnel roof for long enough to let them keep fighting was extremely annoying.

“Now focus. How do we get out of here without getting our heads crushed by rocks, and once we’re out, how do we deal with the artillery and demons?”

“I can fuse the stones together with heat…” Chi Li began, only for Cheng Rui to cut her off almost immediately.

“The fumes would choke us to death. There’s too much asphalt in the rubble. Breathing the smoke from melting all that would be worse than sticking your face next to a truck exhaust pipe.”

He thought for a moment, looked at his damaged and half-buried armor, then sighed.

“I was going to repair this, but… if you give me twenty minutes, maybe twenty-five, to recover mana, I should have enough to reshape some of the debris into a wall.”

“I don’t know how strong it would be under normal conditions, but with my skill boosts, it should hold for a while.”

He leaned against his armor and closed his eyes.

With my enhanced senses, I could see his arms trembling faintly.

“The problem is, I’ll only have the inner protective suit left, and my mana will be empty. No weapons. No ability to manufacture or repair things. No heavy armor. Considering what’s happening above…”

“I can keep us safe,” Chi Li offered, with a trace of her old uncertainty.

“Us” might not have been the pronoun she had first intended to use.

“This battle didn’t exhaust me. If anything, drawing in the enemy’s power restored me completely. In twenty minutes, I can make a few magical items that will be useful.”

“While you’re doing that, I might as well keep holding this up,” I said, and my long-suffering tone earned narrowed eyes from both of them.

Clearly, my friends had no sense of humor.

“I can also get us out of the collapsed tunnel if I have to.”

For several reasons, however, I hoped I would not have to.

I supposed only time would tell.