LIGHTNOVELSTORY Chapter 224: Collapsing bridge
Atlan moved forward with the swaying suspension bridge step by step. As he advanced, he heard the sound of the rope twisting and stretching as if it were in the limit of its strength.
However, Atlan weighed tens of tons of kilograms, yet he was able to take at least 5 steps into the bridge without it collapsing entirely. If this was a normal bridge, it would have snapped by the first step.
It was easy to conclude that the bridge had magical properties that could not be explained by logic. Despite that, the planks in the bridge kept creaking with each step he took forward as if it was about to break in half.
"Keep on walking," said the bodyguard behind. "It won't fall. It's purely for psychological horror, making you think that it will snap."
Atlan took his words to heart and stopped worrying about the bridge.
Meanwhile, the only one still left on the other side was the tank, Atlan's bodyguard. The sound of bubbling lava inched closer and closer toward him as the tsunami made of magma rushed toward him.
"Damn! I have to move," he said.
He stepped foot on the bridge, making it sway left and right. Atlan lost his footing and his left leg sunk deep into one of the gaps in the wooden planks. Thankfully, he caught himself just in time and was able to pull it back up.
"We have to move, Porter!" The Tank's voice was full of anxiety. He could feel the heat of the lava behind him.
In his desperation, the Tank activated his LifeSkill and created a wall in mid-air just behind Atlan. He then pushed this wall and tried to help Atlan walk through the bridge faster.
But he was shocked to find out that he could not move Atlan by a single inch. The Specialist-realm Tank used all of his power to try and push him forward, but he felt like he was pushing Mount Olympus itself!
The battle suit is that heavy?!
He heard about its immense weight, but it was another thing to witness it himself. He was just pushing it forward, yet he could not make it move a single bit. If he put himself in Atlan's position and tried to bear the weight of the battle suit on his entire body, he would simply collapse.
What kind of monster is this kid?
The fact that Atlan could still walk forward was an impossible task by the Tank's standard. It made him realize why it was only the Star Porter who could complete this mission. If it was any other, they wouldn't even have been able to handle the battle suit alone, much less traverse the dangerous Remedium with it.
"Go ahead of me! I'll be fine," Atlan shouted to the tank behind him.
"Are you crazy?!"
Atlan pointed at his battle suit. "This thing's rated to withstand intense temperatures! Does yours?"
The Tank was hesitant to follow Atlan's suggestion because he was supposed to be the one to protect him.
"Go! He's telling the truth," Ninth shouted from the other side of the bridge.
The Tank gritted his teeth and climbed up the wall that he created. Bricks suddenly came out of nowhere and extended the wall forward, allowing a small walkway above the bridge for the Tank to traverse.
Atlan was left behind, with the tsunami of lava already reaching the bridge.
It won't fall, Atlan reminded himself. The Remedium is designed to challenge my mentality.
At this point, the lava had already reached the wooden bridge and engulfed it in its boiling temperature. It consumed the wooden stake keeping the suspension bridge tethered to the ground.
The bridge snapped as its rope melted into liquid.
The planks slowly fell into the abyss, with their fall only being broken by the sharp stalagmites.
Atlan was about to fall, but Atlan did not panic. Instead, he closed his eyes and took each step forward as he would have if the lava hadn't destroyed the suspension bridge.
As the planks fell, Atlan's feet surprisingly stayed floating in the air.
If one looked closely, they would see that the soles of his battle suit were glowing blue, with strange invisible waves permeating from it.
This was one of the battle suit's gadgets: antigrav boots.
According to Carmine, these boots only served to let Atlan stay in place. This wouldn't allow him to fly in the air but only hover in the same position as he was before.
This saved him from plummeting to the stalagmites, but he wouldn't be able to 'spacewalk' forward. He would find himself simply walking in the air without advancing even a single step.
Carmine compared it to an astronaut stuck in space trying to walk forward and only ended up wasting energy. Atlan didn't understand that analogy, but he understood the principle.
Just then, the tsunami of lava finally engulfed Atlan's entire body into boiling, liquid rock.
Luckily for the rest of the team, there seemed to be an invisible wall that the lava could not cross over. The tsunami reached 50 feet in the air and collided with the invisible wall.
Some of the lava flowed back, but most of them sunk into the abyss down below, creating a pool of bubbling lava.
Atlan's bodyguard stomped the ground in anger. "I shouldn't have left him alone! I'll come get him."
But just as he was about to jump into the pool of lava below, Ninth grabbed his shoulder and stopped him.
"Look," she said.
As the lava slowly descended into the abyss, the team slowly saw that a small mound of lava stayed in place where the bridge was supposed to be.
Slowly, the lava dripped down this 'mound' to finally reveal Atlan's body, completely unharmed from the boiling lava that engulfed his entire battlesuit.
As it turned out, a protective bubble appeared on his body as soon as his suit detected the heat of the lava. It protected him from being boiled alive.