Earth's Alpha Prime

Chapter 281  1st Raid Team’s Crisis

Jay and Seath hurried to where Rex and the rest of the 2nd Raid Party had gathered, reaching them in no time. Rex, already briefed on the crisis involving the 1st Raid Team, wasted no time in organizing the group. He attempted to activate the Space Platform, hoping to establish a connection with the neighboring Trial Region. However, his efforts were futile—the platform remained unresponsive.

As Jay and Seath arrived, they saw members of the 3rd Raid Party emerging from the Obelisk, the same group that had come out shortly after Jay had taken Seath with him. Now, over 100 individuals formed a disciplined crowd near the Space Platform, their faces set with tension. At the forefront stood Rex, along with Tyuk, Pompa, Vorqen, and Vral, all waiting expectantly for Jay to address the situation.

Jay approached the Space Platform and conducted his own inspection. It didn't take long for him to confirm that the connection between their platform and the one in the Trial Zone where the 1st Raid Party was stationed had been severed. MJ had confirmed his worst fears: a small army of locals, acting with calculated precision, had destroyed the platform to trap the 1st Raid Party, preventing any chance of escape.

The entire crowd was on edge, already aware that the Alpha Chosen from the neighboring Trial Region had allied against them, determined to keep any outsiders from setting foot in their territory. But their efforts didn't stop with sabotaging the platform—they had now set out to capture every last member of the 1st Raid Party. Their motives remained shrouded in mystery, leaving an unsettling sense of dread.

Jay sank into thought, the weight of the situation bearing down on him. The distance between their location and the 1st Raid Party was staggering. Even if someone could travel at the speed of sound, the journey would still take a grueling 80 hours. With each Trial Zone stretching 100 kilometers in width, and a thousand such zones spanning the region, the total distance between the center of one Trial Region to another was a mind-numbing 100,000 kilometers (62,137 miles). The sheer scale of the problem loomed large, and Jay knew time was slipping away.

Jay and Seath moved swiftly, their urgency apparent, heading straight toward where Rex and the rest of the 2nd Raid Party had assembled. In no time, they arrived at the site. Rex, having already been informed about the troubling events with the 1st Raid Team, had quickly rallied the others. Without hesitation, he had attempted to activate the Space Platform in hopes of establishing a link with the neighboring Trial Region. Yet, despite his best efforts, the platform stubbornly refused to connect.

Moments after Jay and Seath arrived, more reinforcements emerged. Members of the 3rd Raid Party, who had exited the Obelisk just after Jay had taken Seath, joined the gathering. Soon, a large, organized crowd of about 100 individuals had formed, the air thick with apprehension. Tension rippled through the assembly as eyes turned to Rex, Tyuk, Pompa, Vorqen, and Vral, who stood at the forefront, awaiting instructions. All of them looked to Jay, their unspoken questions hanging in the air.

Jay stepped forward and examined the Space Platform himself. After a brief but thorough inspection, he confirmed what Rex had already suspected—the platform's connection to the Trial Zone where the 1st Raid Party was stationed had been completely severed. MJ's subsequent confirmation made the gravity of the situation even clearer: a small army of locals had methodically dismantled the Space Platform, cutting off any chance of escape for the 1st Raid Party. The move was cold and calculated, designed to trap them within enemy territory.

The rest of the group, already briefed on the emerging threat, knew that the Alpha Chosen from the neighboring Trial Region had formed a coalition, a unified front bent on keeping any foreign contenders out of their domain. Yet, the locals' actions went far beyond mere territorial defense. With the Space Platform destroyed, they had mobilized, moving in to capture every last member of the 1st Raid Party. The motivations behind this aggressive stance were still unclear, leaving the group to speculate about their true intentions. Jay, feeling the weight of the situation, fell into deep contemplation. The distances involved were staggering, and the logistics of mounting a rescue seemed nearly insurmountable. To reach the location where the 1st Raid Party had been stranded would take an incredible amount of time. Even with the ability to travel at the speed of sound, it would still require an exhausting 80 hours of constant travel. Each Trial Zone spanned 100 kilometers in width, and with a thousand such zones spread across a Trial Region, the distance between the center of one region and another stretched to a mind-boggling 100,000 kilometers (62,137 miles).

If not for the use of the Space Platforms to traverse from one Trial Region to another, they would have barely made it through a few regions in the past nine days. The sheer expanse of the Trial World was overwhelming, and conventional travel methods would have been painstakingly slow. Jay had been strategic in utilizing the advantage of MJ's ability to control corpse-integrated monsters, who remained on the Trial World during the mandatory 18-hour rest period that followed every 24 hours of the Trial Proigram. With the Trial World's days being four times longer than a standard Earth day, the rest period effectively stretched to a full 72 hours within the Trial World.

Jay had capitalized on that time advantage by sending the Storm Eagle, one of the fastest corpse-integrated monsters, to other Trial Regions. Its task had been to plant Space Platforms in strategic locations, drastically reducing travel time. That tactic had allowed them to move across vast distances in a fraction of the time it would have taken otherwise. Without that advantage, it would have taken them what felt like an eternity just to cross even a small portion of the Trial World's colossal landscape.

With the Space Platform between them and the 1st Raid Party destroyed, Jay found himself staring at a grim reality. Reaching the stranded team, or sending reinforcements, would be near impossible through conventional travel methods. The distance was too great, and the situation was too dire to wait for slow methods of transport.

The only feasible option was for someone from the 1st Raid Party to set up a new Space Platform—but Jay had little hope in that happening. The attackers had moved with precision and purpose. It was highly unlikely they would allow the 1st Raid Party any chance to set up a new platform.

Jay's mind raced as he weighed his options, none of them promising. With no way to bridge the distance in time, he called for MJ. His voice cut through the tense atmosphere as he asked his Soul AI for an update on the 1st Raid Party's situation, he needed to know exactly what they were up against. ≿━━━━━━༺❀༻━━━━━━≾

Author Note: Exclusive artwork for every free chapter is now available on my PATRE0N page! You can find the link in my Discord server.

I'm thrilled to share that I'm taking a big leap forward! Alongside Earth's Alpha Prime, I've launched the first sub-book for EAP.

ALTER REALITY: Online

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The first ten to comment for new chapter releases will get '1 ADVANCED CHAPTER' for free on Earth Alpha Prime's Discord server.

In the discord server, I opened a private channel for those Top 10 candidates, where I posted the respective Advanced Chapter.

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