Adam, reeling from his near-death experience, looked at Lyra in disbelief. Lyra, noticing his shock, calmly explained her calculated move.
She knew Serbas's ego would lead him to believe he'd won, providing the perfect distraction for her to use the teleportation scroll without him noticing. If she'd tried to access it while he was watching, they would have been instantly killed. She deliberately told Adam to run to divert Serbas's attention.
Lyra's analysis revealed that the area was a sealed circle, designed by Serbas to trap and seal their powers before devouring them. However, he didn't intend to kill them immediately; he wanted the artifact first.
The sealing process took a few seconds to register, giving her just enough time to stall him with her gravity magic. Adam expressed his immense gratitude, acknowledging that without Lyra, he wouldn't have survived to save Emily.
Lyra responded with unwavering devotion, saying she would willingly sacrifice her body to save both him and Emily. She gently cupped Adam's face, urging him to regain his composure.
The Current Predicament
Lyra then laid out their grim reality. The surrounding area was swarming with zombies and mana-evolved variants, their lives still at grave risk. Adam's duplicates, teleportation, dimension abilities, and magic spells were all sealed, as were their armors, a consequence of fighting Serbas in his trap.
With Adam's duplicates gone, there was no one guarding the human territory, leaving its safety under Vlad's unconfirmed protection.
Their only remaining assets were the universal tool and the mana armor core. The mana armor core, Lyra noted, possessed infinite mana, which could be used for mana manipulation to reduce fatigue, their sole advantage in this power-drained state.
Lyra deduced that Serbas was unable to leave the sealed area, meaning they were safe from him for now. Their immediate priority was to gather necessities before attempting to return to the human territory.
Adam inquired about the distance to the human territory. Lyra informed him it was too far to travel on foot, taking months without a flying vehicle. Their current location was in the southeast of the continent, while the human territory was in the far northwest.
The office building they were on contained enough supplies to last a few days. They needed to minimize interaction with zombies and variants to conserve energy.
Adam remarked that it felt like the old days, surviving in the Unknown Lands.
Lyra offered comfort, "This time, I am here physically to be with you."
Adam and Lyra are in a dire situation: stranded in a zombie-ridden, power-nullifying zone, with all their major abilities sealed by Serbas.