It was normal to ask such a question since the surface above them was nothing but sand and sand. Since the ceiling was dark, it only meant that it was locked.

This drove Felix to believe that when they reach it, it would open up automatically. But, when that happens, they would be buried under tons of sand.

Not mentioning the inconvenience of experiencing it, Felix was more worried about getting spotted by creating such large activity.

'At least, we will be invisible.' Felix looked at Malissa and requested, 'Please fly ahead of us and scout the ceiling.'

'On it.'

Malissa unfolded her bat wings and flew rapidly above them. In less than five seconds, she was already touching the metallic grey ceiling.

She scanned it with her bracelet and the Queen gave her its details. Upon seeing that the materials were breakable easily by them, she went to relay the Intel back.

'That's good, if the ceiling refuses to open up after we reach 5 meters away from it, I want you to break it apa...'

Creeek!

Before Felix could finish his order, the ceiling began opening up slowly from the center.

'Prepare for impact!' Malak said while creating a fire cover above them.

Those with mass defensive abilities also used them to protect the team from the incoming waves of sand.

However, the expected sand didn't fall, instead, they were welcomed by the bright light of a sunny day and a blue clear sky!

'The hell?'

'How is it possible?! Where is the sand?'

Everyone was baffled and stunned by the sight. They turned to Felix, believing that he might know what's going on but he was just as confused as them.

But, he didn't need to think too deeply about it as they were about to reach the surface in few seconds and clear their confusions.

'Samir we are about to emerge prepare to retrieve us.' Felix informed after breaking out of his confused state.

'Understood.'

Out of nowhere, the cubic silver Northern Sentinel had emerged in their line of sight, making them realize that the sky wasn't an illusion as some of them thought.

Before they dove deeper into this thought, the platform had surfaced on the golden desert, making them look around with a dazed expression.

They even spotted the pirates' spaceships in the distance aiming their brightened guns at the ruins.

'Samir, I believe we are out, can you see us?' Felix asked weirdly.

'You guys are out?'

Samir asked with a dumbfounded expression while watching a hologram that was spotted at the exact position of the elevator.

He could see the moving red dots representing their AP bracelets. But, that's it!

The sand in their position wasn't touched or moved, ensuring him that it was impossible for them to be outside.

'Yes, and weirdly we are still moving upward.' Felix inquired, 'Can't you see at least the platform we are standing on?'

'No. I am seeing only an untouched desert in your place.' Samir responded.

'This only means that the entire platform and the elevator are actually erected on the surface as well but was camouflaged by an illusion.'

Felix reasoned calmly, having some confidence in his guess due to the multiple illusionary experiences he met in the ruins.

It was clear that the researcher had a way to create permanent illusions. If he could use them inside the ruins, then it was only natural to do it for his escape route.

As for the reason why the platform was still going up and up?

Felix believed it was done like this to combat sand from filling the elevator every time it opens up!

'This means the pirates can't see us as well.' Felix ordered, 'Retrieve us now, we will discuss everything inside the spaceship.'

Felix already had some guesses but it wasn't time to deal with them.

'Queen send invisible scouting aircraft to pick them up.'

Samir requested while switching his focus on the pirate's spaceships, who seemed to not have noticed anything out of place.

After all, his spaceship was currently sitting at hundreds of meters in the sky and multiple kilometers away from the ruins.

Since the pirates' spaceships were above them, the Northern Sentinel's gigantic size managed to hide the small invisible aircraft from being spotted by their surveillance system.

Even Felix and the rest were under this umbrella, making it almost impossible to see them even if they didn't drink invisibility potions.

Thud!

Meanwhile, the platform carrying Erik and the rest finally stopped after reaching 20 meters above the surface.

This time, no one bothered to ask questions as the moment the aircrafts reached them, they picked their designated one and took off towards the spaceship.

It didn't take even two minutes before all of them had successfully ventured into their spaceship successfully!

'At last, we reached safety.' Malak sighed in relief just like the rest.

They finally could relax a little from such a stressful expedition. The idea of being buried with ruins was too dreadful.

"Welcome back guys." Samir's delighted voice resounded from the radio of each aircraft.

"We couldn't have done it without you guys." Felix praised sincerely, "Truly a remarkable performance."

"Thank you sir!"

"Sir Felix, you better get in the cockpit as fast as possible." Declan wiped his sweaty forehead and said, "There are only 30 seconds left before we receive another call from those scum."

"Hahaha, no need to rush." Felix laughed with a cold expression, "Now that we are out, they better forget about the deal and focus on saving themselves."

Malak, Erik, and the rest all showed murderous looks after hearing so.

There was so much anger held within them, ready to burst at any moment. Anger resulted from the pirates, the ruins' dangers, and most importantly, Momo's betrayal.

They have the perfect outlet to vent on.

...

In a short moment, the squad could be seen sitting in their chairs in the cockpit with Samir and Declan.

Only Momo wasn't with them as he was locked inside his room after forcing him to wear another AP bracelet.

He would be dealt with after taking care of the pirates.

"Why haven't they contacted us yet?" Samir wondered as he glanced at the radio.

"Because they don't want to destroy the ruins." Felix snickered, "They gave us 5 minutes to make a decision before they fire. Because of Declan's efforts, they probably bought the fact that we are willing to make a deal. So, they thought that 5 minutes should be enough to pressure us and also avoid giving us time to escape from the hole."

"He is right, they are more desperate to get the treasures than us. Now, they don't know if they should continue with their threat or contact us to renegotiate." Malissa giggled.

"I would pay anything to see their expressions right now." Khodri laughed.

Sure enough, Captain Roger and the rest had dark lines on their foreheads as they kept waiting impatiently for the call to arrive.

Alas, two minutes had gone by after the deadline yet nothing was heard from the other side.

"Captain...Do we continue waiting?" A bit scared, Liam asked with a soft voice, knowing Captain Roger was seething currently.

"Call them." Captain Roger tightened his grip to hold his fury within and said, "We will extend another offer and give them 5 more minutes to consider it. If they refused it, don't hesitate to destroy the ruins! We don't know for sure when the squad would leave the ruins."

"Understood."

Liam swiftly sent a request to make contact with the Northern Sentinel. When Samir received it, he inquired, "Sir Felix, do I accept it?"

Felix nodded his head and said, "I want everyone to be silent. Declan, they are going to propose another offer. What you need to do is reject it and say that the captain told you that he would rather die in the ruins then given them a single dime."

"But, isn't that going to provoke them into destroying the ruins?" Declan asked with a confused look.

"That's exactly what I wants." Felix narrowed his eyes, "It's going to be hard for us to continue our exploration without a slime to check traps and illusions. So, we can only postpone it for later."

"However, the pirates would most definitely sell the coordinates if just one or two spaceships managed to escape." Felix said.

"I see!" Malak's eyelids rose as she added, "Since they neither know about the tunnel nor the Strucrase material, they would assume that they had killed us and also destroyed any other chance of  getting those treasures. So, the coordinates wouldn't be as valuable."

"Exactly!"

Felix's scheme was more of a precaution taken if they failed to kill all the pirates before they send coordinates to someone else.

Now that it was taken care of, Felix shushed them with his finger and gave permission for Samir to accept the call.

"Are you playing with me, you degenerate slave?!" The first thing that resounded in the cockpit was Captain Roger's furious roar!