There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 462 - 455. Fortress of Trees

"Yep--that’s a whole horde, alright."

The advance troop of the Anzus squad looked down from the cliff they came from. Below them, there was a basin filled to the brim with miasmic beasts. Hundreds of them. From small scythe-armed flying squirrels, to ones that were as big as moose. They looked chaotic, but also somewhat orderly. At least, they didn’t fight among themselves and instead, faced a huge wall in front of them--which was on the squad’s left side.

"Kinda looks like undead from up here."

"Ugh--is it bad that I think it’s disgusting?"

"Nope."

Dheera shuddered at the cocktail of miasmic beasts below. It wasn’t just the visual--the sounds they made together were grating; growling, snarling, hissing, screeching, and thumping sounds that were mixed with something otherwordly.

She had her fair share of dungeon experiences, but she had never seen anything like this before. After all, most beasts in the dungeons did not mingle with another kind of beasts, unless they were in a specific mutual symbiosis relationship.

These creatures, however, not only gathered together without fighting, but had their eyes on a specific target.

"Is that the trees?" Carra gasped softly.

Amidst the darkness and the grotesque vision, the ’wall’ felt weirdly alive with its dark brown and green color. The barks of the lining trees fuse together to make an impenetrable fortress, shooting up high into the dark canopy and creating a protective dome of tree fortress.

"We only saw it from below before, but...looking at it from up here, it really is majestic," Han Shin said.

"It might be made of trees, but it’s as hard as metal," Zein said, and as if confirming his words, the sound of clanking metal kept echoing within the basin.

The bipedal creatures at the front had been swinging their bladed hands and pounding at the wall with their weapons or even their bodies. And yet, the wall did not budge even a little bit. Some of the creatures even received injuries from the force of their own attacks.

Indeed, the core was strong.

"Well, they would also get weakened around the fragment’s effect," Zein added.

"Still, there are lots of them," Kei assessed the whole basin. "Almost a thousand, I reckoned. As we expected, there are several commander classes and--"

"A Boss," Zhan and Gus ended the sentence together, bumping their fists as they watched the hulking Ogre that had been roaring command all this time.

"Alright," Bassena stared at the horde trying to break into the tree fortress. The basin was so full of miasmic beasts that there was no place for the rear members to stand safely. Ideally, only the damage dealers and the defenders should go down, but...

Bassena turned to look at the two support magicians. "Can you cast from here?"

"Don’t ask for the impossible, Commander."

Figures.

"I can’t heal from here too," Han Shin chimed in.

"Nor can I guide," Zein added.

"So we all need to go down," Bassena nodded, looking at the sturdy wall of trees. "It’ll be best if we land as close to the wall as possible, but our position is rather at a disadvantage."

Because the Boss was situated between them and the wall, Bassena clicked his tongue and looked straight at the two warriors. "You should do it quickly."

"Against regenerating Boss?" Gus gasped dramatically.

"You have that unhealable skill," Bassena rolled his eyes. "And Carra will focus on debuffing the Boss. Hari, you put your curse on the rest of them. We’ll be using a booster serum instead."

"Woohoo, doping time!" Zhan immediately took out a couple of serum tubes from his storage rings. They were rather similar to the regenerative serum, just with different colors and effects. Just like its name, booster serum increased the taker’s physical ability--a substitute when they had no available support magician on their group.

"Don’t call it that," Gus smacked the back of the Spearman’s head. Again.

Zhan wasn’t completely wrong, however. These boosters, while safe, weren’t as good as a real spell. Ingesting it too much would lower the body’s efficiency in digesting the effect of the serum, so generally, the support magician’s buff was still preferable.

But they needed to be flexible from time to time.

"Can’t you just go nightfall on them, Commander?" Kei asked Bassena.

"Hey, you’re the one saying we shouldn’t use big stuff on small fries!" Zhan protested.

"That’ll put too much burden on Zein," Bassena said. Nightfall, after all, had the highest consumption of mana. "And I might destroy the purple stones we’re trying to get if we use it."

The scout sighed as she glanced at the guides, but Zein was just calmly preparing the other two. "We’ll be going into a horde, so get your shield ready from the start. Where do you need it to be?"

"Heart and head."

"And what about your weapon?"

"It’s a last resource."

"Good," Zein patted the two guides and looked up at the smiling Bassena, before nodding his head. "We’re ready."

"Alright," Bassena nodded. "So here’s what we’ll do..."

* * *

Dheera took a deep breath once again, telling herself over and over that she had been safe from harm these past few days, and today wouldn’t be any different. She looked at her ever-calm Captain, and then at the strong, reliable esper that was crouching at the edge of the cliff and raising his hand.

Yes, it’d be fine.

The air vibrated just slightly, and across the cliff, on the opposite side, a gigantic snake rose; its dark color made it seem like the resident of the Deathzone, and with no suspicion, the sieging troop below let it be until it was hovering above their right flank, and dropped down in the middle of the rank.

The attention of the beasts, who were busy with the unbreakable wall before, was pulled toward the rampaging snake that shredded their side. The General Orge and commander class beasts barked their command to the minions to confront the mad snake.

"Go," Bassena snapped his hand to the left, and several platforms formed from the edge of the cliff to the bottom of the valley.

I’ll distract their attention with an attack, and you’ll use the time to go down

At the same time, several other platforms floated toward the center of the basin, which Gus and Zhan immediately hopped on.

"I see something on the Boss’s necklace," Kei told the warriors before going down the platform.

"Roger!"

You two will go straight to the Boss--look for any purple stone and take it so the fight won’t get prolonged

"Let’s go," Zein nudged the guides and they swiftly followed the scouts down. The platforms were quite far from each other, and they had to jump carefully but swiftly. But Zein had trained them for this, so Dheera and Leehan managed to do it by concentrating hard.

ROAAARR!

Realizing they were under attack, the Boss howled to get the chaotic troop in order again--which made Leehan stumble from surprise. Thankfully, Julian was ready to catch him, and a volley of piercing light illuminated the sky temporarily, halting the beasts’ movement and getting them distracted again.

Below, Kei and Ron immediately got rid of the miasmic beasts around the last platform so the guides and the supports could land safely. As they jumped between platforms, Carra and Hari kept on casting curses and ailments to the horde, which had become so disoriented and chaotic that some even started to attack their kins.

One of the commander class beasts, however, started to notice what happened and turned back toward the sneaking humans behind the rank. Before it could alert the other, however, it was suddenly wrapped in a sticky tape of darkness and yanked off the ground, leaving the minions leaderless and disoriented.

It wasn’t just that one--all commander-class beasts found themselves seized and thrown into the far end of the basin, where the giant snake was waiting with its jagged maw wide open. A different kind of shriek and screeching sound was echoing inside the basin, along with a shuddering, sharp crunching sound.

Of course, not all of these commander-class beasts would go down in one swing. Some managed to rip the strange rope tying and delivering them to the ferocious snake, and some even tried to attack the snake itself, whose scales were sharper than their claws.

But right away, the snake’s Lord came to catch them, as if didn’t want his snake to lose its food, and deliver them inside the shredding machine that was the snake’s stomach with his bare hands.

The leaderless minions ran around aimlessly, looking at the boss of their bosses for pointers; but the General, the Ogre, was busy ’playing’ with two flies jumping around and slicing his tough skin. In the midst of their curse-influenced confusion, some of them didn’t even realize the incoming rain of arrows piercing them to their death.

The Orge howled and growled in frustration as it couldn’t even move from its place to solve the suddenly maddening situation. The two flies attacking it kept targeting its tendon, so even if the Ogre swiftly regenerated the wound, the pain lasted longer and it made the Ogre sluggish. It swung its club wildly in frustration, but the two flies were too nimble for it.

When it felt that more and more of its soldiers met their ends, the Ogre growled deeply and tried to grab its necklace. Right away, however, countless blades sliced its raised armpits, and it shrieked as its arm lost its strength. Before it could regain its bearing, a heavy blow landed on the back of its head. Reflexively, the Ogre turned its head and swung its upper body halfway, but at that time, it suddenly felt its neck getting lighter.

Dazedly, the Ogre realized that its precious necklace had been stolen!

GRAAAAH!!

With an arm still lost power, the Ogre stomped the ground in fury and frustration, swinging its club wildly that it hit its soldiers more than the two annoying flies.

"Ah, it really is harder to hold back," one of the flies, the one with a weapon longer than himself, landed on the mad Ogre’s shoulder while gripping one of its horns. "But now there’s no need to."

The Ogre angrily swung its arm up, but the fly had gone from its shoulder, jumping up above it with a raised weapon glowing in bright red--a color the Ogre hadn’t seen before.

"You won’t heal from this one," the fly spoke, but the Ogre was too amazed by the bright color to care.

Even as its body got chopped into dozens of pieces, its eyes were still looking in wonder at the descending sun it had never seen in its life.