There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 472 - 465. Wound and Reality

"Gaah!" Gus coughed as he was flung toward a boulder--not by the beast, but by the storm of miasma surrounding the berserking beast.

He felt pain traveling through his spine as blood spurted out of his mouth, and then again, pain shot as his injury was being mended. Fuck--was there really no method of healing without pain?

Still, he was grateful for the immediate response, and got on his feet again. As he looked around, he saw a lot of espers getting flung back too. Everything happened so suddenly, and they were in the middle of a dense battlefield where there was barely any place to get away. Even the minion beasts got swept in the storm of miasma surrounding their commanders, getting crushed and shredded in the process.

But Gus couldn’t be happy about it--it would be better to just face a whole bunch of minions rather than a strengthened boss. One was okay, two was exciting, but sixteen?

No--Ashur and Zhan managed to kill two before this sudden miasma wave happened, so it was fourteen.

Like that made any difference.

"Get back!" Ashur shouted as he jumped back himself, before sending his white saber horizontally above him, as if piercing the sky.

Those who hadn’t been flung back immediately retreated from the battlefield, and they heard Iore shouted from the back.

"Firewall! Lightning volley!"

At the border of the battlefield, dozens of fire and lightning spells rained down the land, creating a curtain of magic that prevented the beasts from charging forward.

"Those with serious injury and corrosion in orange level--go back," Ashur ordered as he stabbed all of his armament in front of him like a fence. "Defenders--take Banner and Ike’s place."

As the troops changed shifts, Ashur stared hard at the seemingly endless beasts in front and the creatures kept coming to attack the back line. They were trapped and surrounded, and they would have been long gone if it wasn’t for the guides’ presence. Even during the worst dungeon raid like, he did not remember ever facing this many beasts at once. Thankfully, Bassena was keeping the most dangerous one out of the way, and kept destroying the middle rank of the beast’s troop.

Eerily, he realized that this was only a small part of the creatures residing in Deathzone, and they were only at the beginning.

"Why are you laughing, Ashur?" Zhan asked with a wide grin on his face, even if he was scowling and panting.

"Who knows?" Ashur chuckled wryly. "My heart is pounding so much. Do you think it’s fear or excitement?"

"Both?" the Spearman grinned while tapping his loudly beating heart. "Yeah, both."

As the two warriors laughed at themselves, the backline was busy with healing and guiding. "I’ll take care of the wounds above third grade, so focus on the small injury," Han Shin instructed the healers, while Zein was busy managing the guides.

In the middle of an intense battlefield, there was not much leeway for the espers to mind their skill management. Enemies came from all sides, and every time they slain one, another jumped at them. At that point, it was more survival than conquest, and a lot of them came back highly corroded. And that did not include the supports and long-range dealers.

Since Zein had been guiding the defenders, he told the other guides to take care of the support magicians and the long-ranged dealers, while he took care of the rest of the espers. This was a scenario that even made him shed cold sweat; the kind of battle that should only happen when all of the Operation’s troops had already come to the Deathzone and he had all of his guides in command.

Alas--they never thought a war had to be waged so suddenly like this.

Thankfully, the espers whose corrosion level spiked were mostly the ones with the lowest stars. Still, the lowest of these advance troops were three-star espers, so Zein couldn’t help but worry about his endurance. No matter what, he still had a limit. The only reason he fared fairly better was the bracelet Elena gave him.

He should have really picked out a more expensive present.

The beasts didn’t give them much time to refract, however, and soon, the wall of magic was breached. Sacrificing their kins to bear the brunt of the magic, the beasts charged forward with glowing red eyes. The only thing in their system right now was rushing toward the humans’ back line.

Naturally, the same mission was etched inside the wights and the lesser specters attacking the backline from the marsh. Julian and Naoya were doing their best to defend the line, and thanks to them, only one or two managed to get past--which immediately got taken care of by the recovering Ron.

That being said, the moment Ashur called back the espers to the front line, and the guiding process finally came to a halt, he got the guides paired up and crouched against each other back.

"Shield on--grab your weapons if you want," Zein told the guides. He could see that the beast minions started to dwindle, although the commanders were getting stronger. But it means the battle had reached its peak, and probably, there wouldn’t be any more retreat for cleansing after this--unless someone got into a high red.

For the guides, all they needed to do was survive. Zein could see they were nearing their limits; the eyes behind the goggles were starting to get unfocused and decorated with dark circles--especially Dheera, who had the smallest vessel.

"Just focus on guarding yourself," Zein told them firmly. "Don’t look at the battlefield, just watch your surroundings."

"Yes, Captain."

Zein took a deep breath and checked on his own vessel. Considering he needed to reserve some space for emergency near-eruption, he could guide a little bit more. Within the chaotic battlefield, he tried to spot Ashur, Gus, and Zhan--their biggest damage dealers after Bassena. Those were the ones he needed to look out for from now on.

It wasn’t hard to spot them--all he needed to do was look for the biggest commander-class beasts. Four of them had evolved into Boss-class, and each of the three espers faced one while the last Boss-class was handled by another three espers from Hagalaz.

Zein took a deep breath and stepped forward so he could see the three guides clearly. He started with Ashur, who had been facing the biggest boss class--something that at this point looked like an eerie chimera. He just did it enough to make sure the five-star could continue fighting without saving his skill too much.

"Shin, are you good?" Zein turned toward the healer next, who had been running around accepting the injured espers thrown at him.

"I’m fine, there’s no one who had it worse than Ron," Han Shin laughed--although it sounded a bit strained. "Don’t worry--unless someone’s dying, you won’t need to guide me."

"Alright," Zein nodded and shifted his gaze toward Zhan next--who was the worst in skill management among the top espers. He raised his hand toward the spearman, but suddenly felt a cold feeling crawling along his spine.

Dreadfully, he turned back to see a shadowy figure sprouting up from the cracked ground between their feet.

When Zein stepped forward to guide the warriors, he had left the guides behind, crouching on their own. He had thought it was safe enough, seeing Naoya and Ron getting rid of the wights and the lesser specters. Julian also dutifully put up a barrier at the edge of the marsh, but no one expected those creatures to crawl from the cracks beneath their feet.

Unfortunately enough, one of those cracks was situated between the crouching guides.

Zein immediately used all the muscles in his body to move, but at that time, everything felt like a slow motion. In that slow world, he saw with dread as the lesser specter raised its cursed arms toward a shocked Leehan.

Thud! With a dull sound, the specter’s arms struck the guide’s frantically raised self-activating mana shield. In the next second, as the creature hissed in disappointment, it was hit with several mana bullets from almost a blank range. The bullets came out frantically, and the shooter kept firing in panic until the mana stone inside the gun drained.

With an empty gun, Dheera’s arms trembled and she stumbled back as her legs lost their power. The lesser specter shrieked at the pain spreading all over its body, and its invisible eyes glared at the girl. But before it could make any move, a dagger pierced its head. The next moment, the dagger pierced even deeper as another pair of hands pushed the dagger forward. Dean and Brisk gritted their teeth and roared as they pushed the dagger all the way through, shattering a small dark purple crystal on the creature’s head.

Another shrill voice filled the space before the shadowy figure popped--vanished like dust.

Zein’s eyes fluttered as he stopped on his track. Five seconds--he was two steps away. He stared at the guides, who were breathing heavily and shaking all over. Dheera, especially, had tears seeping out of her goggles.

Swiftly, Zein grabbed the girl and pulled her into his embrace. "It’s okay, you did good," he grabbed the other guides and pulled them into him protectively, as he spread a soothing, calming sensation to their mind. "You’re brave, you’re good, I’m proud of you."

Dheera clutched the older guide’s clothes and cried, letting out the tears and the fears she could no longer hide.

"It’s okay, it’s going to end soon," Zein said as he clutched all of the guides tightly and looked forward.

There was a screeching scream of pain from the other side of the field, and a giant snake rising high in the air. The fact that he could see all the way to the end of the field only meant one thing;

"It’s going to end soon."