There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 485 - 478. Tower Defense (2)

"It’s a jinx! It must be!" Gus yelled while striking the Specter’s shield with his heavy sword after he heard the blare of alarm from the other side of the base. "It must be yours again!"

Zhan grinned wryly, recalling how he callously said ’what? just this one?’ when he saw the Specter chasing the tracking team. At this point, even he thought he had it.

"Can’t we just ban him from speaking from now on?" Naoya grunted while letting go of his arrows to counter the miasma projectiles the Specter hurled at them.

"Hey, that’s against my human rights!"

"Can’t you people just shut up?!" Senia stomped her foot to the ground--yes, to unleash a spell that made the Specter lose a footing, but also to express her annoyance.

Zhan jumped out of the spell path and pursed his lips. "I’m not taking anything from someone who’s useless just a moment ago!"

"S-Shut up! Wait until you can’t attack with anything but magic! Hmph!"

Bassena rolled his eyes and smacked the back of Senia’s head. "All of you shut up and focus on attacking."

"Ouch?!" Senia turned to glare at the Saint class. "Why are you only hitting me? They are the ones being noisy!" she pointed at the other espers and stomped her feet again--this time only for her annoyance. "And that ghosty thing is the noisiest!"

"You’re yelling too," Bassena said nonchalantly while taking out an earpiece and putting it in his ear before smirking at the girl. "And you’re the nearest."

Senia parted her lips, probably wanting to hurl all kinds of expletives. But the man was her commander now and her favorite guide loved him so all she could do was scream in frustration and make a mess of the ground around the Specter. "Aaargh!"

"Hey--we’re here too!"

"We just paved this ground, Goddamn it!"

"I told you to be quiet," Bassena roared at the field--enough to even make the Specter stop shrieking for a moment. "Do it quietly; I have a call to be made."

"How unreasonable!" Senia protested.

But still, she pressed her lips and unleashed her skill without saying anything. The others too, stopped conversing and focused on the Specter, letting Bassena call the command center in peace.

"Kei, give me the situation."

[It’s a horde over here] the scout replied immediately. [The one at the front looks like moles--might be another colony from the hills the clean-up crew destroyed the other day]

Bassena raised his brow. "Revenge?"

Was the beasts capable of such a concept?

[Does it matter? There were hounds in the back, and some ogres--I think it’s the leftover beasts around here, Commander] Kei paused and Bassena could hear a vague sound of someone else’s voice informing the scout about something. [Oh, something’s coming from the sky too]

Bassena glanced at the distant sky. It was hard to discern inside the Deathzone’s dark canopy, but he could make out a black cloud of steel-clad murder--flocks of crows with plumes that could turn into steel projections. They weren’t very strong, but the steel bombing was destructive.

Was they on the move because they saw the tower? Bassena wondered as he glanced at the shards. The beasts wouldn’t be able to come inside the safe zone, but dropping their weapons inside was another matter. Perhaps... were the hordes only there to make them too busy countering the crows?

"Still yellow?"

[Yes]

"That side is in the direction of where we came from, right?"

[The marsh and the hill, yes. We’re waiting for your order]

From the timing, people would think the horde was following the clean-up crew. But Bassena knew for a fact that the clean-up team made a detour after reaching the edge of the forest, looking for an alternative route that might have better accessibility--scouring the jungle instead of following the river.

That means these beasts were not following the clean-up crew. Perhaps even...running from something; a migration, and the base was on their way.

"Put the espers on standby, and send those not in combat indoors," Bassena waved his hands and deflected the Specter’s attacks, eyes still on the other towers. "We’ll be using the guns."

Kei paused for two seconds before replying. [For all of them? I don’t think we’ll have enough ammunition or mana]

"Just do it; we need to test our defense system anyway."

[Whatever you say, Commander]

Bassena did not end the call, but he finally shifted his gaze toward the Specter, whose shield had been half destroyed by Gus, Zhan, and Naoya while Senia made sure it couldn’t move anywhere else.

"Alright, let’s get this over with quickly."

* * *

Right after receiving Bassena’s order, Kei went down to the guiding section. "Who have you guided so far, Zein?" she asked while glancing at the queue.

"These ones, Sis!" Dheera readily came with a list in her hand.

Kei perused the paper for a bit before making a local announcement through everyone’s commlink. "Watch duty team two--I repeat, watch duty team two, immediately go to the west tower," she said. "Commencing protocol Tower Defense."

"Seriously?" they called out espers--mainly from the batch Zein had finished guiding, immediately putting their drawn weapons back and turning toward the watchtower.

"With one tower?"

Kei nodded and firmly added. "Commander’s order."

"Oh, well..."

Four espers from around the guiding area dashed toward the western watchtower immediately. Kei continued to make announcements for the rest of the espers--especially the support ones--and the guides to get inside the stadium and stay beneath the tribune. "You can continue your guiding inside, but don’t stay out in the open."

"Steel-clad murders, huh?" Senan nodded and waited for Zein to move.

Zein, however, glanced at the other guides before looking at the scout. "K, let some of my kids in the watchtower to observe the operation. They can guide the ones operating the mana guns too."

Kei raised his brows in surprise--she thought Zein would keep the other guides under a blanket to keep them safe, but...

Was it because it was only a yellow alarm? Or was it because Bassena’s order made the attack seem like it wasn’t a big deal?

Kei didn’t mind, though. Since the gun could be operated by anyone, she felt like the guides should learn how to do it too, for emergencies.

"Alright," she nodded. "What about you?"

"I’ll keep guiding," Zein said before turning toward Eldan. "Bring Dheera and Silva to the watchtower."

"Yes, Young Master."

"Oh!" the two girls perked up and saluted their Captain before following Eldan to the tower.

Kei nudged Zein right away afterward, and pointed at the stadium. "Let’s go. You can stay with me in the command center to watch the camera if you want."

"I appreciate it."

Since there were not many of them anyway, they all finished taking shelter in no time. Of course, ideally, no crow should come close enough to throw anything, but just for precaution. It was also a training for future events, Zein realized. That was why Bassena decided to handle the yellow-level threat with only the base’s capability.

"Captain, what’s protocol Tower Defense?" Leehan asked after they passed the stadium’s inner gate.

"Basically, we let the watchtower’s weapons handle it, and used the traps we set outside the base to handle attacks," Kei explained instead of Zein. "It’s to minimize using esper’s skill--and thus corrosion. Also, there might be a time when all the high-rank personnel are away from the base. In that case, we still need to be able to defend the place without them."

"Or at least until they come back," Zein added.

Once the base was fully established, several exploration squads would be made and sent out to look for the shards, locating Fallen Star’s fragments and Specters, as well as beasts clean-up raids. There would be times when the base was only filled with supporting crews and watchguards, so the base itself needed to have a decent capability to defend itself.

"That being said, using one tower to defend against a horde is kind of risky," Iore commented. Just a group or two was easy, but a lot of targets at once...

Especially in the sky...

"Well...let’s just see how well these expensive weapons perform," Kei shrugged with an easy smirk. If anything happens, Bassena should be able to take care of it.

Zein and Senan followed Kei and Iore to the command tent then; taking the chance to guide the magician while at it. From the several big screens on one side of the tent, they watched the camera view from both towers. The one on the northeastern side didn’t seem to be a problem since several 4-stars and a 5-star were ganging up on the Specter now.

Not surprisingly, Bassena was no longer there, leaving after pummeling the Specter’s shield with a black-scaled hand. Zein thought the Saint class was moving to the other watchtower, but the man suddenly appeared in the command tent.

"What are you doing here?" Zein asked in surprise.

"Watching," Bassena shrugged. And true to his words, he merely stood in front of the screen and watched the proceeding.

The guard teams in the watchtower had divided the firepower into two; the one on the rooftop for the airborne enemies, and the one in the window turret for the grounds. The moment the hordes and the flocks came into range, the espers immediately opened fire.

As expected of the advance squad members, their aim was an art of precision. They shot the crows with a normal gun and cannon at first, and once the birds scattered to dodge the next attack, the mana gun aimed and shot spreading projectiles that homed in several enemy targets at once.

While the airborne battle was the art of precision, the ground battle was a force of destruction. Guns at the ready, what the guards launched first wasn’t gunshots, but landmines. Buried sporadically on the field outside the stone wall of the base was a controllable minefield. They waited until the hordes filled the empty field before detonating it, exploding the frontline as the gun aimed at those who didn’t get blasted.

Funnily enough, some moles that came from underground brought the mines to the surface with their mouth, thinking it was a failed trap. They got blasted and thrown back by the force of the explosion, and the mine in their mouth fell to the intact middle line, shattering the hounds into pieces once the espera detonated the mines.

"Hey, isn’t that pretty nice?" Han Shin, who had just come inside the tent, commented; taking a seat and a bag of potato chips while at it.

"It’ll be better after we deploy the anti-missile system and put on a proper fence," Kei chewed the inside of her mouth. They looked fine now, but the horde’s strongest beasts were still well and advancing.

"It’s fine, we’ll get them soon," Bassena smiled as he looked at something caught in the corner of one of the cameras. "After all, our heavy artilleries are here."

With a surprise, they looked at the screen keenly.

There, emerging from the marsh, were the ones who caused the hordes to frantically make an exodus until they reached the base ’accidentally’.

The arsenal and logistic troops from Althrea.