There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 497 - 490. Blitzkriegs

"Alright, we’re done!" Dheera said cheerfully as she let go of Gus’s hand at the end of the guiding session.

They couldn’t do it like Zein, who could cleanse the espers completely even in the middle of a mission, but at least, they could lower everyone’s corrosion level to a green. frёewebηovel.cѳm

"Thank you, Missy," Gus smiled and wore his glove again, before turning toward Kei, who had been pressing his ears against the ground. "How is it?"

"Not far," she lifted her face. "It seems like a big chamber--way bigger than the one we’ve been before."

A while ago, the old hard Stone Eater’s system ended--to Han Shin’s dread--and they ended up in a newer system where the mucus was only there for a few days at most. This meant the Specter used the Stone Eater to make a new path toward the base, which was a piece of bad, bad news.

"D-do you sense the w--that?" Han Shin shuddered even as he asked.

"You don’t need to be in the middle of battle anyway," Gus patted the healer’s back. "Stay in the tunnel with the guides."

"Right," Han Shin nodded swiftly, taking Leehan’s and Dheera’s hands. "I’ll do just that."

The guides giggled and patted the horrified healer’s arms. Beneath that small laugh, however, there was an unavoidable anxiety and tension that the others also felt.

This would be their last ’rest’ before the eventful battle. Kei had sensed their presence, which meant the beasts were only less than a kilometer away. To minimize the chance of interruption from being found out, they decided to attack immediately.

Not that they had any time to do it.

From the scout’s calculation, the tunnel was already beneath the jungle they traversed before, very close to the base. The path for the past few hours also gradually went uphill, showing that they were approaching the surface. Looking at this, the big chamber seemed to be the gathering place before they proceeded to surface right beneath the base, under the land merely protected by the purification device instead of the shard.

The fact that those beasts still gathered in the chambers was good news, but that also meant they were about to do the attack, and that they didn’t have much time.

Kei took a deep breath and glanced at the squad. "Let’s go."

They nodded wordlessly, readily, and started to move. This time, they paced themselves so everyone could move together, and the damage dealer didn’t waste unnecessary energy. But perhaps because they had been running through tunnels for days, the hundreds of meters distance ended quick, and they could see the slightly wider exit.

Along with the sound that they had become familiar with after three months in the Deathzone; the sound of hundreds of beasts congregating together.

"It’s only slightly smaller than the tree fortress valley," Kei told them while running her hands through the tunnel’s wall. "Hari, Carra!"

The support magicians took out their staffs and started to chant even as they ran; Carra pointed her staff to the espers, while Hari directed his spell toward the exit. Black fog that hardly got noticed in the darkness spilled out toward the chambers and spread between the gathering beasts that were busy howling and growling impatiently as they waited for an order to move. Perhaps because their focus had been on the path in front of them, as well as the giant walking stone leading the charge, they didn’t even realize the curse seeping into their mind.

It affected the smallest of them all at first; the minions, the low levels. Their eyes gleamed and, when they turned their head to look at their kin, they suddenly hissed and attacked the one near them. The chaos wasn’t noticeable at first, since there were a lot of them. Ben when the curse of confusion started to affect the simple-minded trolls, the destruction became palpable.

The giant stone in front made an angry, creaking sound, and turned its heavy head to the back of the line, thinking some of the stupid beasts were making trouble again. What it saw, however, was a small light shooting toward the center of the ceiling. The light expanded, glowing brighter and brighter before exploding into hundreds of lights that mercilessly fell toward the surprised beasts, piercing their unfortunate heads.

Not all that got pierced were dead, but between the rain of lights and the curse of confusion, almost half of the force was annihilated or compromised. The giant stone--the Specter--roared in anger. It turned around and stomped its way toward the passage where they came from, unconsciously crushing the beasts around it.

With a loud creaking sound, the Specter hurled blackened stones toward the passage. To its dismay, the stones shattered into pieces that flung toward the other beasts instead of the few strange presences it felt inside the tunnel. It was about to hurl another batch of poisonous stones when two figures emerged behind the shattered rocks, dashing toward the growling Specter.

"Just focus on the Specter," Kei spoke into the headpiece. "Naoya, snipe anyone heading toward the Specter."

"What about the one coming over here?" Naoya asked while taking a stationary position behind the barrier Julian put in the passage’s mouth. He put on his targeting monocle and poured his mana into the bow, creating an elemental arrow.

Kei took out her throwing knives from her tool belt. "Do you take me as a joke?"

Naoya chuckled and focused back on the battlefield, clearing the space around the giant stone and two fleas annoying it. Unfortunately, the ones around the Specter were mostly the commander class, so they couldn’t be taken down with a normal arrow. He took a deep breath and relaxed his shoulder, releasing the electric arrow while asking the people at the back.

"Can you still guide me?"

"I can," Leehan nodded and scooted forward, touching the archer’s neck without hesitation.

"Thank you," Naoya increased the input of mana into his arrow with relief. "Stay hidden behind me."

Leehan nodded and started to guide the archer. Carra kept recasting the buff for the espers, and Hari spread curse after curse while the scout who usually stayed behind was fleeting here and there to get rid of the minions rushing toward the passage.

Usually, they were saving their prowess and managing their skill usage sparingly. But there was no leeway to do that this time, with so many beasts, a Specter, and no Bassena. Unconsciously, they treated the battle as if it was their last one and gave their all.

Fortunately, they had the initiative and managed to eliminate a lot of the forces before they made their presence known, so except for the Specter, the beasts were relatively easy.

Relatively; if they compared it to the time they stepped into a trap.

But gradually, the number of the beasts dwindled just like the amount of mana the espers had. They still had mana regeneration serums, however, so they weren’t feeling in a pinch yet. In the middle of the messy battlefield, Zhan and Gus even managed to destroy one of the Specter’s stone arms.

"Haa... haha..." Zhan grinned with a panted breath. "It’s definitely doable, right?"

"Hey, I told you not to speak in the middle of--"

Before Gus could finish his words, the Specter howled at its destroyed arm. The chamber shook like an earthquake and the scattered stone whirled around, almost like the sand tornado they experienced before.

"Ugh--"

The warriors jumped back to avoid the swirling stones that started to form beneath the Specter’s severed shoulder, and Gus couldn’t help the plethora of curses coming out of his mouth.

"Uhh...sorry?" Zhan laughed wryly.

If there was one good thing from this, however, it was that the quake also made the other beasts stumble, and some were even trapped between cracking ground. That being said, the moment they stood up again, the beasts seemed to be retreating. Not to help the Specter, but to hide behind it instead.

"I can’t snipe them from here," Naoya said; taking the time to manage his breath and the dizziness from rapidly losing mana.

Kei jumped back to the passage where the rest of the squad were. "Can you still go? Do you need guiding?" she asked the warriors, and they gave her thumbs up, which put them in a bit of a relief. "Just focus on the Specter’s cor--ugh!"

Another quake suddenly hit them again. It felt different this time, however, and didn’t seem like it came from the Specter. While they were questioning what happened, Han Shin suddenly asked with a trembling voice.

"Umm...guys? Where’s the worm?"

Kei blinked and looked up. "Ah..."

With a loud, exploding sound, a section of the ceiling broke and a creature as big as a train emerged with a grotesque, open maw that got Han Shin’s blood frozen. The sound of Specter’s howl and the Stone Eater’s shriek filled the chamber, and the giant, living excavator train rushed to the wall behind the Specter and the beast, crushing through the hard surface like a fish swimming through water.

The beasts, who seemed to be retreating earlier, immediately ran inside the newly created hole, following the giant worm.

"Ah, shit..."

There was no question as to where they were headed.