There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 338 - 330. The Missing Thread Found Its Way

Chapter 338: Chapter 330. The Missing Thread Found Its Way

"Miasma?" Darleon frowned, still clutching his son tight. "But he’s not in a high level of corrosion, how could--"

"No," Zein glanced at Radia, and then at someplace they couldn’t see. "The energy structure is different from accumulated miasma in Esper’s body, but it feels familiar."

Radia raised his brow, following the direction Zein looked at. "The Specter’s core?"

Han Shin gasped, and Bassena frowned deeply. Darleon, however, had removed himself from the frontline so much that he was rather out of touch with what was happening in the Sentinel community. The stuff about Specter, while it was unknown to civilians, had been circulating among espers since Trinity released the black gate anomaly recording--the one in which the squad, including Zein, was getting transported to the Deathzone, allegedly.

So the old man just looked at them in confusion. "W-what is that? What do you mean?"

It would be too long to explain everything right now, so Radia just took the important thing. "It’s a force from the Deathzone," he said, before shifting his gaze toward Zein. "I don’t think you mean a specter core is manifesting there, so I presumed you’re talking about the thing influencing him had something to do with the core or the Deathzone."

Zein nodded and then looked back at Varion. The man was mumbling things like he had to use all espers to attack Trinity and kidnap him over and over again. It was disturbing to hear it up close--no wonder Bassena told him to stay away.

But knowing that the man’s condition had something to do with the Deathzone made everything else seem unimportant right now.

"Zein, do you think it happened because he touched a Specter core?" Radia asked, a deep line formed in his forehead.

"What?!"

The implication of that question was big--bigger than they thought it could be. To the public’s knowledge, there was no Specter core being brought out from the dungeon or the Deathzone. Only a select few knew about the cores in Mortix’s high-security vault, and Radia’s information network told him no one else had one or ever attempted an incursion into the Deathzone.

At least, not in the past ten years or so.

Of course, this included Varion himself. If he did touch a Specter core, it would mean there was an unaccounted core near him.

"I don’t know for sure, but...the core does attack your mind if you touch it," Zein replied, taking a deep breath as a memory he didn’t want to recall surfaced.

"How do you know?" Darleon finally focused his attention on the guide in front of Varion.

"Because I did it once," Zein replied briefly, because he needed time to think.

Thankfully, he wasn’t the only one who racked their brain. "Belthera, Celestia never made a venture to the Deathzone, right?"

"No--at least, not when I was the Guildmaster," the old man shook his head. "But I don’t think they ever did in the past four years."

"What about House Horin?"

The old man stiffened, and so were the others. But it wasn’t from shock; it was because things finally felt like they clicked in place.

"You did suspect that the clan did something to him, didn’t you?" Radia rubbed his lips as he looked at the mumbling man. "I have no idea if it’s from touching a core or something else, but the fact remains that it has something to do with the Deathzone."

"Which means the clan either has a Specter core, or..." Bassena muttered, looking at Radia grimmly.

"Or they worked together with the force of Deathzone."

"What nonsense is that?!" Darleon looked up with a deep furrow and glaring eyes. "How could someone cooperate with that vile place?!"

Indeed, it didn’t make sense. At least, for people with common sense, working with a force that harmed humanity was unbelievable. Zein would think like that too, had he not attended the annual meeting. That event told them about the possible existence of a cult, which they still couldn’t find to this day, but...

What if it wasn’t just a cult? What if it was a clan instead? And Old House at that...

"Well, people do unthinkable things all the time, Belthera," Radia said nonchalantly. "But if they indeed have some connection with the Deathzone, it would explain why they want to take Zein so much."

At first, they thought that the Golden Viper, or their sponsor, wanted the vessel of Setnath to gain the power of a Celestial Being for themselves. But if their conjecture was right, there might be another reason altogether.

"Why?" Darleon asked in confusion. What would make his clan want this guide? It couldn’t be for the man’s beauty--however ethereal he might look--nor because he was a Saint candidate, since that would make them get in trouble with the Temples.

"Because Zein’s power is a liability to the Deathzone’s force," Radia answered solemnly. "He could end the existence of the Deathzone itself."

Darleon widened his eyes as he looked at the guide, who, fairly enough, didn’t look like a guide except for the exceptional look. He thought the man was only different and special because he was also the head of an Old House, but to think there was something else...

"But why don’t they do it themselves? Why use him?" Han Shin pointed at Varion.

"Hmm...if I’m to see it from their perspective, there are a few possible reasons," Radia raised his hand and put out a finger. "One; because Bassena is there, and Zein is rarely out in the open. Two; they might be testing the water, to see if taking you secretly is possible, and..." he looked at Varion, the living evidence. "Three; in case of failure, they just need to cut off their tail, just like they did with the Golden Viper."

Darleon widened his eyes for the umpteenth time. "Wait--Golden Viper? Isn’t that..." his eyes moved toward Bassena Vaski, who had been making a defensive stance around the guide.

"Oh, you didn’t know about that? It’s still a conjecture, but we believe the House of Horin employed the Golden Viper as their hunting dog," Radia explained nonchalantly as if it wasn’t something important. "Anyway, we might know more if we woke him up."

"Yeah, let’s get to it," Zein cracked his hands as he looked at Varion again.

Darleon gripped his son tightly and stuttered in a mix of worry and hope. "Y-you know how?"

"I can try," Zein said briefly, not making any promises. "Lay him down. Bas, you’ll restrain him; Shin, be ready to heal him when I give the signal."

"Alright,"

"Wai--" Darleon reflexively shielded his distraught son when Bassena was trying to shift Varion’s position and made the man lay down.

"Let them do it, Belthera," Radia said dryly. "No one in the whole Eastern Federation knows about this more than the man your son wanted to abduct."

The layer of shock from that single sentence was enough to make Darleon’s arms slack. Bassena, without wasting any time, curtly pushed the man down to the floor. It was rather rough, but it was also as gentle as Bassena could in handling the man who caused despicable things to happen to his lover.

Sure, Varion wasn’t the one who assaulted Zein directly. Sure, he might be under some influence.

That was why he did not bash the man’s head to the floor. Shoving him down was already gentle enough by Bassena’s standard.

Varion, eerily enough, was still mumbling the same thing over and over again, as if he had no consciousness of what was happening around him--what was going to happen to him. Zein moved to position himself behind the esper lying on the floor, and, after rolling up his sleeve, put his hand over the man’s forehead.

This time, he did not guide. Rather than the esper’s core, he followed the slightly thicker, familiar energy polling around Varion’s consciousness. Recalling the feeling he had when he explored the shard fragment of Setnath, he turned his own energy into the same wavelength the shard had, which made the stigma in his nape glow brighter than usual.

And then, he attacked.

"Hold him," Zein warned, and just as he did, Varion’s started to twitch. The blank eyes widened, shaking uncontrollably as if they wanted to jump out of their socket. The man’s limbs moved for a second, before threads of darkness shackled them to the floor, preventing him from moving more.

As a scream that sounded more like a screech was coming out of a wide-open mouth, Darleon almost lunged forward to take his son away from the three people who clearly had a vendetta against him. But two summoned phantoms grabbed the old man, preventing him from moving and disturbing the procession.

Ignoring everything, including the loud scream, Zein concentrated his energy to chip away the wall of condensed miasma. He was recalling what he had to experience when he touched the core, and used the mental image of punching on the darkness--the darkness that wasn’t at all like Bassena’s--to erase the sinister barrier from Varion’s mind.

The moment a section was successfully chipped away, Zein gave his next command. "Heal."

Immediately, Han Shin pressed his thumb on the trashing esper’s temple, and started the healing process that was blocked earlier through the gap that Zein had made.

"It goes through," Han Shin reported, and only then that Darleon stopped resisting. The old man watched with widened eyes as the trashing gradually weakened and the scream gradually diminished. The wild eyes still shooting wide for a while, as the purification and the healing continued in tandem.

It took nearly five minutes until the esper’s eyes closed, although his fingers still twitched slightly as a sign that the man was still conscious. The second Zein and Han Shin took their hands off him, however, the closed eyes opened with a start, along with a choked gasp.

"Move him sideway," Zein said as he stepped back, and Bassena flicked his hand to move the threads of darkness.

Just a second after Varion flipped to his side, the man coughed, and a splurt of black tar akin to water coming from the river in the Deathzone came out of his mouth. The man wheezed and continued to cough until a pool of black vomit created beneath his head.

But along with the expulsion of the black tar, his consciousness came.

"...what? Where is--ugh!" Varion groaned and rolled on his elbow, clutching his throbbing head.

He vaguely felt the presence of several people and cautiously raised himself to his knees, shaking his head to regain clarity. When he looked up, however, he saw a pair of cold blue eyes he did not expect but had been wishing for these past few weeks.

"What...how could you be he--"

Before he could finish his words, a stinging sensation assaulted the right side of his face with a loud slapping sound.

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