There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 375 - 367. Behind the Door

Chapter 375: Chapter 367. Behind the Door

From the top of the highest roof, Radia watched the raid with inescapable crimson eyes.

"Ashur, take Zhan and Gus, and head to the direction of the training ground; you’ll meet their dogs on the way, and more should be in the basement doing some cleaning. Take two of the agents with you," he gave the command through the guild’s badge. "Abe, use Senia and Hagalaz’s long-range dealers to watch the walls. Snipe anyone trying to sneak out."

A shadow formed behind Radia, and a summon jumped out of it. A small individual with a disheveled appearance looked up. "They don’t have any tunnel, Master. So weird."

"In that case, there’s a possibility of teleportation skill or array," Radia hummed. Or they were just too smug and thought there wouldn’t be a case where they would need to run or hide.

People with money usually built bunkers after the construction technology got commercialized. But this clan...they were probably thinking that they could control the miasma; that they would be safe from the swallowing darkness of the apocalyptic age.

How foolish, thinking they were more than a manipulated tool.

Radia shook his head and stretched his arm to the side. A summoning circle immediately formed and a figure climbed out of the circle; a man with an extravagant look that made Nyx frown in displeasure.

The first thing the man did was letting out a hearty laugh. "Aah...finally!" he took a deep breath, and his pale face was suddenly full of vigor as his long-dead senses were filled with the sound of classing weapons and the scent of blood. "So? Who do I need to fight? That little snake-boy? Can I finally--ugh!"

Radia snapped his fingers and the man made a choking sound as the choker in his neck constricted. "Ugh--hey, hey, I’m just kidding. Just kidding!"

"Cast an anti-teleportation barrier around the compound," Radia commanded while taking out a golden needle. This guy was useful, but summoning him took a lot of mana, not to mention activating the restraining tool.

"What? You call me out just for that?" the man clicked his tongue, although he still proceeded to cast a huge anti-teleportation barrier around the compound in a dome shape.

"Oh, don’t worry," Radia smiled deeply, slipping the golden needle between his lips. "I’ll let you do some fun things later."

* * *

With Sadeva leading the way, they made a smooth journey to the deep part of the complex compound without the need to follow Baaleon.

"This place is like a labyrinth," Nirmala muttered.

Horin clan’s compound consisted of many different, but similar-looking buildings being linked together through bridges and walkways, so those who didn’t have an apt understanding of the layout would easily get lost. Moreover, the buildings at the outer part of the compound were lined up like walls and intentionally made into labyrinths, with espers hiding in every corner ready to ambush them.

But that didn’t mean anything in front of a highly skilled scout and a deadly damage dealer.

"Eleven o’clock; three elemental arrows. Two o’clock, a spell."

Black tendrils shot from the ground and snatched the magician in the middle of releasing his spell, slamming the person hard to the ground, while a black snake materialized in the air, slicing three elemental arrows with its tail. The tip of the arrows exploded the moment they touched the building’s terrace, and the scream could be heard as the pressure emanating from the cleaving sent the archer blasting deep into the building.

Glancing at the holes in the building on both sides, as well as the fire creeping through the patio, Bassena muttered lowly while retracting the snake back into his arm. "Not my fault."

Nirmala pressed her lips; both from holding back a laugh and exclamation. He had watched the Serpent Lord in action through recordings, but it still felt different watching it in person. The man fought like a warrior despite being a magician, doing short-range and long-range as he wished. What an unfair entity.

"Oh, we can go through here," Sadeva pointed into the hole in the building that went through to the other side, and they casually marched through the unintentional destruction. "The inner courtyard is behind that wall."

Bassena stared at the high wall made of white stone and stretched out his arms. A dozen long, black stakes materialized above him and rushed toward the top of the wall.

"Ugh--fuck!"

"Ack!"

Some of the stakes got deflected, and some pierced the people stationed there. The shout roused all the other espers waiting for an ambush in the area, and as they started to rush toward Bassena’s group, the Saint class clapped his hand. Another group of sharp, pointy stakes appeared in a circle formation surrounding the group, and with another clap, they shot toward the approaching Horin clan members.

"Hmm...yes; using a skill is better for wide-range damage," Bassena nodded, waving his left hand to create more stakes, and his right hand to create a staircase leading to the top of the wall.

"Well, the night is your time after all," Kei shrugged.

Bassena’s dome of darkness, Nightfall, was an ability created to compensate for the abundance of light during the day. On a night like this, when the moon was hiding, Bassena could create infinite darkness without using too much of his own mana. Those who managed to evade the stakes found themselves tied to the ground by hissing tendrils coming out of their own shadow, and giant spikes rising from the ground, caging them.

If it wasn’t for the order to keep them only ’restrained’ for now, those spikes would have pierced their body instead. Those who managed to slip out, however, found themselves tasting the spikes chasing them and piercing their limbs, accurately avoiding their vitals.

As for those who were on the wall...

"Poor things," Kei looked up and shook her head in condolences. "Don’t you know? Our Commander prefers using his bare hands more."

Nirmala and Sadeva smiled wryly--even without looking at it, hearing the dull sounds and the screams from the Horin clan members was enough statement.

"Are you not going to stop him?" Kei asked the agent with a subtle smile on her lips.

"Well...they did try to kidnap his boyfriend twice," Nirmala shrugged. "As long as he doesn’t kill them."

"Commander, no killing!" Kei shouted from below, much to Bassena’s annoyance. He clicked his tongue and pointed to the black staircase he made.

"Get over here quickly."

The inner courtyard was significantly different. The building was more sparsely located, and arranged to be good to the eye rather than to be complicated, like a jewel encased in a puzzle box. Who could guess that behind this beautiful arrangement laid a filth full of miasma?

"This way, Sir--"

Bassena yanked Sadeva back and pushed him down, conjuring more stakes in the air to shield them from each blast of mana bullets raining down on them. "Hmm..." Bassena swept his gaze across the inner courtyard, and, after deducing that he wouldn’t make much destruction from it, roused his mana.

Stakes upon stakes made of hissing darkness keep materializing in the air, even after the barrage of mana bullets receding and eventually stopping. Hundreds, thousands of them filled the space, before joining into one giant entity, glinting under the dim light like thousands of deadly scales. The sound of the stakes sticking to each other was akin to the roar of a beast, as Bassena moved his hand and the giant serpent rushed forward to prey upon the people attacking them.

Ah, this is what got him that nickname, the Serpent Lord--Nirmala muttered inwardly.

She couldn’t see well, but at the end of that huge monster was a string of screams, yells, and curses as people were caught in the beast’s maw.

"Go on," Bassena told the infiltrator, and Sadeva swiftly came back from his astonishment, leading the group along with their serpent guard.

It didn’t take long for them to reach a lone building with ancient styling, made of reinforced timber and surrounded by a stone garden. If it wasn’t for the chaos that the giant serpent made, shooting its scales at the espers guarding the place, the place would look like a tranquil hall perfect for scholarly activity.

Leaving the giant serpent dealing with people outside, the group entered the building. Kei shot her mana bullets at the people still waiting inside, and Bassena finished them with the cleave of his snake whip.

"That way!"

As expected of an infiltrator, Sadeva spotted the illusion barrier in the wall and dismantled it to show a door in the corner of the archive hall. Everything, of course, was recorded by Nirmala’s camera.

"Nothing good ever hidden behind a secret door," Bassena remarked with a grin, before opening the door nonchalantly.

"Damnit!"

A blast of aura blade came flying at him as a greeting, which he staved off with his arm, coated in a defensive layer of black mana. His glowing amber eyes spotted Baaleon in the hall, with a bunch of miscellaneous stuff around. Bassena flicked his fingers and black tendrils, stronger than before, sprouted from the ground to restrain him.

"Miss Agent, please check his storage ring," Bassena said, kicking away a spell scroll. "Kei, take the infiltrator and check on the rooms."

Baaleon struggled when a tendril yanked his storage ring away, but there was nothing he could do when a pair of cuffs clasped his wrist and his mana stopped moving inside his body. The agent poured out the contents of the storage ring, and boxes of documents hit the ground. But what made him shout loudly was when a tube stumbled out in the end, bearing a black orb.

"Well, well--what a harvest," Bassena chuckled. "Please send the recording immediately to Rexon."

"I’m doing it," Nirmala smiled. It was always nice when a search investigation truly led to something.

Baaleon roared angrily that Bassena had to gag him again to shut the man up. The tendrils continued to drag him toward the end of the corridor, where a big door stood locked and still.

Bassena tried to open it, but there was no handle or keyhole there. The door was sealed with a barrier, and he dragged Baaleon forward. "Hey, open this."

Baaleon let out a string of curses muffled behind the restraint, the glaring eyes told Bassena he would never do it. "Fine, whatever," Bassena sighed and tapped on his earpiece. "Your turn, Boss," he said, before glancing at the old man, amber eyes full of pity. "You should have agreed before I called him."