There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 508 - 501. Milestone

Chapter 508: Chapter 501. Milestone

"What kind of place is this?" Bassena looked around the area that was filled with tall walls. It had decayed slightly and crawled by black ivies, but the basic structure still remained.

"Looks like a castle from the Old Age," Kei pulled up some pictures from the commlink. "Anyway, I can’t sense anything around here."

"But the fact that the structure still standing meant a certain power was preserving this place," Bassena hummed before turning around. "What do you think Ze--where is he?"

Gus pointed at a pillar and a black-haired guide perched on top of it. Zein had jumped there when the others were busy looking around the ruin. As if realizing people were looking at him, the guide spoke. "It used to be here; the shard," he said before standing up, almost making Bassena’s heart drop in the process. "But it moved."

"Y-young Master?" it wasn’t just Bassena who got a heart attack.

"H-honey, can you get down now?" Bassena swallowed nervously.

Zein glanced down and smirked. "No," he said teasingly, before jumping to a wall near the pillar and keeping on moving as if following something on the ground. "It’s faint, but I can sense the leftover trace," he said as he ran above the wall. "Better follow it quickly."

Of course, the squad members followed him immediately, especially Bassena and Senan. They didn’t even look at the field and just kept their eyes on the guide. It was good that both of them were espers with high combat instincts, or they would have kept stumbling through the bricks and thwarting roots.

The others watched them amusedly, especially the other guides. In their eyes, Zein was the peak of existence; a guide who could do what an esper did to some extent. It used to be their routine to see Zein doing obstacles in the arena and dodging all kinds of projectiles. Jumping and running were hardly dangerous for him.

And yet, those two looked at Zein as if the man was a fragile glass.

"That’s what love does, huh?" Julian chuckled as he grabbed Dheera and Leehan so they could move through the castle too. "They’ll feel protective no matter what."

Dheera giggled behind her mask. "It’s the first time I heard Sir Vaski called Captain ’honey’."

"He was slipping out from panic," Gus laughed and told the others to follow them in leisure instead. It wasn’t like Zein could move as fast as high-rank espers anyway--the two panicking espers were just making things too tense.

"But it’s interesting to find that the shard could actually move around," Carra muttered. "Do you think it sensed the movement under the desert and ran away because of that?"

"Could be," Kei nodded. "The Stone Eater’s path does end near here. The twins simply couldn’t move because they were already underground and trapped by the fragment."

"Isn’t this good? We don’t have to worry too much since they have better survival means than we initially thought," Zhan grinned.

Indeed. Their biggest fear was for the fragments or worse, the Fallen Star--to find the shard. If the shards had more means to protect themselves, be it laying a trap or running away, it would give them more time to move more carefully.

"We can use that Castle as the third base, don’t you think? It’s close to the underground system, so we even have an emergency tunnel," Gus glanced at the big structure behind them. If they built a tall watchtower there, they would have a good vantage point of the desert.

As Gus thought about it, the three people they were chasing came to a stop. It wasn’t clear from behind because of the color of the sky and the ground looked the same, but they arrived on a cliff. It was a deep drop with fog covering the bottom, but they could also hear the sound of water. Across, they could also see another tall wall of rock, although it would be too far if they attempted to jump over it.

"It’s down there," Zein said at the end of the cliff, looking down while Bassena gripped his waist.

"Underwater?"

"I think so," Zein tapped on the esper’s arm circling his waist. "Let’s go."

"Now you remember me?" Bassena grumbled and Zein chuckled before tapping the pouting cheek.

"Let’s go, baby."

Bassena pressed his lips and took a deep breath before telling the others to stay put. He tightened his hold on the guide’s waist before jumping down, slowing his drop with mana while creating a platform right on top of the black water. After they landed on the platform, Zein crouched and took off one of his gloves.

"You’re going to touch the water?" Bassena frowned.

"How else could I call it out?" Zein shrugged. "I can’t feel any beasts nearby, anyway."

Even then, Bassena still sent his detection around to double-check. Only after he was sure nothing would suddenly come and bite Zein’s hand off did he nod and let the guide do his thing.

The water in the Deathzone was always cold, but this one felt even colder. Quickly, Zein spilled out mana through the tip of his dipped fingers. The river--if it was a river--ran deep, and it felt like forever when he finally touched the familiar sensation of a barrier. The barrier rippled and resonated with Zein’s mana, which was sourced from the same thing; Setnath’s essence.

Almost immediately, he felt a response, and a force started to rush in his hand’s direction. The water grew warmer gradually, and the area beneath the platform started to glow. With a loud splash and a glaring light, the shard surfaced and hovered in front of Zein.

"Hello," Zein lifted his hands and let the shard come to his palms. "Good job hiding."

The shard buzzed softly; this one seemed to be calmer than the twins and the super cautious one in the mountain that was hard to approach even by Zein. They didn’t have the time to savor the moment of reunion, however, for a loud shriek with an underlying deep growl suddenly resounded from the land beyond the other cliff.

"Now, this is new," Bassena chuckled while grabbing Zein’s waist again. "We usually fight before getting to the shard."

"But it proves that those fragments can only sense the shards if they are exposed in open space," Zein held the shard as Bassena jumped back to the top of the cliff where everyone was. As expected, they had already taken a stance the moment they heard the shriek.

"What about the twins?"

"They were unlucky because they hid near a Stone Eater’s system, and a Specter formed not far from there."

"I see," Bassena nodded and landed beside Senan. "Well, I’ll be back."

After giving a signal to the warriors, Bassena made platforms to help them cross the gap. Zein, meanwhile, opened his storage ring and sent the shard inside.

"Should we go back to the Castle and set up a beacon?" Kei asked after looking at the fight with her long-distance vision.

Since they were no longer racing for time, they fought with more ease and even looked like they were having fun, especially with Carra’s protection anti-poison buff. Even without Naoya to deal with the minions, they were more than fine.

"Sure," Zein patted his pants and walked away from the cliff. There was nothing they could do there anyway, so might as well do something more productive.

The rest of the squad decided to have a short picnic break while Kei and Banner installed the beacon and the purification device. Just like Gus, Zein also agreed that the Castle would be a perfect place for their third base, and had been conversing with the shard inside the storage ring about staying there again.

Well, they called it ’base’ but it was more like an outpost. Rather than a full-fledged settlement like the one around the stadium, the other bases like the one in the mountain only consisted of a watchtower with living quarters inside. A squad was to be placed in each outpost to send reports about the area regularly, consisting of a mix of Trinity members and mercenaries.

Thus, the shards wouldn’t be alone. The squad in each base would act as the first layer of defense, and since the route between the main base and the other outpost had been secured, help would always be able to come quickly in case of an emergency.

"I think we need more than a watchtower, however," Kei said after she finished installing the beacon. "We need a strong hub to explore the other side of the cliff."

Indeed; they could see a vast land beyond the cliff. The cliffside was filled with forest, but Kei also saw a wide field and several spread of what should have been settlements in the past. Probably some kind of farm, although most of the building was almost leveled with the ground.

"So we have a mountain, a desert, and now this to explore," Zein muttered. "Pretty busy day we have ahead."

"Better than a dead end, don’t you think?" Kei winked, to which Zein agreed wholeheartedly.

Six. They almost found half of the total shards. Not a bad result for half a year. Granted, two of them were found a year before the operation began, but still...

"I don’t think there’s more in this region," Zein muttered.

"Agreed," Kei nodded and glanced into the obscured horizon, where she could see the vast, seemingly endless desert. "We should find out how to traverse that place too, not just through the underground system."

"Right; the tornado couldn’t be a natural phenomenon. Something must have caused it," Julian said.

Whether it was a spell or a magic crystal going awry, a system where the merciless tornado appeared the moment it sensed something alive must be in place.

"A lot of homework, huh?"

"We can’t afford to do it now, unfortunately--unless we pull out the hunting team," Zein shrugged.

"Well...the Guildmaster did say we should focus on sterilizing the region first, so we should focus on that."

"And you should take some rest too, Young Master."

Zein glanced at the slightly frowning Senan before chuckling. Well...honestly, that didn’t sound so bad. Still...

"Just one more," he said. "After finding the seventh one, I’ll take some rest."

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