There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 529 - 522. Burning Fire

Chapter 529: Chapter 522. Burning Fire

"Zein," Agni called out to the guide the moment he climbed the elevated ground of the command base.

Both Zein and Kei turned their head, and Agni could see their eyes lighting up with relief. The scout wasted no time and no chance, pointing at the fragments that seemed to be entering their second berserking phase thanks to the clone’s tantrum after half of its eyes got obliterated by Bassena and the combined might of Naoya and Senia’s skills.

"The biggest one!" Kei shouted. "Don’t let it get closer to the watchtower!"

With that simple instruction, Agni skidded toward the fragments battlefield. The Watchtower in question no longer looked like a Watchtower, but the lower part was still intact, and some espers from the support group were protecting it agitatedly, as if there was something inside.

"Come!" he instructed the Unit’s personnel. "Be careful with the black fume."

"Khan!" Zein called out to the berserker and threw a sealed box. "Antidotes!"

Agni caught the box and passed it to the Unit’s magician. He raised his thumb and resumed his advances, pulling out his claymore and igniting it in fire. The blazing light took the hulking fragment’s attention for a bit, and he took the chance to let out a taunting roar. It was a skill that would make his opponent focused on him no matter what, and by how the fragment was snarling and stomping toward him, it worked for a fragment as well.

In fact, it worked so well that even the other fragments turned their head toward him.

"Captain!" the magician threw two vials of antidotes to Agni; one he drank, and another one he poured upon himself.

"Haa...alright!" He snarled and swung his blazing claymore like a bat, striking the charging fragment and flung the hulking creature back, away from the watchtower. He laughed, and the louder his laugh was, the brighter his flame burned. "Come! Come at me!"

He said that, but he was the one coming onto the fragment. He kept using his claymore like a cricket bat, smacking the fragment again and again, getting further and further away from the watchtower. Since the other fragments were looking at him anyway, he laughed louder, like a maniac, and burned his claymore even more, blinding the creatures from the shining jail up there.

When the fragments were roaring furiously together, Agni snarled and ran forward, advancing, stepping away from the command base, away from the aid and guide station, to the edge of the battlefield where the fight was happening at the start, before the clone was rampaging and causing the fragments to go berserk.

Well, they weren’t the only ones who could go berserk. With Ashur preventing the others from getting near, Agni was soon getting surrounded by fragments from all sides. Staring at the enclosing fragments, he recalled the state of his lover a few hours ago; the wounds that hadn’t completely closed even with the help of healing serums, and the ghastly pale face of blood loss and mana drain--a husk of closely dying man.

"Haa..." he took a deep breath and pointed the claymore at the fragment in front of him. "At least one of you," he snarled, pouring mana back into his core to induce reflux. "I’m going to destroy at least one of you."

With the sound of crackling thunder, the flame on the claymore blazed fiercer and enveloped the berserker, whose red hair grew longer and danced widely like the fire itself.

And he struck.

* * *

"Flame Berserker Agni Khan," Kei muttered as she watched the change on the battlefield. "It had been fifteen years, isn’t it? If he’s not stuck in the Borderland, he could probably climb to the fifth floor."

"Indeed," Zein allowed himself a little relieved sigh.

With the Captain taking the role of a stormy bait, the other espers could concentrate on attacking the distracted fragments. It would be hard on the man, but Zein could recognize vengeance if he was one.

As long as he doesn’t die--Zein thought. Berserkers used their emotions as fuel, so with the rage he had now, the Captain might be even stronger than Ashur.

"Let’s concentrate on the clone now," Zein exhaled harshly. The clone had become even wilder, and the vibration of its rampaging tentacles could be felt all the way to where they were.

Or was it the vibration from the rattling chest?

Zein glanced at the new shard, which was as quiet as the core. But then again, it wasn’t really a time to chat. "Condensed the energy," Zein told the shard. "Don’t bother to purify the place, just make sure to lock them up."

The shard buzzed, and the area of light shrunk considerably. Zein regretted not bringing the twins here, but those two would probably get scared anyway. Moreover, if they brought the shards, the clone and the fragments would probably go crazy from the start, and it would be bad without the reinforcement from the Castle and the Borderland.

Didn’t matter now--Zein turned toward the fight in the distance again.

"Kei, tell Ashur to drag the Captain out after twenty minutes, he’ll need a guiding by then."

"Okay."

"Silva,"

[Captain?]

"I’m going to focus on the assist team, so manage the rest between you--focus on the damage dealers for now. In twenty minutes, assign Dean to guide Captain Khan."

[Understood]

"Cohen," at last, he patted his bodyguard. "We’re going to the assist team."

"Yes, Young Master."

Before Zein stepped out of the command base, however, Kei stopped him briefly. "Fifth lane would be safe, but if we can’t have it, give me a heads up so I can tell everyone to retreat."

After nodding quickly, Zein started to run toward the dune where the assist group was located. Jock was standing behind the crouching Naoya and a kneeling Senia, who were once again sipping on their mana regenerative serum.

"I won’t drink this stuff for the next five years!" Senia grumbled. "No--I have to ask for a mana regen artifact when I renew my license next year!"

"I should climb the tower after this is over," Naoya exhaled heavily. "Shouldn’t postpone it any longer. If I knew this is what we would have to face face, I would have climbed the tower on the last break."

"If we knew, we wouldn’t be in this situation in the first place," Zein said, prompting the two espers to flinch as he put his hands on their nape to do an express guiding.

Naoya and Senia exhaled in relief as a soothing sensation took away the heaviness in their body. Long-distance guiding was fine and all, but nothing best a direct one.

But naturally, it came with a price.

"Senia, is there any way you can move it back? Push it out of the fourth lane?"

"...how?"

"Shifting the ground maybe?"

"Are you kidding me? My children are exhausted!" Senia frowned, pointing at a drowsy elemental spirit in her hand. "They are only doing their best now because they want to enact revenge for what happened to them in the dungeon!"

Zein sighed and stared at the distance again. Was there truly no way?

Seeing the expression in Zein’s eyes, Senia bit her lips and calculated the elemental spirits’ energy as well as her own mana. If they were to be divided between the flame and the ground...

[Ask her if she could tilt the ground at the coordinate I’m going to give her]

Suddenly, Zein heard Bassena’s voice from his commlink. Naturally, Senia also heard it. Zein showed the four coordinates Bassena had input on the screen, and she was back on her calculation.

"Uhh...I think so..."

[Can you or can you not?]

"Ugh--I can, I can!"

[Do it when I give you the signal. For now, aim for all of the lower eyes]

"Roger that," Naoya huffed and raised his bow again.

Staring at the fleeting dark armor in the distance, Zein wondered how Bassena found the time to calculate some coordinates and talk while dodging the rampaging tentacles. But that was probably why no more stakes were piercing the right side eyes.

After the call ended, however, he could see some stakes appearing in the air, slanting down and shot toward the lowest row of eyes on the right side. Some of them were smashed by the tentacles, but two managed to find their targets. It looked like a triumph, but Zein only had concern in his mind.

"Bas, what’s your corrosion level?"

[...I’ll finish this before I get to black, don’t worry]

Zein wanted to yell that it would be too close by then, but he held himself and took a deep breath instead. "Do it quickly, or I’ll summon you back whether you like it or not."

There was no answer from Bassena, except for a massive serpent forming in the distance, wrapping around the Saint class. And it wasn’t like the usual serpent--this one was almost as big as the clone that even Senia couldn’t help but curse out loud.

A loud shriek and a thunderous screech clashed as the two giant creatures collided. Precisely hitting the injured part and driving the jutting stakes harder onto the eyes, the giant serpent gradually got pushed back. It howled and frantically pulled its energy to the eye in the middle, releasing its energy attack and punching the serpent with its tentacles.

Using the tentacles, however, made it easier for the Serpent to push it away from the fourth lane. Naoya poured almost all of his remaining mana into his bow and manifested three arrows at once, releasing it as a last burst. Three flaming comets pierced the clone and the impact pushed the clone back even more.

[Now, Senia]

Trying to ignore the heavy breath coming out of his earpiece, Zein spoke to Kei while Senia controlled her elemental spirits with an exhausted groan.

"Get ready, Kei."

[Calculating explosives L4-046 to L5-371]

Amidst the howl of the gigantic creatures, the ground let out a creaking sound as cracks appeared on four points. The sand erupted and the stone beneath rose, tilting like a slope, right beneath the clone’s massive structure. The Serpent pulled its head back and slammed onto the clone’s top side, again and again and again until the clone toppled back like a leaning tower.

The clone shrieked in desperation, and the giant Serpent’s scale scattered into nothingness. [Now] Bassena’s order rang through all channels as he flew back, and almost immediately, a fire erupted from the ground.

Blue, bright orange, deep red--like a firework, the ground lit up with explosion after explosion, swallowing the thrashing giant. The living white flame crept into the raging fire and soon, the mountain of nightmares engulfed in a white hell.

And in front of the fence of fire, the dark knight was falling to the ground.

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