There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)
Chapter 602 - 596. Marine Snow

Chapter 602: Chapter 596. Marine Snow

While the battle was happening outside, the communication officer kept trying to inform the approaching Raid team, even though the signal could not reach them. When it finally got through, it sounded rather dire.

"Give us the situation," with Bassena still concentrating on pulling out the cosmic energy, Zein took over.

[Ah, yes--the dungeon breaks had happened both in the city and the sea. We are entering a defensive position right now. Black Dungeon’s boss is appearing--oh, shit--it’s moving toward the ship!] the report started calmly and received a sudden shift. [It’s coming! It’s comi--oh, no--there’s another one! Huh...?]

The officer sounded confused, and the ones who listened were even more confused by the constant shift. Moreover, they couldn’t see what happened, so they became tense.

[H-huh? It attacks the other one? Oh--the bosses are fighting each other! ]

"What is going on?" Han Shin tilted his head at the report which sounded more and more like a live commentary.

"Let’s just hurry."

"Over there," the Eastern Sun’s assistant pointed at eleven o’clock. "We’re not far now, just go there!"

The Giant Serpent, as if having its own sentience, listened to the assistant’s voice and changed its course slightly based on the guide. They were entering a forest this time, and it seemed like at the edge of it, they would be able to reach the sea.

Zein frowned, wondering how much longer did Bassena need to pull out the cosmic energy. And then he wondered--if they were almost there, the Fallen Star should be even closer, right?

Then...where was it? The report didn’t indicate they had seen the Fallen Star.

When the forest was thinning out and they could see the cliff edge, another report came in. [The other boss had won! Oh no--it’s coming toward the ship!]

As they were stiffened from tension, the Giant Serpent finally breached the forest. They ended up on a cliff, with a sea in front of them, and what looked like a ruin of a city on their left. And, among the darkness and glowing red eyes, was a lone ship docked on a half-broken pier. It gleamed like a faraway star with the purification device blinking on either side.

They had hidden the twins! Zein exhaled in relief and grasped the commlink. "Gus!"

As he called out for the swordsman, Zein finally caught the sight of something resembling a serpent; with a long, scaled body moving swiftly through the sea, and a horned head. The most important thing, however, was its shining forehead.

[Zein?]

[Zein!] Senia practically screamed to the speaker. [The shard! It’s he--]

An explosion muffled the rest of her words, but Zein already heard the most important thing. The shard; it was between the creature’s head. It explained why the twins said it was moving swiftly. It must have decided that purifying one of the strongest boss monsters would lead to safety.

Good kid, Zein smiled. It’s better than looking for it at the bottom of the sea.

But his smile faded when a familiar scream came from the port city--to be exact, from the middle of the explosion earlier. Zein knew what it was before receiving visual confirmation.

"Zhan!"

The spearman jumped and the support magicians immediately gave them buff and resistant spells. "Let’s go, Aunty!"

"Don’t call me Aunty!"

The Easter Sun spat in annoyance and swung her arm forward. A high-intensity fireball shot toward the city like a comet and struck the space in front of the running Fallen Star. It was so fast that not even the cloaked figure managed to react. The attack itself did not strike the Fallen Star, but it created a shockwave that knocked the Fallen Star back--away from the ship.

"Let’s go, Syl."

The Eastern Sun, now looking more serious than before, flew toward the city while Zhan was rushing through the land.

"Go to the seaside," Zein patted the Giant Serpent, who proceeded to move down the cliff. Han Shin and the two support magicians immediately gripped the barrier tightly so they wouldn’t get thrown over. Meanwhile, Zein turned toward the meditating Bassena and whispered in the esper’s ear. "Don’t panic, I’ll be back."

Bassena flinched slightly and the two defenders looked at Zein with widened eyes as the guide stood up in a wildly shaking Giant Serpent.

"Young Master?"

"I need to secure the shard," Zein walked to the edge of the barrier.

"Young Master!"

Senan and Cohen scrambled to the side of the barrier, never thought Zein would just jump off out of nowhere. They gritted their teeth and would have jumped after the guide if it wasn’t for Zein raising his hand and glaring at them.

"Don’t," Zein said in a low tone. "You need to protect Bas and the others. I’ll be fine."

Right after saying that, he jumped off the barrier platform, eliciting a scream and a gasp from the espers. They crawled to the edge of the barrier and saw Zein plunging right into the sea, surrounded by a barrier coming out of his bracelet. His right arm stretched toward the Sea Serpent, and like a call of a tamer, the creature howled before rushing in Zein’s direction, crushing all the water beasts in its way.

"Oh, Gods!" Carra clasped her mouth as the Sea Serpent raised its upper body toward the falling guide. Zein twisted his body and grabbed one of the creature’s horns, swinging himself toward the back of the creature’s head.

Holding onto the horns and straddling the neck, Zein disappeared inside the sea as the Sea Serpent dove underwater.

* * *

Zein closed his eyes as he crashed against the water, holding his breath instinctively. It was dark at first from the miasma, and he kept bumping into what he presumed to be the corpses of those underwater beasts. Some of them were floating, and some sunk to the bottom of the sea.

Honestly, it was disgusting. Han Shin would have screamed and cursed out loud even if it would make him choke on seawater. Fortunately, Zein had a lot of experience bathed in miasmic beasts’ blood. He used to hide in a pile of corpses sometimes, during his rogue guild days. Anything to survive.

The unfortunate thing was that he couldn’t hold his breath much. He could swim somewhat after training in the Sanctuary’s lake a few times to de-stress, but his lungs’ capacity was still meager. Zein lowered his body, tightening his legs on the side of the Sea Serpent’s neck. Carefully, he let go of one of the horns and grasped the crystal embedded on its forehead.

What Zein wanted to do was tell the shard he couldn’t hold his breath for much longer and they should resurface, but the shard glowed stronger instead. The darkness around them was eaten by the light and amidst the deep blue color different from that in the Southern Kingdom’s sea, Zein felt the world crumble.

The Sea Serpent beneath him was gone, and he was floating in the middle of a blue space illuminated by countless white specks. It took him a few seconds to realize that he was not in the material world, and a few more seconds to realize he could breathe in this space.

"Where are you?" Zein turned around; the space was empty--just blue and specks of white. He didn’t need to ask where he was, but the hosts should at least show themselves. "I don’t have much time, kids."

Truthfully, Zein was much younger than them, but he had used to think of the shards as a bunch of kids for how they acted and thought. Except for the core, the shards seemed to build themselves from scratch, and without anyone around them, they developed very slowly.

And Zein could feel it. When he closed his eyes and felt the consciousness in that space more keenly, he could feel hesitation from caution and fear. It was the same with the shard in that underground pond; a juvenile feeling of someone worried they were in trouble.

Zein knew; he felt that a lot from his younger brother.

"It’s alright, you’re not in trouble," Zein continued his coaxing. "You did a really, really good job."

After waiting for a few seconds, Zein finally felt something nudging his foot. Curiously, it wasn’t the shard. It was something resembling a slime--no, a bubble. The translucent body also reminded Zein of the upper part of a jellyfish he saw in the Southern Kingdom’s underwater observation.

Instead of a smooth body, however, half of its body was covered by greenish-blue scales, and two small horns jutted out of its side. Zein raised his brow and picked it up, looking at the faceless, scaled, horned bubble.

It wiggled in his hands and Zein chuckled. "Do you want me to spare this little one?" Zein asked the sparkling white specks. "Hmm...I don’t think you need to worry. You’ve purified this soul completely, so it will need a long time for this one to get corrupted again."

The white specks floated even slower as if time got suspended in the blue space, and Zein smiled.

"We’ll be cleansing this place soon, so your friend won’t undergo corruption again," he added. "And I will personally make sure no one hurt this one afterward, deal?"

Zein blinked once, twice, and then the white specks stopped moving entirely, before gathering in a spot in front of Zein and gradually uniting into a shining crystal. With the Sea Serpent’s soul in one hand, Zein reached out to grab the shining crystal, and the blue space broke.

Zein gasped, right as the Sea Serpent surfaced with a loud crashing sound and waves splashing all around. He coughed out the salty water flooding his mouth, and when he finished, the Sea Serpent had stopped moving.

He had slid lower, legs hugging the Sea Serpent’s body near its front claws. And in his hands, letting out a soft pulse, was the twelfth shard.

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