Chapter 330: Transit Camp (1/2)

The scene below was even worse than Zac had feared when he first heard Smaug mention the slave trade. There were long rows of people kept in place by fetters, placed like cattle in small enclosures. All four races could be spotted amongst the slaves, though humans were by far the most common.

Groups of slavers patrolled the area, and there were robust fortifications at all the exits to prevent any slaves from escaping from the cave. There was also a pile of corpses lying in plain view in the encampment, just a few meters from the pens where the slaves were kept. Perhaps they were left there as a deterrent, or perhaps they simply hadn't had time to throw the corpses out to the beasts in the open Underworld.

The Underworld was quite different from how Zac had imagined it, and it was only after traveling for the last hour he realized that the Underworld wasn’t an intricate network of tunnels and caverns. Most of the Underworld was actually an open expanse.

The prevalent belief amongst those who were teleported here was that the underworld was between two layers of tectonic plates or just between two rock sediments. It created a continuous subterranean landscape that sometimes had a ceiling height of thousands of meters, and sometimes it was so narrow that one had to crouch to move forward.

There were even forests and arable farmland, though the things that could be grown were generally different types of edible moss or mushrooms. Rivers ran across the hilly grounds, and it if wasn’t for the utter lack of sunlight, one might have forgotten they were underground. Instead, everything was illuminated by luminescent plants, creating a mesmerizing display of colorful spots that lit up the boundless darkness.

Most towns were constructed in caves like the one they were spectating through, as the open world was quite dangerous for most people. Enormous packs of mutated bats roved in the sky, and all kinds of subterranean beasts walked the ground.

Even the insects had mutated and turned into monstrous creatures in the underworld, perhaps due to the massive amount of Nexus Crystals boosting the energy in the atmosphere. Getting caught in ten-meter tall spiderwebs or skewered by a scorpion pincer were both real risks in the underworld.

The extremely solid rock walls of the caverns made for a natural defense against the horrors of the underworld, and people only had to fortify the cave exits to create a safe space. Top tier caves were the ones who possessed a natural ecosystem to sustain them, like the cave the Underworld Nexus was built inside, with its own lake.

It was this reliance on caves that the Flame Golems exploited in with their ruthless tactics. They simply blocked up the few exits in the town before flooding it with lava. A few of the citizens had time to rush to a teleportation array, but most towns didn’t possess one and could only helplessly wait to get swallowed.

The tunnel they stood in was something that Smaug himself had created to spy on the slaving activities of the Union. It ran for hundreds of meters from a hidden spot in the open underworld, with both sides hidden by arrays. The walls of the tunnel looked oddly melted, and Zac guessed that Smaug had used some treasure to somehow melt the extremely hard stones.

Being reminded that the mysterious fellow might be useful during the fight Zac released the energy restraints that shackled Smaug. Of course only after giving him a stern warning to not mess around.

But any interest in finding out Smaug’s hidden means was long pushed to the back of Zac's head as he looked down at the misery beneath them. He was just about to jump down and start a rampage when the energy in the camp started to fluctuate.

“The teleportation array just activated,” Ogras commented as he looked down with curiosity.

This transit camp was located close to the human incursion since the invaders they traded with weren’t able to use teleportation arrays. This also meant that whoever was arriving was not an invader, but rather someone from the Union. The fluctuations soon ended and a small group of people emerged from a building not too far away.

“Here, use this,” Smaug suddenly said, producing yet another ball from nowhere.

“A temporal destabilizer?” Ogras said with surprise. “Where did you get your hands on this?”

“A what?” Zac asked with confusion as he looked down on the thing in Smaug’s hand.

“The teleporters transport people through subspace or whatever the fantasy equivalent is,” Smaug said. “If you crush this ball within 50 meters of the teleporter subspace will be made unstable and safeguards in the array will make it impossible to activate for 10 minutes.”

Zac shot a glance at Ogras who nodded in confirmation.

“Can you get your hands on more of this?” Zac asked.

It was an extremely convenient item that could change the course of a battle. It would make sure that his target wasn’t able to escape, or that his activities wouldn’t leak.

“This is my last one, I got it as a reward for a quest,” Smaug said with a shake of his head.

Zac looked into Smaug’s eyes for a few seconds, but he couldn’t tell if the man was lying or not. In any case, there would be time to find out more after the situation in the underworld was stabilized. So he grabbed the ball with a nod, and Zac leaped straight out from their hiding spot immediately after, with Emily throwing a fiery axe into his back.

Zac soared straight toward the large stone building the group of people emerged from. It was likely the place that housed the teleportation array, as it was guarded by a squad of soldiers armed to their teeth. With Zac’s power, he had no problem jumping all the way to the structure, and he ripped through the air toward the soldiers like a falling star.

“Attack!” one of the guards shouted with panic in his eyes as he spotted Zac in the air, but the next moment he was crushed by the massive weight of Zac’s shield as it slammed straight into him.

Zac’s landing killed three of the guards and threw the others in the air from the kinetic energy in his landing. He immediately crushed the orb in his hand before taking out his sword. [Hunger] keened as it turned into a grey streak, dismembering the remaining seven guards in a flash.

With his attributes, it didn’t matter that he barely possessed any offensive skills in his current class. Against random warriors on Earth he was essentially an unkillable monster. The commotion alerted the soldiers stationed in the camp, and they streamed toward his location. There were actually over a hundred of them, most having stayed out of sight.

Zac didn’t mind that as he instead turned his attention toward the group who had just arrived. It was two middle-aged men dressed in some sort of defensive gear, but it was clear they were not warriors. They had no weapons and they did not emit any dangerous aura, making Zac believe they were businessmen from the Union.