Chapter 412: Voidfire (1/2)

The gargantuan devil from earlier hadn’t seriously tried to kill Zac judging by the massive attacks they unleashed in their battle against the peak warrior from the allied army. It had only swung its weapon down without imbuing it with the Dao or any skill. Perhaps it had only considered him a bug to be squashed, and if it failed it didn’t really matter.

It was pretty disconcerting to get thrown into a mess like this, but he had a mission to fulfill. His eyes turned back and forth until he spotted a red flare in the distance. He immediately changed course and found Galau desperately fighting a group of the smallest devils that weren’t even as tall as a man.

Zac flashed over and made short work of the group with the help of a Dao-infused [Chop], and none of the other cannon-fodder seemed willing to avenge their brethren for the time being.

“Have you seen Ogras?” Zac asked as he looked around.

“I’m right here, what took you so long?” a lackadaisical voice drifted out of Galau’s shadows as the demon appeared.

“You!” Galau stammered. “I could have died!”

“I was ready to help out if things turned bloody. You want to be a traveling merchant, right? I was helping you gain some experience. What if you meet highwaymen in the future? After fighting these guys it would be a breeze, no?” the demon laughed.

Galau spluttered for a bit, but a prompt cut short any chance of a rebuttal.

[Aid the war efforts against the tide of the Verakh. Stop the activation of a [Voidfire Array], or deactivate an activated array.]

The three barely had time to read the whole prompt before battle lust overcame the fear among the devils close-by, and a squad charged the three as they screeched at the top of their lungs.

“Who is the floor guardian in a scenario like this?” Zac asked as he cut a frenzied dragon beast in two. “There’s no way we can defeat the leader of this devil army.”

“The quest is to stop an array from being planted. So I guess that there is some Array master within our power level that we can kill. It’s not always completely clear in the beginning from here on out from what I’ve gathered, so I could be wrong,” the demon shrugged. “I suggest we try for the quest. It seems somewhat doable, and we'll also find clues of the guardian. Better yet, it might net us a nasty Array.”

“Agreed,” Zac nodded.

The issue was how to find their target in a chaotic battlefield like this.

“The array is called an [Voidfire Array]. Can you see anything that fits the description on the battlefield?” Zac asked as he looked around.

“It sounds like an offensive array. Arrays like this are usually placed close to the frontlines to maximize power, but not at the very front as to avoid sabotage,” Galau chimed in.

The trouble was that there was no clear divide indicating where the frontline was. The battlefield could almost be seen as hundreds of individual skirmishes between squads or powerhouses, with weaker combatants strewn in-between.

There were individuals of both camps almost all over to the point it was even difficult to discern which side each army came from. Perhaps it was a measure to avoid either side unleashing massive arrays that could decimate a large chunk of the army. Luckily there was a group of titans standing in a clump far in the distance, which meant that the enemy commanders were likely stationed there.

Similarly, there was a middle-aged man standing on a massive floating sword some ways behind them, overlooking the battlefield with a stern expression. It was probably the leader of the army they had been conscripted into, and he emanated a towering aura that could be sensed all the way over to where they stood.

“Don’t look,” Ogras said as he slapped Zac’s shoulder with his spear. “We don’t want any attention from the big bosses.”

“I can’t see anything that looks like Voidfire,” Zac said. “Let’s make our way toward the enemy camp.”

The three formed a small squad where Zac took the front and Ogras the flanks as they steamrolled deeper into the army. Galau helped out by making sure they didn’t get too close to any of the elites, which forced them to take a somewhat circuitous pathing.

After they had pushed forward for roughly 15 minutes Zac was forced to slow down, as he realized there were only a scant few humanoids around them now. They had clearly entered the side of the enemies, and he was starting to get mobbed by the devil foot soldiers.

He hadn’t utilized any of his stronger skills though as he had a feeling that doing so might draw the ire of too strong enemies. So he simply kept cutting down enemies one by one while keeping a fractal blade from [Chop] attached to his axe, while the independent blade protected their rear.

“Over there!” Galau suddenly exclaimed, making Zac look over to their left.

There was a beast carrying a massive purple pillar on its back, and a group of hooded beings walked along its side. Judging from their direction it seemed they were heading toward a titan rampaging in the distance. Was the [Voidfire Array] perhaps a support array? Or did they simply want to strike a surprise attack at whoever arrived to combat the titan?

“That looks like an array core,” Ogras agreed. “Let’s steal it.”

“Isn’t it easier just to break it?” Zac interjected. “I can probably do it from here.”

“And leave such a nice thing in this world?” Ogras disagreed. “Better it comes with us.”

“If we can even use it. What if it explodes in our faces?” Zac said.

“One step at a time,” Ogras smiled as he flashed away.

Zac could only sigh and follow as he grabbed Galau’s shoulder. He activated [Loamwalker] and moved straight through the battlefield, each step bringing him over fifty meters away. Ogras was even quicker, and a pond of shadows spread out when he arrived in front of the group.

The fractal edge on Zac's blade grew as he decapitated the warbeast carrying the Array Core in one massive swing, making hundreds of liters of blood to fall like a waterfall, drenching him in a second.

“Huerk,” Galau hurled from behind, still squeamish about these kinds of gory scenes.

Zac only shook his head to get the blood out of his eyes and jumped over to the carcass of the beast. One yank was enough to rip apart the chains that kept the large crystals fastened, but Zac swore when he realized that he couldn’t put it in his Cosmos Sack.