Chapter 650: Prison (1/2)
“Ah, what happened to you?!” Billy exclaimed as he looked up at Zac's hulking form. “How are you bigger than Billy?!”
Zac turned toward the Titan, and he saw that the Anointed were looking at him with hesitation as well.
“A few things happened to me in the Dead Zone,” Zac sighed, seeing no recourse but to come clean. “It’s a secret weapon of mine, I hope you can help me keep this hidden.”
“Haha! No problem, Billy has secrets too!” Billy laughed, before he froze and frowned with confusion. “Huh? Why can’t Billy remember? Oh well.”
The anointed nodded in agreement, not really caring. Their minds were clearly focused on their fallen brethren. Zac inwardly sighed in relief when his Draugr form didn’t cause any problems, and he opened his status screen for a few seconds. He didn’t look for long though, only long enough to confirm a few things.
The fight was over, and a sharp pain in his left hand made itself reminded the moment he relaxed. It was the damage transferred over when [Nature’s Punishment] was incinerated by the small Spiritual Flame. Zac grimaced when he looked down at the blisters, and he could feel that this wasn’t something that would be fixed with [Surging Vitality].
There was a pervasive Dao lodged in his arm, and he could only slowly expel it from his body. At least it wasn’t his main arm, and it wouldn’t affect his combat strength much. He ate one of his better healing pills to keep the effect under wraps while fixing the large number of weaker burns that covered his body.
He ate a Soldier Pill next, quickly restoring a large chunk of his missing Miasma. Zac didn’t want to stay this way too long though so he reverted to his human form as soon as the pill had been absorbed.
Eating these Soldier Pills willy-nilly wasn’t really good for his body, but he didn’t want to keep his undead form exposed for too long in this place. As for what he had checked on his status screen before, it was his Bloodline. He had confirmed a few things with his transformation. First, his Void Emperor-bloodline had awakened in his Draugr-form as well.
Secondly, his undead race was still at the E-Grade, and it felt like he hadn’t really made any improvements at all as he had hoped. His Bloodline Nodes were there as well, and Zac wondered how that would impact him as one of the ‘five noble races’. Part of their superiority compared to normal Revenants and Corpselords had to be related to bloodlines and racial nodes, and who knew how his situation changed that.
The Draugr normally boasted supreme miasmic control along with extremely durable bodies, but what if he got neither because his odd bloodline took precedence over both? And would real Draugr be able to notice the difference?
He regained his human form after a few seconds, and Zac was relatively certain that no outsider should have been able to notice his transformation. The towering flame barriers had hidden his skills, and enormous clouds of ash and some swirled around them right now, completely covering their group.
A deep sigh echoed out from his side, and Zac looked over to see Rhubat placing one of the fallen in his Cosmos Sack. Eight of the Anointed had succumbed to the invisible wave of heat, and the rest sported various degrees of burns. However, they had done it. They had finally taken out the last of these lunatics, snuffing out another threat to earth.
“We need to move,” Ogras said with a hoarse voice, his face all black with soot. “Everyone within a hundred kilometers must have spotted this battle.”
“Right,” Zac nodded as he stilled the tremors in his burned hand.
Everyone ate some healing pills to tide them over as they removed any hints of their involvement best as they could. Zac flashed over and pocketed several treasures where the cultists stood before. Most things had been incinerated, leaving not even the Cosmos Sacks unscathed, but some items survived.
The golden lance looked quite powerful, but the greatest gain was no doubt the Spatial Ring he found next to the Incursion Leader’s fire-resistant robes. He also picked up the now-empty lantern and stashed it away. One of the glass panels was cracked, but Zac figured it should be a treasure considering it could trap such a powerful flame.
Altogether the squad only remained a minute longer before they set out, taking advantage of the thick clouds of ash to avoid detection. They didn’t take a direct route toward the source of the ripples out of fear that they would be spotted though.
It wasn’t like there was any particular target they wanted to hide from, but rather that they didn’t want to walk into yet another trap just as they barely escaped the last one. Besides, even if their arrival had been exposed, didn’t need to make it worse. So everyone tried to stay under the radar as Zac led them through the still-burning maze, using either his aura or a forceful swing to clear a path.
The group set a diagonal course through the forest somewhat running in a circle around the source of the powerful ripples. The idea was to hit it from a slightly different angle, which would hopefully allow them to cross the mountains unnoticed. A few minutes later they were out of the raging flames, and there thankfully wasn’t anyone lying for them in wait.
The group reached the foot of the mountains after another two hours, at which point they finally slowed down. Everyone used various means to scan their surroundings for enemies, but it really looked like there wasn’t anyone on their tail. Only then did they find a secluded cave large enough for them all, and sat down to rest after having erected an illusion array.
“Eight crusaders have fallen even before we reached our target,” Rhubat rumbled with sorrow in its eyes, and Zac could only sigh.
It was pretty bad luck that the cultists had zeroed in on them rather than the Dominators. Was it too much to ask for those two factions to take each other out?
“Rest up for an hour,” Zac said as he distributed some more Soul Crystals and healing pills. “We’ll cross the mountain next.”