Chapter 448 (1/2)

It was a bloody fight, not because it was difficult, or even that they struggled, but because the sheer number of monsters they killed meant that the ground was soaked with blood by the time they had arrived at the central location. Plus, when they started antagonizing the monsters, the whole 5-mile block of monsters had surged into motion, running desperately to strike at the targets they finally found.

It took almost 12 hours, which made Randidly grit his teeth, but there was no other choice. The Creature had the support of an entire race, and if he wanted to be able to penetrate towards it, he needed to do the same.

When they arrived at the central area, it became clear why the monsters had been milling around. There was a stone wall, about 5 meters tall, but the whole thing was covered in sparkling runes, the violet glow of Aether clear. A small glowing barrier was erected around the wall, and when they took a monster body and threw it at the barrier, the thing disintegrated.

Sniffing Randidly said nothing. But Lucretia, who was oddly even more chatty after their previous argument, waxed poetic on the effectiveness of such a barrier.

So Randidly knocked on it, once, feeling the hostile energies sizzle and burn his skin. His frown deepened. He knocked again, harder.

After trembling for a brief moment the barrier dissipated, and the runic engravings that had controlled the Aether into a barrier cracked. Randidly shook his head sorrowfully. Truly, he had lost all concept of his own strength, to so easily destroy a sophisticated barrier like that.

Lucretia snorted. ‘Stop patting yourself on the back. If this was all the Creature were capable of, you wouldn’t have had so much trouble with her in the past.’

His expression turning seriously, Randidly motioned for the Raid Party to circle around him.

“Before we go in, I want to explain a bit about what I think we will find,” Randidly began, wondering how much to reveal to the group gathered around him. He looked slowly around, making eye contact with each one of them, until Randidly’s eyes finally settled on Ace, who was contorting his face into a gruesome grin, displaying his gums and flaring his nostrils.

To Randidly’s surprise, the ploy worked, and he snorted with laughter, breaking some of the tension that he had been carrying with him. The group around him was curious at first, then turned to Ace and rolled their eyes. By this time, after almost a month inside the Raid Dungeon together, Ace’s antics had involved everyone as a victim at least once.

It was that willingness to involve himself in other people’s lives, even as an annoyance, that helped Ace make friends back before the System arrived, Randidly reflected. And also what let him cover up for the monster that he had become now.

“...Some of you may know this, but there is a… powerful being that has been interfering with our Zone, that I call the Creature.” Randidly began. “Although it is hard to admit… part of the reason I had the chance to become as powerful as I am is because of its interference. But before it could complete its plan, I broke away from its control…”

There Randidly hesitated, remembering being left alone in the darkness, and how it was only due to his connections through the Blessings that he was able to escape. Then he shook his head and continued. “But it hasn’t stopped its operations. Its main goal is isolating itself from the wider System, which I expect is what it is trying to accomplish here. By hiding inside a Dungeon… I expect it’s trying to avoid detection.”

“I have a question,” Rose said, frowning at the ground. Randidly winced inwardly. The more questions they asked, the more trouble he would get into. Because a lot of what he was about to say was mostly speculation. “If it truly wanted to isolate itself, why pick this Dungeon? We need to beat this Dungeon to survive. If it had hidden in another Dungeon…”

“Also, the Regalia,” Alana interjected, folding her arms across her chest. “The advancement of our Zone was stalled because of its interference; it must have known that we would move against it.”

Randidly felt a flash of relief. At least for these questions, he had an answer. “There are a few reasons; the first is that I think the Creature needed us to help it, although I’ll get to that later. Second, it wanted to force us into a position to attack it, that’s part of its plan. Third, to go along with that, this is the highest Level Dungeon there is; harder to manipulate these forces, but once it does, they will be better weapons against us.”

“Ah,” Annie said, pounding her fist against her open palm. “It wants us to fail.”

“It seriously wants us to just… be depleted of Aether and fade into nothing? That would certainly isolate it…” Ace said, rubbing his jaw.

Rose shook her head, frowning at Ace. “But that doesn’t make sense. It would suffer then too, right? The life energy is leaving the Zone. Can it survive without that life energy?”

“We know that Dungeons are like a lake of that energy, and you steal some of it when you clear the boss,” Alana said shrugging. “Maybe it will live off that.”

“With the difference in time between the two, the amount of time it could survive is likely negligible,” Rose argued.