Chapter 164: The Dead Zone Road and The Hidden Gate
Chapter 164: Chapter 164: The Dead Zone Road and The Hidden Gate
Chapter 164: The Dead Zone Road and The Hidden Gate
The heavy Vanguard transport vehicle barreled through the desolate wasteland of the Dead Zone.
RUMBLE.
Thick, treaded tires crushed jagged rocks and dried bone under their immense weight. The landscape outside the reinforced windows was a blur of gray ash and suffocating fog.
Inside the spacious armored personnel carrier, Strike Team Zero sat packed together on the dual metal benches.
Bram leaned his head back against the steel wall and groaned loudly. He rubbed the back of his neck with a thick hand.
"My spine is going to shatter into pieces if we hit one more crater," Bram complained, shifting his heavy frame on the rigid seat.
"I thought these top-tier Vanguard transports were supposed to have shock absorbers."
Sitting directly across from him, Natalie did not even blink. She kept her eye pressed firmly against the optic lens of her Gale-Bow, the barrel resting on the edge of the firing slit in the window.
"Keep your voice down," Natalie muttered softly. Her eyes scanned the foggy horizon with the sharp intensity of a seasoned hunter.
"Sound carries far in the Dead Zone. I would rather not attract a horde just because your back hurts."
Further down the bench, Lucien Vaelmont pulled a pristine, white microfiber cloth from his pocket.
He leaned forward and politely offered it to Nyx. The Phantom Assassin was currently wiping dark monster blood off her curved dagger with the edge of her own sleeve.
"Here," Lucien said with a warm, friendly smile.
"Blood ruins the fabric over time. You should use this."
Nyx paused. She looked at the clean cloth, then up at Lucien’s genuinely polite expression. She took it slowly.
"You are entirely too well-adjusted for a syndicate of assassins and shadow operatives," Nyx replied dryly. She wiped the blade clean in one smooth motion.
"But thank you."
"I do not know what that meant, but you’re welcome!", he replied.
Across from them, Cole Rust was furiously digging through a heavy canvas sack.
The Abyssal Steel soot from Cassian’s mutation was still faintly caked into his pores, giving him a permanent, shadowy scowl.
He kept pulling out chunks of raw iron and tossing them aside with a frustrated sigh.
Lyra sat next to him, watching the chaotic display with a quiet gaze. She gently reached out and stopped his hand before he could toss another piece of metal onto the floor.
"You are stressing yourself out," Lyra said softly.
"Your mana is fluctuating. If you cannot find the right tool, you just have to adapt the materials you have."
Cole sighed heavily.
"I know. It is just frustrating. I have all these S-Rank cores and Void-Core ores from the vault, and my standard iron hammers will shatter if I try to strike them. I need a real forge."
"You will get one soon," Lyra promised, offering a reassuring smile.
"So stop being a baby and keep whining about it!"
Near the front of the cabin, Reina Frost sat with her arms crossed over her chest. She looked to her right, staring at Aegon.
The heavily armored Vanguard was sitting completely upright, his back perfectly straight, his massive gauntlets resting on his knees. He had not moved a single muscle for the last two hours.
"Do you ever relax?" Reina asked, a teasing smirk forming on her lips.
"You look like a statue. It is okay to slouch, Aegon. The armor will not break if you lean back."
Aegon slowly turned his head. His expression was completely serious.
"Proper posture maintains spinal alignment," Aegon answered.
"If we are ambushed, a slouched position delays muscle response time by a fraction of a second. That fraction could be lethal."
Reina stared at him for a long moment. She rubbed her temples.
’He is literally impossible,’ Reina thought to herself, though the faint smile never left her face.
At the very front of the transport, near the reinforced driver’s cabin, The Captain sat in complete silence. He watched the shifting fog through the front windshield.
Beside him, Estella carefully adjusted the collar of his dark jacket. She smoothed out a faint wrinkle on his shoulder, her eyes entirely focused on making sure he looked perfect.
"I am fine, Estella," The Captain said calmly, not turning his head.
"The jacket got dusty when we loaded the vault loot," Estella replied stubbornly. She brushed a speck of ash from his sleeve.
"You are the leader. You need to look the part."
"We are going to kill some Monsters on the way. The blood will spill on the clothes even if you clean them now. Looking the part only comes when we need to show the part! And I do look the part occassionally."
The transport violently lurched forward.
SCREECH!
The heavy brakes locked up. The massive vehicle slid across the ashen dirt, kicking up a massive cloud of gray dust before slamming to a complete halt.
"Contact front!" Natalie shouted from her scope.
"We have a roadblock. Armored Shadow-Wolves. A pack of twenty, maybe more. High-tier mutations."
The Captain stood up. The casual atmosphere in the cabin vanished instantly. Ten pairs of eyes locked onto him, waiting for the command.
"Clear them out," The Captain ordered coldly.
"Fast and efficient."
The rear doors of the transport blew open.
Strike Team Zero flooded out into the Dead Zone. The Miasma fog swirled violently as a massive pack of Armored Shadow-Wolves lunged forward.
The beasts were the size of small cars, their bodies covered in thick, jagged bone plating that acted like natural armor.
Aegon hit the dirt first. He did not draw a weapon. He simply slammed his massive gauntlets together.
BANG!
A shockwave of dense aura erupted from his [Asura’s Devouring Crucible]. Three wolves slammed into the invisible barrier, their bone armor cracking under the sheer kinetic force.
Reina stepped out from behind him. The air temperature plummeted instantly. She swung her heavy blade, unleashing a horizontal arc of absolute zero frost that froze the front line of monsters completely solid.
From the roof of the transport, a suppressed rifle cracked.
CRACK!
CRACK!
Natalie’s Gale-Bow sent concentrated bolts of wind tearing through the skulls of two wolves trying to flank them.
Below her, Bram raised a heavy tower shield, completely blocking a vicious bite meant for Lyra. Lyra stepped out from behind his massive frame, casting a glowing tether of supportive mana that wrapped around Cole.
Empowered by the buff, Cole swung a massive, makeshift iron rod. It smashed into a wolf’s jaw, sending the beast tumbling into the dirt.
Lucien and Nyx moved like ghosts through the gray fog. Lucien stepped politely out of the way as a wolf lunged at him, cleanly slicing its hamstring with a short blade.
Nyx materialized from the creature’s blind spot a split second later, plunging her curved dagger directly into the gap of its bone armor. The beast fell dead instantly.
A massive Alpha wolf, standing twice as tall as the rest, broke through the frontline. It leaped directly toward Estella, its jaws wide open.
Estella did not even flinch. A blinding sphere of superheated Star Magic ignited in her palm.
BOOM!
The beam of starlight instantly vaporized the Alpha’s upper torso. Ash and smoke rained down on the barren dirt.
The last remaining wolf turned to flee into the fog. The Captain raised his hand. A subtle, terrifying distortion rippled through the air.
He used [Vector Manipulation] to completely reverse the kinetic energy of the fleeing beast’s legs. The wolf’s own momentum snapped its legs backward.
It crashed into the dirt, entirely paralyzed. Aegon walked over and crushed its skull with a single stomp.
The skirmish was over in less than sixty seconds.
The Captain checked the hidden interface in his vision. The rapid influx of high-tier experience points surged through the squad.
"We are at the edge," The Captain announced, his voice cutting through the fading echoes of battle.
"Every single one of you is sitting at ninety-nine percent capacity. The moment we reach the bottom of the dungeon, you will cross the Level 100 threshold."
He looked at Aegon and Reina.
"Remember the protocol. When the energy spikes, you force it down. You seal the awakening until we are safe behind the walls of Bastion Seven."
The squad nodded in unison. They loaded back into the transport, leaving the ruined corpses of the wolves behind. Ten minutes later, the heavy vehicle finally reached the exact coordinates on the encrypted map.
The transport parked at the base of a massive, towering mountain. The rock face was entirely barren. There was no cave, no ancient ruins, and no visible door. It was just a solid wall of gray stone.
Bram stepped out and frowned. "Are we at the wrong mountain? There is nothing here."
The Captain stepped forward. A faint blue light flickered in his dark eyes. He activated [The Omniscient Cartographer’s World Map].
A highly detailed, three-dimensional blue grid expanded over his field of vision.
The world map skill scanned the microscopic details of the environment, reading the flow of ambient mana and dimensional folds. The blue grid highlighted a highly concentrated anomaly hidden deep within the seemingly solid rock face.
The Captain noted the exact spatial coordinates.
He turned toward Cole.
"Blacksmith," The Captain said, pointing to a very specific, unremarkable spot on the stone wall.
"Hit that exact coordinate."
Cole blinked. He walked slowly toward the cliff. As he grew closer, the dormant blacksmith bloodline in his veins began to heat up.
The Abyssal soot stained on his clothes seemed to vibrate. He could suddenly feel a strange, hollow resonance coming from the solid stone. It felt exactly like the sweet spot on a high-quality anvil.
Cole reached into his heavy canvas sack. He bypassed his iron hammers and pulled out a jagged, incredibly dense chunk of Void-Core ore they had looted from Cassian’s vault.
He gripped the raw metal tightly in his fist. He pulled his arm back and struck the invisible coordinate on the rock wall with all his might.
CLANG!
The sound of metal striking a divine anvil echoed across the Dead Zone.
The entire mountain shuddered violently. A massive, jagged fissure tore through the solid stone wall, running hundreds of feet into the air. The heavy rock split apart, grinding open like a set of ancient, mechanical doors.
A wave of suffocating, ancient heat instantly washed over the squad. It smelled of molten steel, burning coal, and old, undisturbed magic.
The Captain stood before the dark threshold, the heat gently pulling at his dark jacket. He looked back at his crew.
"Down there is the Worldforge Sanctum," The Captain said, his voice cold and focused.
"Whatever lies at the bottom will push you all past Level 100. We claim the legacy. We gather our strength. And then, we return to the Bastion to prepare for the Elimination of the Kings."
He turned and stepped into the suffocating darkness of the mountain. Strike Team Zero followed their leader without a single word of hesitation.
THUD.
The massive stone doors slammed shut behind them, sealing them entirely inside the dark descent.