Chapter 310 | Villian Invasion II

Chapter 310: 310 | Villian Invasion II

Bulwark walked at the front of the evacuation group, carrying one unconscious guard over his shoulder and using his free arm to knock aside anything that reached them.

Gridlock moved backward near the center, maintaining a slanted barrier over the wounded.

Wind blades struck it in rapid succession, each impact making the surface flash. Blitz appeared and disappeared along the route, dragging fallen people out of dangerous positions before the monsters could reach them. Cole and Bullet Spear Man covered the longer angles, and Dexter handled anything that got close.

A Dark Wolf lunged between two overturned tables, and his saber cut through it. Another came over the roof, and he caught the warning in the sudden change of air above him and stepped aside before its claws struck.

The beast landed badly, and Dexter finished it before it could turn.

Behind him, a trainee stumbled, and the girl beside him tried to catch his weight and nearly fell too. Dexter reached them in two strides.

"Arm over my shoulder."

The trainee obeyed, and they kept moving. A Green Lizardman stepped into the route ahead, dragging a heavy axe. Bulwark adjusted the unconscious guard on his shoulder. "Cole."

"I have it."

Plasma struck the lizardman’s weapon, and the axe flew sideways.

Bullet Spear Man’s thrust followed through the opening, and the creature fell. They reached the training hall with three wolves behind them and bats circling overhead. The instructors at the entrance opened a narrow path.

"Inside!"

The survivors hurried through, and a woman in a bloodstained training uniform began counting them as they passed. Dexter handed over the trainee he was supporting. "His leg is injured."

"I’ve got him."

"Two unconscious guards. Several cuts. One shoulder wound that won’t stop bleeding."

She nodded and shouted for medical supplies.

Only when the last civilian crossed the entrance did Gridlock release his barrier, his shoulders dropping. Cole looked at the instructor holding the door.

"Can you keep them safe here?"

"For now."

"What about the main gate?"

"Blocked. Emergency exits too."

"Anyone found a weak point?"

The instructor’s expression said enough. "We’ve been trying."

Dexter looked toward the western side of the compound, where the barrier curved down beyond the equipment halls. The monsters were thick there, but the route was shorter than the main entrance and less crowded with fleeing civilians. "We need to see it ourselves."

Cole nodded. "Agreed."

If there was a weak point, they needed to find it. If there was not, they needed to know before exhausting themselves trying to reach one. They left the survivors with the instructors and formed up again. This time, they had no injured people slowing them down. The squad cut through the courtyard.

The first street was full of Dark Wolves and the beasts moved in packs.

"Two behind the vehicle," he said.

Bullet Spear Man attacked without stopping, his spear thrusting through the vehicle’s shattered rear window. A wolf screamed. Cole’s plasma caught the second as it tried to escape, and they moved on.

Above them, the two Half-Step Transcendents collided again. A ring of pressure spread across the dome, and for a moment the shadow overhead thinned enough to reveal the outline of one enormous chain before darkness closed over it. Blitz looked up.

"If the director wins—"

"Watch the roofs," Cole said.

Blitz looked forward in time to avoid a descending wind blade. "Right."

They crossed a practice courtyard where several heroes were fighting around a damaged supply station. Dexter saw a young man pinned beneath a fallen beam, two wolves approaching him, and changed direction. Cole saw it.

"Thirty seconds. We hold here."

Dexter reached the beam and lifted. The trapped hero cried out as the pressure left his leg, and a woman rushed forward and dragged him clear. Dexter dropped the beam between them and the wolves, and the beasts hit the obstruction. His saber flashed twice.

"Get to the eastern training hall," he told the woman. "There are instructors holding it."

She nodded rapidly, and he was already returning to the squad. The squad pushed on.

The final stretch toward the barrier became a running fight. Wind-thorn Bats swept low across the road, and Gridlock raised a barrier at an angle, forcing them to change height.

Cole struck the climbing cluster, and burning bodies fell through the dark. Bulwark smashed a wolf into a concrete post. Bullet Spear Man kept the lizardmen from forming a line across the passage. Dexter moved wherever the pressure increased, his blade slashing through the beasts like the rotor of a blender.

By the time they reached the edge of the compound, their clothes were stained with blood and dust. Some of it belonged to the monsters and some did not.

The barrier stood less than ten paces away. Up close, it looked thicker than it had from the courtyard, shadows moving beneath its surface. Occasionally, something resembling a face seemed to press outward from within, then vanished before any one could focus on it.

Bulwark approached first, and Gridlock caught his arm.

"Be careful."

The tank placed his palm against the dark barrier and pushed hard but nothing happened.

"Bang!"

The ground beneath his feet crumbled and cracked, the radius increasing rapidly as he pushed even harder but the barrier did not move.

His arm began trembling, and then the shadows twisted.

"Boom!"

A force blasted back to him and Bulwark was thrown backward. Dexter caught his shoulder and helped him remain standing.

"That’s harder than i thought."

Bullet Spear Man stepped forward. "Let me try."

He gathered mana, and struck a single point.

"Ding!"

The impact rang like metal, and a ripple spread across the barrier.

For half a breath, it seemed to thin, then the force rebounded. Bullet Spear Man withdrew just in time as the returning strike tore a trench through the ground beside him. Cole’s expression became grim.

"It returns what you put into it."

"Not all of it," Gridlock said.

They looked at him, and he watched the dark surface. "Some disappears. Some comes back. I can’t see where the rest goes."

Dexter had said nothing. He was looking at his ring.

The Ring of Shared Burdens rested against his finger, unchanged in appearance.

He fed a thread of mana into it, and the familiar connection did not answer.

"What is it?"