The SSS-rank Guide Doesn't Need Saving novel Chapter 141

Chapter 141: Unexpected Danger!

The realization came a fraction too late.

Zeke’s mind raced back to the moment Cavendish had nearly lost his face to that same creature. He had been the only one who sensed it, and only in the split second before it lunged. Cavendish, an A-rank Sentinel with years of battlefield experience, hadn’t reacted at all.

Neither had Ares, nor Torrin, nor Feyd. Five trained Sentinels, all with heightened senses meant to detect danger, and not one of them had felt so much as a ripple of warning.

Something hadn’t been right then.

Now, standing in the freezing dark with hundreds of glowing fins flickering to life around them, Zeke understood.

This annexed contaminated zone wasn’t simply hiding its monsters in shadow. It was swallowing their senses whole, smothering every instinct that should have made them aware of the danger before it got close to them. That was why they’d walked so deep into the tunnel without a single flicker of unease. That was why Galithe’s foot had landed directly on a monster’s carapace before any of them knew it was there.

And by the time they realized it, it was already too late to retreat.

"Don’t move," Zeke ordered, low and controlled despite the surge of alarm racing through him.

He’d barely finished the words when the first wave surged forward.

They came all at once, a tide of midnight-purple bodies scrambling over each other in their hunger, jaws unhinging wide to reveal rows of jagged, backward-curving teeth built for tearing rather than biting. Their bioluminescent fins cast the tunnel in a sickly blue glow, illuminating a horde that seemed to have no end.

Because Zeke had shouted his warning half a second before impact, Gwen and Galithe managed to raise their guard just in time. Gwen’s blade flashed out in a wide arc, the air around it screaming as it sliced clean through three of the creatures’ throats in one stroke.

Meanwhile, Galithe stumbled back, dagger raised defensively, barely managing to deflect a lunging bite aimed at her face.

Zeke’s power came alive around them, a dense, invisible pressure bending the space just beyond their position. Creatures that leapt toward them found their trajectories twisted, gravity folding in on itself to slam their bodies against unseen walls with bone-crushing force. One after another, they burst apart against the barrier, reduced to wet, pulped matter that slid down an invisible curve and dropped to the icy floor.

For a moment, it seemed to be working. The wall of gravity held the swarm several meters back, buying them room to breathe.

Then the creatures did something none of them expected.

The ones that had been flattened against the barrier and had already burst into a bloody mess were being devoured by their own kind. The living ones tore into the corpses of the dead without hesitation, gorging themselves in seconds before shoving forward again, using the mangled remains as stepping stones to climb closer to the barrier.

They just kept coming.

"Fall back!" Zeke barked, already calculating an escape route. "Go back the way we came!"

Gwen didn’t hesitate. She spun on her heel toward the tunnel mouth they’d entered through—only to freeze mid-motion, her eyes widening.

"It’s blocked!" she shouted over the chittering shrieks of the swarm. "They’re also coming from this direction!"

Zeke’s gaze snapped backward. She was right. What had been an open path minutes ago was now packed wall to wall with writhing bodies, fins glowing in a solid wave of blue light stretching as far as the darkness allowed him to see.

They were now being surrounded.

There was no time to panic or hesitate. Zeke’s power expanded outward, gravity bending and twisting at his command, folding space itself into brutal, invisible blades that sliced through the horde in controlled bursts. He directed the crushing pressure with surgical precision, collapsing pockets of space around clusters of creatures, imploding them into wet ruin before they could even scream.

Beside him, Gwen fought with everything she had. Her power sang through the air, wind condensing into razor-thin blades that whistled with every swing, cutting down anything within reach in wide, sweeping arcs. Blood and gore sprayed across the ice with every pass, staining the frozen ground a deep, glistening purple-black.

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