There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 462

Chapter 462: Chapter 455. Fortress of Trees

"Yep--that’s a whole horde, alright."

The advance troop of the Anzus squad looked down from the cliff they came from. Below them, there was a basin filled to the brim with miasmic beasts. Hundreds of them. From small scythe-armed flying squirrels, to ones that were as big as moose. They looked chaotic, but also somewhat orderly. At least, they didn’t fight among themselves and instead, faced a huge wall in front of them--which was on the squad’s left side.

"Kinda looks like undead from up here."

"Ugh--is it bad that I think it’s disgusting?"

"Nope."

Dheera shuddered at the cocktail of miasmic beasts below. It wasn’t just the visual--the sounds they made together were grating; growling, snarling, hissing, screeching, and thumping sounds that were mixed with something otherwordly.

She had her fair share of dungeon experiences, but she had never seen anything like this before. After all, most beasts in the dungeons did not mingle with another kind of beasts, unless they were in a specific mutual symbiosis relationship.

These creatures, however, not only gathered together without fighting, but had their eyes on a specific target.

"Is that the trees?" Carra gasped softly.

Amidst the darkness and the grotesque vision, the ’wall’ felt weirdly alive with its dark brown and green color. The barks of the lining trees fuse together to make an impenetrable fortress, shooting up high into the dark canopy and creating a protective dome of tree fortress.

"We only saw it from below before, but...looking at it from up here, it really is majestic," Han Shin said.

"It might be made of trees, but it’s as hard as metal," Zein said, and as if confirming his words, the sound of clanking metal kept echoing within the basin.

The bipedal creatures at the front had been swinging their bladed hands and pounding at the wall with their weapons or even their bodies. And yet, the wall did not budge even a little bit. Some of the creatures even received injuries from the force of their own attacks.

Indeed, the core was strong.

"Well, they would also get weakened around the fragment’s effect," Zein added.

"Still, there are lots of them," Kei assessed the whole basin. "Almost a thousand, I reckoned. As we expected, there are several commander classes and--"

"A Boss," Zhan and Gus ended the sentence together, bumping their fists as they watched the hulking Ogre that had been roaring command all this time.

"Alright," Bassena stared at the horde trying to break into the tree fortress. The basin was so full of miasmic beasts that there was no place for the rear members to stand safely. Ideally, only the damage dealers and the defenders should go down, but...

Bassena turned to look at the two support magicians. "Can you cast from here?"

"Don’t ask for the impossible, Commander."

Figures.

"I can’t heal from here too," Han Shin chimed in.

"Nor can I guide," Zein added.

"So we all need to go down," Bassena nodded, looking at the sturdy wall of trees. "It’ll be best if we land as close to the wall as possible, but our position is rather at a disadvantage."

Because the Boss was situated between them and the wall, Bassena clicked his tongue and looked straight at the two warriors. "You should do it quickly."

"Against regenerating Boss?" Gus gasped dramatically.

"You have that unhealable skill," Bassena rolled his eyes. "And Carra will focus on debuffing the Boss. Hari, you put your curse on the rest of them. We’ll be using a booster serum instead."

"Woohoo, doping time!" Zhan immediately took out a couple of serum tubes from his storage rings. They were rather similar to the regenerative serum, just with different colors and effects. Just like its name, booster serum increased the taker’s physical ability--a substitute when they had no available support magician on their group.

"Don’t call it that," Gus smacked the back of the Spearman’s head. Again.

Zhan wasn’t completely wrong, however. These boosters, while safe, weren’t as good as a real spell. Ingesting it too much would lower the body’s efficiency in digesting the effect of the serum, so generally, the support magician’s buff was still preferable.

But they needed to be flexible from time to time.

"Can’t you just go nightfall on them, Commander?" Kei asked Bassena.

"Hey, you’re the one saying we shouldn’t use big stuff on small fries!" Zhan protested.

"That’ll put too much burden on Zein," Bassena said. Nightfall, after all, had the highest consumption of mana. "And I might destroy the purple stones we’re trying to get if we use it."

I’ll distract their attention with an attack, and you’ll use the time to go down

You two will go straight to the Boss--look for any purple stone and take it so the fight won’t get prolonged