NOVEL NEXT Chapter 172: Blue-Gate Threat
Several reinforced cars that looked similar to military vehicles drove through an old asphalt road in a dilapidated city.
It looked like a modern city that had been abandoned for centuries, with greenery covering almost every structure, from towering skyscraper skeletons with no windows to single-storey buildings.
In the first vehicle sat a man holding a cigar while driving. He wore a white baseball cap.
"Do you think those rumours are true?" Stephan, the boss of this freelancer team, turned his head toward the woman beside him.
She had long red braids and wore a camo hat, though she left the strap loose.
"The authorities sent a huge troop into this dungeon to fight those Vagabonds, and there was no mention of the ents. Raiders went in right after and still didn't see anything. It's as if all the beasts in the dungeon vanished," Antonia replied, her expression clearly saying that something was wrong.
"Maybe they didn't search well enough. This dungeon is just a king/queen-tier dungeon, which means it will have a Throne Tier boss at best. It's too low-rated for our team," Stephan grumbled.
Antonia rolled her eyes. This man was only their leader because of his brawn. Though he was quite shrewd and almost impossible to intimidate, his lack of cautiousness and foresight was a huge drawback.
Luckily, Antonia was here to help with that. "The mayor hired us for this and has promised to pay well."
"Yeah… only if we find something! Imagine us riding into this place with all these Mountain Tortoise–enhanced vehicles that suck up a lot of gasoline and cores, yet we find nothing. You expect the mayor to cough up twenty million for that?" Stephan retorted, hitting the steering wheel to express his frustration.
"Hey, boss!" a loud voice rang out as a young man wearing a necklace made of beast fangs yelled, forcing Stephan to look out the window.
He saw Kyle, the young man riding a massive stingray gliding through the air at their level.
"What is it?"
"Everything has respawned. I heard the battle caused great damage to this dungeon, had the buildings and damages not been covered up, it would've been fun to see it. And that Godfrey dude, how good is he compared to me?" Kyle asked.
Antonia scowled. "There's a reason he's known worldwide, and the next heir to the strongest family is said to have a crush on him. You're only famous in Brooklyn."
"Brooklyn is one of the most dungeon-concentrated places in the world! I've been facing beasts since I was ten, and that Godfrey sat in a school chair until he was almost seventeen," Kyle bragged.
"Whatever," Antonia muttered, rolling her eyes.
Suddenly, Stephan slammed on the brakes, forcing Antonia to jerk forward, almost hitting the windshield. She couldn't even complain as towering trees burst out of the asphalt road before her eyes, ripping the road apart.
Even the buildings crumbled as the trees grew. In the blink of an eye, a massive forest loomed like a slumbering giant before them.
"A forest?" Kyle raised an eyebrow.
"Check it out," Stephan said, and Kyle nodded. His stingray burst forward, manipulating the air as it flew into the forest, Kyle holding tightly to the custom-made saddle on its back.
He shut his eyes, and they began to twitch, but still, nothing. After flying for a while, Kyle spun around and flew back.
The moment he burst out of the forest, his heart shuddered.
He saw some of his comrades pinned to the floor with tree-like spears.
Blood was everywhere, but what stabbed deepest into his soul were Antonia and Stephan, killed by long, slim arrows with fletching made of leaves that grew naturally from the shaft while still seated in the vehicle.
Kyle turned back with quivering eyes and saw tree-like archers, perched on trees, aiming at him. There were hundreds of them, with bark-like bodies and cloaks made of green leaves for camouflage.
He couldn't believe they had been there the whole time, but that was the least of his terror as something heavy approached from the depths of the forest.
It was a towering ten-foot-tall humanoid made of roots and bark, resembling a bulky knight. One arm ended in a massive shield with two sharp ends at the bottom and one sharp end at the top.
From the gaps in its head, ghastly green light shone.
More came out, some smaller, some the same size. Their numbers grew until they spread deep into the forest.
Kyle gasped as he saw roots and vines wrap around Stephan, Antonia, and the rest. They transformed into ents with tree-like exteriors. Some had tree horns, most carried shields and spears, and a few possessed bows with quivers full of arrows.
The forest shuddered, as if something even worse was coming.
Kyle fled, creating ripples in the air as his stingray flew at its greatest speed. It conjured a sphere of pure wind to protect him from spears and arrows.
"They're dead… They're all dead!" Tears spilled from Kyle's eyes as he urged his summon to fly faster. But when he looked back, it seemed as if the forest itself had legs, and it was closing in.
Buildings crumbled and gave way as the great forest chased after Kyle.
"You waste your time, human boy." A calm, sonorous voice entered Kyle's ears.
'It can speak? That must be the boss! I need to get out of here—I have to leave… Boss… he's—!'
Kyle gasped as roots burst out of the earth and transformed into a thirteen-foot-tall, tree-like humanoid with digitigrade legs and feet resembling a cow's.
It wore a blue loincloth around its waist and a cloth of the same color around its neck. Two horns with branching limbs protruded from both sides of its ivory-white, expressionless face, which bore uncanny similarities to a mannequin.
One of its long arms, which extended below its knees, wrapped around Kyle's neck, while the other slapped his stingray back into the forest.
Kyle swiftly retrieved it and summoned it above the boss ent, but as if it had eyes on its back, sharp, thick roots burst from its spine, skewering the stingray.
Blood gushed from Kyle's mouth.
"I have but one question…" the boss said without moving its mouth. "…How many more of you are out there? I hope… you're not few."
...
A/N: I haven't said anything for a while now and no one complained. Sigh