There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL)-Chapter 463 - 456. Dome of Light

"I’m dhyieeeng..."

Different from the confident smirk he had as he cast his skill earlier, Zhan was sprawling on the ground as his muscles were either torn or twitched.

[The Strike of Apocalyptic Sun] was a great ability that let him inflict a burning curse on the thing he sliced and prevent regenerative ability, but the price for using that skill that sapped him off mana was a searing pain all over his muscle.

"Such a show-off," Gus nudged the groaning Spearman with his boots.

"Fuck off!"

"Fine, I’ll fuck off--"

"No! No! Help me, fuck!"

Gus snickered and unapologetically poured a blue liquid all over the Spearman’s limbs. Zhan let out a breath of relief as the painkiller worked its way into his system as they waited for Han Shin to travel all the way from the bottom of the cliff to where they were. The one who arrived first, however, was a panting archer.

"I’m...not...a magician..." the archer grumbled while lying down beside the laughing Spearman. His arms were numb from shooting arrows after countless arrows to get rid of hundreds of minions near the rear team side while the giant snake was busy munching on the right flank.

"That’s why I told you to just be a sniper," Zhan laughed--or rather, wheezed. "Who told you to keep gaining mass target skill?"

"They were given to me by the Goddess," Naoya groaned and raised his upper body to sit, since the ground was uncomfortably hard. "Who am I to reject them?"

"What is this~" Han Shin smirked as he finally arrived at where the damage dealers were congregating. "You were so~ confident earlier, but now you can’t even move?"

Zhan cackled and raised his arm weakly. "But I still have this," he said in triumph, and Han Shin just laughed while healing both the spearman and the archer at the same time.

"Do you get it intact?" the healer asked.

Gus took out the Ogre’s necklace, which in his hand looked as big as a fighter champion belt. The pendant was a mesh of metal cocoon, but they could see a dim purple light between the lattice. "I think so?"

"Nice!" Han Shin, who was both their healer and only researcher, grinned in excitement. "Alright, you should be able to move now. I’ll do it again later, but we better move out now or they’ll leave us."

Zhan tilted his head while sitting up with a groan of his muscle. "Leave us where?"

"Where else? Inside, of course!" Han Shin pointed at the wall of trees with his thumb. "Oh, he’s opening it! Let’s hurry!"

Aside from him and Bassena, no one else from Anzus was there when they found the core last year. They had no idea, how magical it was to see Zein placing his hand on the wall, and witness the sturdy fortress which didn’t budge at all under the siege squirm and create a human-size gate in front of the guide.

And the light that came from that magical door, just felt like a miracle in this treacherous darkness.

"Wow..." Dheera muttered inconsciously. Like a moth, she followed the light in a daze, as if his mother was calling her home, to a warm place where everything would be alright.

And in front of that light, was an angel with the most beautiful face and a melodious voice, welcoming her. "Come in."

And so she came in--they all were--to the land of light.

* * *

The green zone had an abundance of beautiful places; golden fields of rice and wheat, lush forests and rows of blossoming roads, sparkling rivers and glittering lakes. There were beautiful buildings and art sculptures, places where they could even control the weather. Looking at all of them every day, nothing felt special for the high dwellers.

But at this moment, they realized they had taken those beauties for granted.

Bathed in the warm light filling the fortress of trees, they looked at the two-tiered like, listening to the drizzling waterfall, and smelled the scent of leaves and flowers. Compared to the vastness of the green-zone under the blue sky, or the everlasting green of the Temple, this small field of nature cocooned in a dome of tall trees wasn’t really much. It didn’t have the blue sky, and was comparably smaller than a lot of green-zone’s public parks.

And yet, they felt like they had never seen something so beautiful. Something so miraculous.

After trudging in the darkness for days and fighting almost non-stop until their muscle felt sore all day, just the simple light that made them remember the warmth of the sun again almost brought tears to their eyes.

Truly; a flower blooming in the middle of filth is the most beautiful.

Ah...so that was it. Unconsciously, their eyes shifted toward the one who opened the fortress. Indeed; Zein too, was a flower blooming in a barren land and concrete floor.

And for that, his beauty was incomparable.

"Bas," Zein called for the esper while walking toward the lake.

"Oh," Dheera almost stumbled forward when she unconsciously tried to follow Zein. But she watched in a trance as Zein walked on a bridge of dark platform, toward the big tree at the far end of the lake, from which water seemed to keep flowing out of the roots. "Umm...why is Captain..."

"Don’t worry," Han Shin patted the guide’s shoulder. "It’s just...hmm, a reunion--yes, it’s a reunion!"

"Reunion?" Dheera blinked slowly in confusion, but since the healer merely gave her a mysterious smile, she shifted her gaze back to her Captain, who quickly arrived at the ’island’.

From the moment Zein touched the wall, the core had been buzzing softly. But the moment Zein touched his feet on the root, its vibration got stronger that even the people across the lake could feel it. There was a rustling sound around the dome that made it feel like the whole fortress was whispering.

"Do you miss me?" Zein smiled and reached out to touch the shining core. "I’m sorry it took me so long."

The vibration softened the moment Zein’s fingers touched the crystalline surface. It slightly moved left and right, and Zein couldn’t help but chuckle.

"No? It’s not that long? Well, you’ve been waiting for five centuries after all, so I guess fourteen months is nothing."

The core buzzed slightly as if giving an agreement, and suddenly, Zein felt a tingling on his little finger--of the hand that was touching the core.

"Ah," he moved his hand away and poured his mana into the seal of the ring.

Immediately, a rush of energy poured out of the ring as a floating crystal shot out of it. Shining bright, the shard that had been living inside a laboratory for the past year let out a whistling sound as it circled around the small root island, before eventually hovering around the core.

"You shouldn’t fuse yet, but..." Zein looked at the two shards fragments that were facing each other, "Well, just hang out or something."

Now that he thought about it, this must be the first time these shards were meeting each other, since they were more or less stationary--always staying in the same place unless someone else moved them.

There was something Zein realized after interacting with the shard in Althrea for a whole year. These shards by themselves weren’t the fragments of Setnath--they were the vessel containing His fragment, just like Zein. Some of those shards contained the fragmented ego and memory of Setnath, but some only contained the memory of the vessel. Also like Zein.

It seemed that once Zein read Setnath’s ego or memory contained in the shard, that ego and memory went into slumber, or just disappeared altogether, leaving these semi-sentient vessels.

Perhaps that was why they felt like children somewhat, and had their own personalities; the cheery shard of Althrea that had been interacting with human researchers, and the calm oldest-sibling-like core that had to stand against many attempts of attack.

Zein chuckled and decided to just leave the two shards hanging out there while he came back to the shore.

"Are you done with your reunion?" Bassena offered his hand as Zein stepped into the last platform.

"It’s more of their reunion," Zein chuckled. "I wanted to ask about the attack outside, but..." he glanced at the two shards who had started to touch and untouched each other. "I’ll do it later."

"It’s fine, the report can wait," Bassena nodded and turned to face the others, who were still staring around the fortress in amazement. He clapped his hand to get their attention back. "Alright, we’ve been fighting constantly since we entered the Deathzone, and none of you probably have a proper rest during the night."

Bassena looked up and around once, before looking at them again with a smile. "As you see, not even that horde earlier could breach the defense of this place. We have sufficient water and light too, so there’s no nothing to worry about. Use this time to loosen up and heal your mind before we march again. We’ll stay here until Hagalaz arrives, so you can do whatever you want until then."

At Bassena’s announcement, Zhan collapsed to the ground again, laughing as his body felt the soft grass rather than the hard soil outside. Like ancient matryoshka, they fell down one by one, laughing. The two guides took off their mask and took a deep breath of purified air, basking in the light as warm as the sun.

"Rest up," Bassena said with a chuckle, and his arm got yanked back suddenly.

"You too."

He was met with a stern blue gaze that looked at him deeply. "You haven’t slept once since we came inside. There’s no need for a night watch now, so just sleep and rest like the others."

Bassena blinked and smiled, cheekily stumbled forward to press his forehead against the guide’s shoulder. "Maybe if you sing me some lullaby?"

"I will, so get some rest too."

Bassena blinked and pulled away to look at the guide’s serious face. "Huh? Really?"

Did his birthday come early?