Chapter 256: The Gate Of Death
A few hours before...
"... why are there so many of them? How many are still left?" Alaric thought as he looked at the horde of monsters sprinting toward him. While he killed the ones in front of him every second, tens of monsters emerged from the sea before him.
The creatures in front of him were an especially evolved type of fish monster. The lower part of their body was formed in a way that they could swim and walk as well. It wasn’t particularly in the form of human legs, but they weren’t that different either.
While the lower part was in the form of legs, the upper body clearly showed traits of a fish. Even though they were fish, they could easily breathe even on the ground, clearly indicating the presence of some unique mutation.
As he killed the monsters in front of him, a thought appeared in Alaric’s mind, ’Are these the same monsters Master had warned about?’
There was even a hint of familiarity with the monster in front of him. This familiarity stemmed from having heard about them.
To his knowledge, these were the same types of monsters that had once attacked the tribe’s boat during their journey. At that time, they weren’t this much mutated, but now... now they were fully capable of hunting on the ground.
Instead of pondering the matter any further, he shifted his focus to the battle. With the agility at his disposal, he began to dispatch the monsters like a hot knife cutting through butter.
He was killing at such a speed that notifications started to interfere with his vision. Despite the notifications piling up in front of him, he paid them no attention at all.
[You have killed a monster...]
[...]
[...]
[You have earned 5000 CC.]
[...]
[...]
[You have leveled up.]
One good thing was that most of the monsters he had met at this point were at tier Ⅱ, with tier Ⅲ being a rare-case scenario.
The fact that they were only tier Ⅱmonsters turned out to be very fortunate for Asteris. After emerging from the dungeon, Alaric and the gang were able to quickly clear the main part of the island where people lived from the monsters.
But unfortunately, they weren’t quick enough, resulting in people being injured.
While defending the elders and children, the fighters who were left on the island had gotten injured. Some sustained mild and some were severely injured... but the good thing was that there wasn’t anyone dead.
Or, to be precise they hadn’t found anyone dead to this point.
After securing the area, Alaric had commanded Thala, Old Man, and any other tank-type members to keep a barrier around the people.
"Vexar, there is another one at the very left of you..." Alaric muttered as he found another tier Ⅲ monster running on the island.
Alaric was informing Vexar about the tier Ⅲ monsters because the demon had proved to be very efficient in handling them. He had proved this after hunting all four of the tier Ⅲ monsters that appeared.
After uttering these words, Alaric quickly found his own suitable target. The focus of his attention was a group of about ten monsters that had just emerged from the sea. They were ideal because they were all still very close to each other.
’Let’s see how it fares...’ With a smirk on his face, he dove into the realm of shadows.
As Alaric dived into the shadow, the monsters who had targeted him were taken aback for a second after finding out that their target had just disappeared from their view.
This confusion only lasted for a second as they quickly shifted their focus and began to spring toward a lady with a sword. They could sense that her core was quite tempting.
With greed in their eyes, they sprinted toward her. However, before they could take ten steps, something emerged beneath them.
In the midst of their formation, a small pitch-black domain materialized. The domain remained still for a moment, but soon after, it began to enlarge. In a matter of seconds, the domain grew large enough to accommodate two of them side by side.
The monsters were about to retreat but halted when they noticed that the domain had stopped enlarging. Sensing that there was nothing worthwhile to devour there, they decided to move away from it nonetheless.
But... before they could take a single step, something emerged from the darkness. Small tentacles extended from the circle, moving toward them with a sense of autonomous purpose.
Before the monsters could comprehend what was happening, the tentacles had already ensnared their feet. Despite their attempts to free themselves, it was futile.
Before they could fully grasp the situation, they found themselves being dragged toward the hole.
In a matter of seconds, every monster around the hole was pulled inside—everyone except one. For some unknown reason, the tentacles hadn’t touched one of the fish monsters.
Blooop!
Before they could even scream, they had been transported into the realm of shadow. Trying to find where they were, they made the mistake of opening their eyes.
As the monsters cleared out, a being got away from the same domain. Looking at the scene around him the smirk on his face began to get big as a hysterical laugh left his mouth.
"Hahahaha! Hahahahaha! I have done it... I have done it... I have done it... Hahaahahah!" Muttering these words, Alaric increased the intensity of his laugh.
"Hahaaha! This is the beginning of... The Gate Of Death." Saying these words, Alaric did something strange... something that one shouldn’t do on the battlefield.
In the middle of the field, without any defense or offense, he brought out five bottles filled with blue liquid from his shadow.
This daring act of his hadn’t gone unnoticed by the monsters; while he was performing this play, the monsters around him had begun to attack him.
His act looked stupid, but Alaric was far from that.
As the monsters tried to attack him, the part of him where they would target would instantly be turned into smoke, resulting in their attacks doing no damage.
Knowing that he couldn’t do this for a long time, Alaric hurried up and chugged all the mana potions in one go. The potions began to flow in his system as they increased the amount of mana in his core to the maximum.
Seeing the area around him, he dove into the shadow realm once again.
"The Gate Of Death..." Just a moment after he went there, a whisper traveled through the shadow and reached the island.
Woooosshhh!
Suddenly, a five-meter dark circle appeared in the middle of the battlefield.
