Chapter 198: Brooding Danger
Asher sheathed his blade in a single, fluid motion—as the four-armed skeleton was frozen in place across from him. He turned and trotted back toward Rob and the other porters without a backward glance.
As he walked away, the four-armed skeleton’s body collapsed into clean halves.
The split carcass trembled, bones clattering together in a frantic, posthumous rhythm.
In the next second, it detonated.
Boom—!
Pale white energy erupted skyward in a roaring column, splitting the air with a thunderous crack as it shot into the Sky Gate above. Kai could see the Sky Gate’s edges quiver and its distortion visibly weakened.
One thread anchoring it to the Second Sky had been severed.
And all that was left behind was a white Null Gem and a pile of bones where the four-armed skeleton had stood.
Asher kept walking and picked his ear, annoyed that the detonation had rattled his eardrums.
He passed a nearby Angel from the Aegis Unit without breaking stride.
"Clean up the rest, will you?" He said—didn’t bother looking back as his gaze fixed forward. "They’re stunned. They always are when the Noble Star Beast dies. Use it to take out as many as you can. This is your window."
"R-Right. Sorry," the Angel snapped out of her daze and moved.
Just as Asher said, the remaining skeletons are still frozen in the aftershock of watching their summoner bisected and obliterated. And they barely raised their weapons and shields before the Aegis Unit fell upon them.
Makos, Damas, and Fimos also followed Asher.
None of them spared a glance at the lesser monsters still skittering around them.
Likewise, the skeletons and scorpions held their ground at a distance—their usual aggression gutted by the slaughter they had just witnessed. Even Star Beasts understood when they were hopelessly outmatched.
It took the Aegis Unit half an hour to finish the cleanup.
Some of them got hurt in the process.
One even almost died, but they did their responsibility, nevertheless.
Then, Kai and the other porters moved in.
They swept the entire battlefield methodically, gathering Null Fragments and Null Gems from the sand. The desert made the work even more tedious—the pale fragments and gems buried themselves on impact, hiding beneath the shifting grains.
And every inch of the battlefield had to be checked, even double-checked.
Only when they were sure they hadn’t missed anything did the squad move on again.
Even though the Null Gems and Fragments were all white, as these Star Beasts were only Pest-class, there were differences between each one. One example was the Null Gem from the Noble Star Beast—it was far bigger and heavier than the ones the scorpions dropped.
Had it not been for the practical leather pouch, the weight would’ve weighed them down.
Once done, the squad crossed the grassy plain again and moved to the other desert.
Now, they were going to handle the second Noble Star Beast.
It was the same one as the four-armed skeleton from earlier, so it should be as easy.
But before entering the desert, Asher stopped, and the rest behind him stopped.
"Oh, right—we forgot the corruption radar." He turned to Fimos. "Care to grab it?"
Fimos tilted his head and paused for a good second. And then nodded, "Of course."
Barbara stepped forward. "If it’s just grabbing something from the camp, I can get it."
Considering that it was a porter’s duty to be the errand boy for the seniors, this should be the perfect time for the seniors to send one of the porters back to the camp. And Barbara wanted to be the one to do it.
Another chance to look better in the seniors’ eyes.
She wouldn’t waste this kind of opportunity.
A smile crept to Fimos’s face as he patted her shoulder. The smell of alcohol clung to his breath, thick and hard to miss. But Barbara’s expression remained perfectly stoic. She would not risk offending him, no matter how unpleasant.
"No need." He said, "You don’t even know what the corruption radar looks like."
Barbara wanted to say more, but her eyes flickered.
She noticed something.
"In that case, I won’t insist."
"Good, good. I’ll be back. It won’t take long."
"What’s the corruption radar?" Sabas, curious as always, turned to Asher and asked.
"Just like the name indicated, it could detect corruption. Both the corruption in the area, or the corruption in us to know when to back away before we’d be corrupted," Asher answered. "It’ll be handy to have for when we enter the Sky Gate for the last Noble Star Beast since the Aegis Unit wouldn’t be helping us in there."
As the Aegis Unit is composed of weaker Angels, they can’t enter the Sky Gate.
Not that they really couldn’t, but it would be really hard for them to perform well.
So, the Assault Unit would be operating alone, and having a corruption radar would let them monitor how much further they could go and pinpoint the last Noble Star Beast. That was exactly why Asher had sent someone to retrieve it.
It’s a crucial tool.
"Are we going to wait for Senior Fimos?" Another porter from the Aurelian Academy asked.
"No," Asher looked forward again. "We can handle the second Noble Star Beast fine."
Just like the first one—the second Noble Star Beast was burrowing underground and was also surrounded by scorpions. But unlike the first one, the Aegis Unit in the area had managed to thin the surrounding Star Beasts or had already lured them away, clearing the area entirely.
It allowed Asher’s squad to fall upon it with brutal efficiency if they wanted to.
But this time, surprisingly enough, Asher decided to have the porters learn something.
"As your senior," Asher said, and then his eyes landed on the porters from Aurelian Academy. "A senior Angel—I’ll teach you guys one thing that’ll be useful in taking down a Star Beast. It won’t be taught to you until much later, but I’m in a good mood."
All the porters, including Kai, were interested in hearing what he had to say.
A tip from a senior would be tremendous for them.
"Killing a Star Beast becomes far simpler once you’ve carved out its Null Gem," Asher said with a raised finger as if he were a teacher teaching his students. "Most of you already know that by crushing the Null Gem, you’d kill the Star Beast outright, so you avoid targeting it as we need the Null Gem. But you can still aim it. Remove it, and the Star Beast loses over half its power. After that, finishing it will be easy.
"Of course, some Star Beasts have reinforced bodies that make extracting the Null Gem really difficult—so you can’t use this tactic on every Star Beast. But when you’re facing one with an accessible Null Gem, like this skeleton here, you should focus on taking it out first."
Kai and the others nodded.
It was indeed as Asher said, they only know that crushing the Null Gem would kill the Star Beast.
Not a quick death like decapitation or crushing the heart, but a slow one.
Either way, this is not an optional method as Angels need their Null Gems. It’s the only way for them to grow stronger, as they were prohibited from using mana ores. So, they opted not to aim the Null Gem.
But now they learned they could simply carve it out to secure the null gem and weaken the Star Beast.
"Some of you might think carving out the null gem and leaving the Star Beast to die is a clever idea. With the null gem in hand, there’s no need to take any risks." Asher’s gaze scanned the porters, catching the glint of scheming in their eyes.
"Not a good idea," Rob added from the side, shaking his head.
"Yes," Makos nodded repeatedly and then flailed his arms wildly. "They went really mad."
"A dying Star Beast is a desperate Star Beast," Asher continued. "And desperation makes them far more dangerous. Finish the kill before it has a chance to cause chaos."
All the porters took a mental note of what the seniors said.
Kai was included, but aside from the great tip, he was curious about one thing.
Why are they doing this? Teaching us is good and all, but we porters were only sent here to help them.
Just as the bald professor had told them, they were sent here to help carry things—and as a side bonus, could watch the seniors dismantle a Sky Gate—and learn from the example. But observation was the extent of the arrangement.
No need for the seniors to teach them anything like this directly.
All they needed to do was close the Sky Gate for good.
Kai and the others would only need to pay attention and learn whatever they could.
It’s odd for the seniors to be this supportive.
Angels of the First Sky were raised to survive even at the expense of others. To root out all the weak from the strong. So, seeing the seniors act this welcoming struck Kai as strange, almost unnatural.
Considering their background, the seniors should be proud and arrogant.
In fact, they should even contribute to the trauma the new Angels had endured.
But that wasn’t the case entirely.
Maybe they empathized with the new Angels, knowing what we had endured? I don’t really know.
No matter how hard Kai tried to guess the reason, he couldn’t come up with much.
Only the seniors knew the trauma that reigned over the First Sky, and felt bad for them.
It seemed Bree was also thinking the same thing—as she turned to exchange a look with Kai and then leaned close enough to whisper. "Do you think they are trying to make us lower our guard to kill us?"
"That can’t be right." Kai shook his head. "Didn’t you remember what the professor said?"
Before departing, the bald professor stressed to them to prioritize their lives.
Regardless of what happened throughout this mission of being a porter—for the seniors, they were not mandated to help the seniors in closing the Sky Gate. He expected them to come back safe and sound.
Just that alone should stress that their lives are valuable at the moment.
And there will be consequences for the seniors if they kill Kai and the other porters without a solid reason to give to the academy. It’s unlikely for them to want to kill Kai and the others, as that would be committing suicide.
"Then," Bree whispered again. "What do you think they’re doing? I don’t buy that they are teaching us for free."
"I don’t know..." Kai’s brows furrowed together as he watched Asher. "Let’s observe longer."
If something is really going on, then it would be centered around Asher.
He’s the leader of the squad, so he must be the most aware.
And knowing that, Kai watched Asher closely.
He would wait for the crack to see through the veil.
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