Hank’s eyes widened in shock He had been so focused on figuring these two figures out that he had missed the largest and most obvious detail about them they were dressed up as if they were heading to a renaissance fair Both wore leather armor with glints of light off of chainmail that they wore under it Hank’s first reaction to think it ludicrous but then he realized that the leather likely wasn’t taken from cows but from monsters Depending on the monster the leather would likely be impossibly strong there were some Level 40 monsters that could resist several direct blasts of plasma before they were wounded
Such a thing was considered by Ghost but ultimately the difficulty of processing the bodies of monsters combined with the reliability of the exosuits had invalidated that possibility
Not in this Zone
The silence between them had now stretched for 10 seconds or so Hank was very away that the black man had held his giant ball aloft and still for the entire period without even a hint of strain That was Strength of 250 at least but it would be easier to estimate if they had one of Ghost’s cameras
Now that was somewhat odd Ghost hadn’t insisted that they bring a camera with them
Before he could follow that train of thought further the Indian man cleared his throat “You are the group that cleared the Raid Dungeon first yes Congratulations you are a credit to humanity I am Dinesh and this is Tykes We hail from Zone 32 “
Coming from Dinesh’s mouth with the two of them standing over the corpse of the ram they had so struggled against the compliment sounded incredibly hollow Still it was an opening and they had to start somewhere Hank responded “We are from Zone 1 We were surprised how quickly another Zone beat the Raid Dungeon But I suppose we can both benefit greatly from helping each other out Do you “
“That was our kill ” Ezekiel interrupted his eyes bright and dangerous
Tykes responded by showing his teeth “If it was your kill you would have killed it “
In the hand that wasn’t holding onto the large metal ball Tykes spun an object in his hand with obvious satisfaction it was the intact golden horn from the ram Ezekiel’s eyes turned red There was also something extremely strange in the air a feeling of foreignness that was coming from Ezekiel that was disconcerting
Both Hank and Dinesh started to speak at the same time
“Now listen y’all “
“Perhaps we can “
Ignoring them both Ezekiel drew a plasma pistol and fired aiming for Tykes
“Shit ” Hank drew his repeater but didn’t fire feeling somewhat helpless His bullets could pierce through the plasma if he used his Trick Shot but that would only stop a small portion of the plasma He simply didn’t have enough time or the angle to destroy the projectile
Dinesh frowned and Hank saw a Mana Shield spring to life in the middle of the two groups The plasma hit the shield and almost instantly ripped through the shield but it lost a lot of its momentum its arc pulling it directly to the ground where it sizzled and ate itself a sizable hole into the dirt
Chapter 495
Hoping that this was the end of the incident and they could brush it off Hank turned to Ezekiel but he stopped short The man’s entire eyes had turned a crimson color and there was a strange sulfurous smell in the air
“Mine mine mine MINE ” What started as mutters transformed into a bellow and Ezekiel waved his hands wildly “Acid Maelstrom “
Globs of green liquid appeared around Ezekiel and in the air above him First a dozen then a hundred but soon a thousand without the genesis of the strange globs slowing in the least
“I’ll take it ALL ” Ezekiel shouted his eyes red foam forming at the edges of his mouth Those thousand globs of acid began to spin together in a strange formation then the whole thing shot forward followed by the hundreds of follow up globs Again Hank was frozen shocked by the sudden change in Ezekiel Sure the man was always an asshole but this was just insane These were PEOPLE If they could ally with this Zone 32
After throwing the attack however Ezekiel shivered and then collapsed But the dice had already been thrown Around Hank the rest of his party seemed similarly shocked even Affina looking slightly aghast her blind eyes searching in the sky for what was occurring Only Katie seemed to know where this was coming from a bitter expression on her face Apparently Ezekiel was kept in the Holding Area for good reason
Contrary to expectations Dinesh and Tykes didn’t seem upset Their eyes glowed with interest and they shared a glance After a second even as the huge attack covered over half of the distance between them Tykes rolled his eyes and snorted His giant iron ball disappeared and he folded his arms
Meanwhile Dinesh smiled
“Domain Labyrinth of Mirrors “
Instantly dozens of transparent squares 1 meter by 1 meter flew up from Dinesh The air around him crackled and he folded his palms in his hands After another second the air began to bend and twist and Affina spoke
“This this man’s Mana is so strong and thick that it destroys the air I can see him see his silhouette as clear as day “
The two forces met The hissing and bubbling acid globs smashed into the transparent squares From what Hank could observe these squares were a variation on the Mana Shield But they were so so much more than that Hank wasn’t sure whether the acid was stronger or weaker than the plasma but he hoped it was weaker
It took about 3 globs to destroy a square and often that just let the square with a large hole in the center Instantly when their blocking capabilities were compromised the squares would pivot backward flying towards Dinesh Another square was already there to take the first’s place and the wounded one would slowly heal next to Dinesh
A thousand collisions happened in the first second and hundreds in the following 10 seconds Very quickly Dinesh’s strange domain was devoured the acid ripping its way through but there was always more barriers there folding outward collapsing inwards guiding the poison so it was useless so two globs would ricochet off of each other depleting their effectiveness And after the first wave pierced through Dinesh’s Skill expanded outward boxing in the poison separating each branch of the Maelstrom making it so that they couldn’t concentrate the attack in any one direction piercing through with force The Poison Maelstrom was helpless as Ezekiel collapsed leaving it without direction
By the 12th second the attack was defeated and Dinesh’s strange Skill folded back into himself disappearing into nothing
Hank coughed “Mighty obliged for that I dun know how I would have explained to my boss that we killed the first diplomatic delegation we ran into “
Tykes snorted and Dinesh smiled politely
“The pleasure was all mine ” Dinesh said “It is very rare that I get the chance to test my Domain as thoroughly as that perhaps you would be willing to accompany us back to our current base There we can confer and of course compensate you for stealing your kill “
Tykes rolled his eyes
An hour later Hank and his group arrived at the base of the Zone 32 delegation which turned out to be extremely peaceful Almost disturbingly so
Ezekiel hadn’t yet awakened so Hank and Katie had created a stretcher to carry him When they arrived they carefully set Ezekiel down Hank had a lot of questions but couldn’t think which to ask first
A 10 year old child who had been peacefully cutting wood stopped and looked at them Then he skipped over to them as if there weren’t monsters in the surrounding area that would rip his stomach out as soon as look at him Behind him there was a strange sort of house constructed of what looked like tightly wound together thorny roots
“Oh wow You found people so quickly ” The boy said “It’s only been two days “
Tykes shrugged as if this was completely natural considering his level of Skill and ruffled the boy’s hair as he walked past the kid to head towards the house