Athanasia: My Hacker System-Chapter 159: The Dragon Race Incident!
Everyone decided to head towards the northern side. As the battle was raging hot, and the closer they got, the louder and fiercer the sounds of explosions were, they decided to cross the remaining distance carried on the Bulltors’ shoulders.
"Wow! I love this speed!" Elena spread both arms, feeling the refreshing wind slamming against her face. "I’m starting to envy you, giants... I could get used to seeing the world from up here!"
Just before Elena could continue her enthusiastic praise of the giants’ speed, a weird trembling vibrated through the air, halting the progress of the Bulltors mid-stride. It was an earthquake that seemed to originate from the northern parts of their base.
"What is it this time?" Lanmar narrowed his eyes, his massive hands tightening nervously. The brief moment of triumph he had felt watching the cannons work began to evaporate. "I knew this was going too smoothly than ever! It was too easy!"
"It came from that way," one of the Bulltors grunted, pointing a massive finger toward the interior of the base. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺
As soon as John’s friends realised where the giant was pointing, their faces paled. The direction was unmistakable.
"It’s the direction of the lake!" Elena shouted, her voice laced with panic. She clenched her fists so hard her knuckles turned white. "Let’s go, fast! We have to check if the perimeter has been breached!"
The noises of the fight at the walls continued uninterrupted, the cannons still raining fire on the stragglers of the first wave, but the team’s focus shifted instantly. They had to ensure the heart of their base, their water and food source, was still intact.
"Are they aquatic monsters? Did something spawn in the water?" Ricky suddenly asked, his mind racing through every threat he knew. He feared the worst: an enemy they hadn’t fortified against.
"As far as I know, no, they aren’t aquatic," Reody answered, though his voice lacked its usual certainty. "Yet let’s go and check anyway. To be honest, these Wrathers we just fought... They are a bit weaker than the legends we heard."
His last comment, meant to be reassuring, actually left a lingering shadow of worry over the four humans. They had seen the sheer size of those deep-red giants. Recalling how even John’s deadly cannons required three direct hits to take a single one down made their hearts clench. If those were the weak ones, what did a stronger version look like?
Despite the fear, none of them entertained the thought of running away. Only Lanmar was silently calculating his exit strategies, but he was surrounded by the other Bulltors, who seemed to be keeping him in the centre of their formation as if they feared he’d bolt at the first sign of real trouble.
"The lake is fine," Elena noted a few minutes later as the shimmering body of water came into view. The surface was slightly agitated from the tremors, but no monsters were emerging from the depths. "Then what caused that trembling? Another wave perhaps?!"
Ricky looked toward the northern horizon, but Reody’s sharp shake of the head negated that theory before he could even finish the thought.
"There are supposed to be long hours between one wave and the next," Reody explained, his eyes scanning the landscape.
"It’s the den!" Cissel suddenly shouted. Her voice was shaky, lacking its usual icy composure. She was pointing a trembling finger toward the riverbank. "Look! Look at the old den, hurry!"
"Old den?!"
It took Lanmar, Reody, and the other Bulltors a few moments to grasp her meaning. Yet for John’s friends, they instantly recognised what she was talking about. In unison, they all turned to look further beyond the lake, toward the opposite side of the river where the original Fog Seekers’ den had been located.
There, they spotted the three hundred Wrathers that had been loitering earlier. They were no longer searching the ground. They were sitting in a perfect, ritualistic formation, their bodies glowing with a weird, pulsating blue-red light.
Even from their distance, the team could see thick bolts of lightning falling from the black clouds and striking their bodies every few seconds. The rhythm was frantic, way faster than the lightning strikes they had observed during the battle at the walls.
"This..."
Once the giants looked toward the other side of the river and saw the ritual, Lanmar couldn’t help but suck in a cold breath of air. His eyes bugged out of his head. "This is bad... This is really, really bad!"
"You don’t think it’s that thing we heard about, right? It can’t be!!" Reody turned to look at Lanmar, both of their faces turning a sickly, ashen white.
"Can you guys fill us in?" Ricky asked sharply. In the absence of John, he felt the need to act as their temporary leader. "We need to know exactly what’s coming! No more riddles!"
"It’s..." even Reody stuttered, his mountain-like confidence crumbling.
"It’s the end for us! All of us!" Lanmar broke out in his old, panicked tone, his voice rising to a frantic pitch. "We once heard a scary story about a Wrather attack that experienced a mutation in the middle of the trial!
The survivors who managed to escape spoke about how the Wrathers acted weirdly near the remains of a den, one that the Dragon race had moved to their area as a souvenir of their pocket trial!
But that trophy brought nothing but destruction and ruin over their heads! They are doing it here! They are mutating! We are doomed! We need to run before the earth opens up!"
"Shut up!"
Acting on pure instinct, Ricky shouted at Lanmar, mimicking the authoritative tone John used. Unlike John, however, Ricky had no control or contractual authority over the giant.
But the volume and unexpectedness of the shout managed to startle Lanmar into silence for a few precious seconds, enough of a window for Reody to find his voice and explain the situation.
"They are mutating," Reody sighed, his gaze fixed on the glowing circle of monsters.
