There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 489

Chapter 489: Chapter 482. Emptiness

"Two shards, huh?" Bassena muttered as they traversed through another jungle. "Not in two locations, but two together?"

"Like twins..."

Bassena glanced at Zein, who for once walked with him instead of with the two other two guides--now that Dheera and Leehan got used to the Deathzone, Zein no longer needed to babysit them. He couldn’t see the guide’s lower face, but from how soft that reply was, Bassena could picture the smile beneath the mask.

"I see," it also brought a smile to his face. "At least they are not alone, aren’t they?"

"Mm," Zein chuckled softly, before looking in the direction they had to go to. "But that also means they are easy to be noticed."

"Ah..."

Before starting this whole operation, they had made quite a few theories about the shards and the Fallen Star. One of them was the shard’s location, or rather...how they were hiding. Be it the one hidden inside the tree fortress, or the one in an underground city ruin. Even the one tracked by the other team was located beneath a mountain.

It made them think that over time, the shards manipulate the environment around them to create some kind of a hiding place. But regular miasmic beasts wouldn’t be able to breach the shard’s territory. All they could do was sieging the area while trying to break the invisible barrier.

In that case, who did the shards hide from?

At first, they thought it was from the Specters. But Specters were naturally created from the clash between the shards’ leaking natural mana and the Deathzone’s thick miasma, so it didn’t make sense.

Only after finding out the existence of the Fallen Star did Zein think of something--the shards were hiding from the Fallen Star who shattered them into pieces.

Of course, it was nothing more than a conjecture. But if their theory about how the Fallen Star needed to absorb celestial energy or natural mana instead of miasma, then it would make sense for the shards to hide from this former Celestial Being to prevent themselves from getting absorbed.

The problem was, just like how Zein could sense the shards to some extent, the Celestial Being might be able to. Bassena did say the fallen star’s fragment from last time kept looking at Zein’s direction. Whether it sensed Zein as a fragment or the shard inside the dimensional storage, the fact stayed; that it could sense the energy of another Celestial Being.

And two shards together letting out a stronger energy than one lone shard.

"Do you think It created fragments to hunt for the shards?" Zein asked the esper grimly.

"It’s the only possible conclusion, isn’t it?" Bassena exhaled slowly. "Radia agreed."

Zein didn’t like it, but he couldn’t help agreeing too. "Maybe...do you think the fragment was actually on its way to the tree fortress?"

"Could be..." Bassena nodded. "But then it sensed the ’energy’ moving and decided to wait."

Zein exhaled harshly and looked up at the dark canopy. "It would be ideal if we could deploy more squads to look for the shards..."

Bassena tilted his head in contemplation. "Or...we can also hunt the fragment--I mean, they’re not in hiding, unlike the shards."

Zein blinked and looked at Bassena, who gave him a shrug and a smirk. "It’ll be difficult," the guide said with a frown--not because he didn’t like the idea, but because he felt frustrated for feeling that it couldn’t be done.

"It’s difficult for the ’big’ ones, but...the last fragments felt like an upper red Boss, so technically, we can create a raid team around that," Bassena said. "The problem is their unique poisonous ability, but if Reina can make equipment to counter that, it might be doable. We already sent some to Mortix so we can make a detection device for the fragment, anyway, so might as well."

Initially, the detection device was made to be mounted on the alarm system so they would be alerted if a fallen star’s fragment approached the base. But who said they couldn’t do it to find the fragment too?

"So...like that compass?" Zein pointed at the little sphere on Kei’s and that had been pointing forward. "But isn’t that expensive?"

Bassena parted his lips without any words coming out for a while. In the end, he just cleared his throat and used his go-to solutions;

"Radia will think of something."

Zein chuckled and Zhan timely inserted himself into the conversation. "In case you’ll really go with that plan, please put me in a team, ’kay?"

"Seems like we get a volunteer," Bassena smirked. "You don’t like working with me anymore, huh?"

"Because it’s boring," Zhan clicked his tongue. "You always take on the main dish, Commander. I want to feel challenged!"