There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 490

Chapter 490: Chapter 483. Old Habit Die Hard

When they first entered the Deathzone, they were greeted by thick jungle, black rivers, and cliff structures. The most ’open’ field they encountered was the wide clearing where they faced a horde of hounds on the first day. The marsh, although ’open’ in some locations, was also filled with tall, eerie trees jutting out of island formations here and there.

And so, when they faced this vast, vast field with nothing in between, they couldn’t help but stand there dumbfoundedly. There were no eerie trees or tall cliffs except those behind them. It was just a plain empty field as far as their eyes could reach. Far, far away on the other side was a dark void that even Bassena’s eyes couldn’t see. It was more than two kilometers too, so his children of darkness couldn’t try to see what was beyond.

On the left side, they could see the shadow of tall mountains far away, which, based on their calculation, was probably the mountain range where Senia’s team ventured to. On the far right was something that looked like a spread of huge boulders or the remains of an ancient civilization--the thick billowing miasma was too much for even a veteran scout like Kei to discern.

They would have traveled there had the compass’s arrow not pointed at the emptiness before them.

"Looks like a sea..." Zein muttered, recalling the ocean he saw at night from the balcony of their cruise ship’s cabin.

"More like a desert, isn’t it?" Han Shin tilted his head. "Or that dry plain before the Borderland--what is it...Red something?"

Ah...the place where Zein met Bassena for the first time. The guide nodded; the cracked red plain was also a spread of emptiness. But there, at least, they still met a few boulders that had been made into roadsigns so the trucks traveling through the plain didn’t get lost.

But here...

There was no boulder, much less roadsigns. No trees for bearings, or even uneven terrain.

"What do you think?"

They all looked at Bassena, who held the command stick. The Saint class stared at the empty field and the void on the horizon. He snapped his fingers and pointed at the field. Right away, several fleeting darkness shot out toward the field. Bassena himself, however, turned around and looked up at the cliff behind them.

"Let’s put a beacon up there while my kids probe for any anomaly."

They worked immediately; Kei, Naoya, and Julian climbed the cliff with Bassena’s platform while Gus and Zhan checked on their surroundings. The guides and the support espers used the chance to rest after the long walk. Looking at the empty field, they had a sense that they would have to walk even more, so there might be no better chance to rest leisurely than now.

Perhaps because of the weird feeling they had from the emptiness, or the uncertainty of what they might encounter after this, but there was a tension that made even the talkative Han Shin quiet down. Since no one was talking and no one needed guiding, Zein approached Bassena instead, who had been staring at the empty field.

"Find anything?"

"No," the esper shook his head. "I don’t find any barrier too."

"Hmm..." Zein stared at the compass and the arrow pointing forward. "Do you think it’s beyond that void? Looks like a curtain of miasma..."

"Maybe," Bassena exhaled slowly, closing his eyes in contemplation. "I’m wondering if we should just stop here for now and continue tomorrow."

Zein looked around; at the cliff behind and the dry field ahead. "There’s not much difference staying here or there, isn’t it?" Zein shrugged. "No source of water anyway."

"Are your kids alright?"

Zein glanced at Dheera and Leehan who were in the middle of talking in a whisper with Han Shin and Carra. They didn’t look stressed, and he could hear some giggling behind their mask. "They’ll be fine," he nodded. "I never let them stop their physical training."

Bassena chuckled, remembering how the guides--including the ones who only got there with the rest of the troops--ran around the track outside the stadium every day. In a way, the sound of their steps with a dash of whining and yawning became a substitute for the sun--a sign telling the espers that the morning had come outside the Deathzone.

"In that case, we’ll continue," Bassena nodded. "You want to continue, don’t you?"

Zein just nodded wordlessly. This weird situation made him even more restless, wondering where the two shards were. With the probability of the fallen star’s fragments hunting the shards, he felt like he was being chased to find them as soon as he could.

Being considerate, thus, wasn’t his priority.

"Oh..." Bassena exclaimed quietly all of a sudden.

"What? Did they find something?"

The amber eyes widened for a bit, before frowning in caution. "It’s a desert," he clicked his tongue. "After a kilometer or so...it’s nothing but sand." _{ƒrēewebnoѵёl.cσm}

* * *

"Have you fought in a desert before?" Leehan asked Julian, who was walking behind him.

"In a dungeon or two," the defender nodded. "But even those deserts didn’t look like this."

"Yeah--there were at least dunes, rocks...a plant or two, maybe an oasis," Hari tapped his staff on his shoulder as he recalled the good ’ol dungeon days. "And most of the time we can see the enemies."

They glanced around at the empty space that bore nothing but the spread of sand. They couldn’t feel any wind or hear any sound but their own; no rustling from the sneaking beasts along the ground and the belting of wings from above.

"I can’t believe there’ll come a day when I wish there’ll be miasmic beasts around me..." Hari chuckled wryly.

But even Naoya, who was the most vocal about not encountering too many beasts, felt the same. Too many was exhausting, but somehow, it was still better than nothing at all. Not in a place called the Deathzone.

And still, even in a place like this, someone opened their mouth recklessly. "Hey, wouldn’t it be funny if we suddenly get sucked by a quicksand or something?"

"Zhan!"

It was a collective shout that came even from the guides.