There's No Love In the Deathzone (BL) novel Chapter 508

Chapter 508: Chapter 501. Milestone

"What kind of place is this?" Bassena looked around the area that was filled with tall walls. It had decayed slightly and crawled by black ivies, but the basic structure still remained.

"Looks like a castle from the Old Age," Kei pulled up some pictures from the commlink. "Anyway, I can’t sense anything around here."

"But the fact that the structure still standing meant a certain power was preserving this place," Bassena hummed before turning around. "What do you think Ze--where is he?"

Gus pointed at a pillar and a black-haired guide perched on top of it. Zein had jumped there when the others were busy looking around the ruin. As if realizing people were looking at him, the guide spoke. "It used to be here; the shard," he said before standing up, almost making Bassena’s heart drop in the process. "But it moved."

"Y-young Master?" it wasn’t just Bassena who got a heart attack.

"H-honey, can you get down now?" Bassena swallowed nervously.

Zein glanced down and smirked. "No," he said teasingly, before jumping to a wall near the pillar and keeping on moving as if following something on the ground. "It’s faint, but I can sense the leftover trace," he said as he ran above the wall. "Better follow it quickly."

Of course, the squad members followed him immediately, especially Bassena and Senan. They didn’t even look at the field and just kept their eyes on the guide. It was good that both of them were espers with high combat instincts, or they would have kept stumbling through the bricks and thwarting roots.

The others watched them amusedly, especially the other guides. In their eyes, Zein was the peak of existence; a guide who could do what an esper did to some extent. It used to be their routine to see Zein doing obstacles in the arena and dodging all kinds of projectiles. Jumping and running were hardly dangerous for him.

And yet, those two looked at Zein as if the man was a fragile glass.

"That’s what love does, huh?" Julian chuckled as he grabbed Dheera and Leehan so they could move through the castle too. "They’ll feel protective no matter what."

Dheera giggled behind her mask. "It’s the first time I heard Sir Vaski called Captain ’honey’."

"He was slipping out from panic," Gus laughed and told the others to follow them in leisure instead. It wasn’t like Zein could move as fast as high-rank espers anyway--the two panicking espers were just making things too tense.

"But it’s interesting to find that the shard could actually move around," Carra muttered. "Do you think it sensed the movement under the desert and ran away because of that?"

"Could be," Kei nodded. "The Stone Eater’s path does end near here. The twins simply couldn’t move because they were already underground and trapped by the fragment."

"Isn’t this good? We don’t have to worry too much since they have better survival means than we initially thought," Zhan grinned.

Indeed. Their biggest fear was for the fragments or worse, the Fallen Star--to find the shard. If the shards had more means to protect themselves, be it laying a trap or running away, it would give them more time to move more carefully.

"We can use that Castle as the third base, don’t you think? It’s close to the underground system, so we even have an emergency tunnel," Gus glanced at the big structure behind them. If they built a tall watchtower there, they would have a good vantage point of the desert.

As Gus thought about it, the three people they were chasing came to a stop. It wasn’t clear from behind because of the color of the sky and the ground looked the same, but they arrived on a cliff. It was a deep drop with fog covering the bottom, but they could also hear the sound of water. Across, they could also see another tall wall of rock, although it would be too far if they attempted to jump over it.

"It’s down there," Zein said at the end of the cliff, looking down while Bassena gripped his waist.

"Underwater?"

"I think so," Zein tapped on the esper’s arm circling his waist. "Let’s go."

"Now you remember me?" Bassena grumbled and Zein chuckled before tapping the pouting cheek.

"Let’s go, baby."

Bassena pressed his lips and took a deep breath before telling the others to stay put. He tightened his hold on the guide’s waist before jumping down, slowing his drop with mana while creating a platform right on top of the black water. After they landed on the platform, Zein crouched and took off one of his gloves.

"You’re going to touch the water?" Bassena frowned.

"How else could I call it out?" Zein shrugged. "I can’t feel any beasts nearby, anyway."

Even then, Bassena still sent his detection around to double-check. Only after he was sure nothing would suddenly come and bite Zein’s hand off did he nod and let the guide do his thing.

The water in the Deathzone was always cold, but this one felt even colder. Quickly, Zein spilled out mana through the tip of his dipped fingers. The river--if it was a river--ran deep, and it felt like forever when he finally touched the familiar sensation of a barrier. The barrier rippled and resonated with Zein’s mana, which was sourced from the same thing; Setnath’s essence.