Chapter: 48 Hunt(2)

"Do not fret! Our lord is with us." The female knight keeps her composure and calms her knights.

"Move! Follow our lord." The low knight commands.

Ray takes the vanguard and keeps moving ahead. Currently they are in the outermost layer of the dome. The worms are attacking from all sides. The entire front side is handled by Ray while the rear is handled by the female knight. Only 389 knights remains.

Ray stabs the rapier into the ground and produces 10 air bubbles. These bubbles are fired straight ahead, displacing a large amount of worms. "Nia! Shoot the bubbles!" He orders.

The female knight who is standing all the way in the back turns away from the upcoming attack and shoots the bubbles as her lord commands. Her fellow knights covers her.

BOOM! BOOM! When the arrow hits the bubbles it explodes, triggering a chain of explosions.

From Karl and Joselina's point of view, half of the dome is burning. Alessa in the back smiles in happiness as her lord's power dominates the ancient beast. But this happiness doesn't last long because the damaged area of the dome is quickly covered by more worms and the worms from the inner parts simply ate the burning worms, extinguishing the fire.

Despite knowing that his efforts are not enough, Ray keeps on moving forward. After few minutes of intense battle, Ray reached the edge of the inner layer, beyond this is the main body of the ancient beast.

The parasite inside Ray is going crazy. It is eating large amount of mana and moving around popping blood vessels here and there which causes internal bleeding. Ray grits his teeth and takes a stance. He pumps all of his mana into the Gale rapier, lighting a series of magic circles.

"Everybody! Grab onto this!" Nia summons a big light blue magic circle on the ground and a large pillar of ice emerges from it. The remaining knights falls back towards the ice pillar leaving Ray alone at the front.

Seeing this, Nia quickly summons another magic circle which forms a thin but a strong layer of ice around Ray protecting him from the sea of hungry worms.

Ray coughs blood. But his eyes does not waver, currently he is incredibly focused. "Haah." He breathes very heavily.

Infront, millions of worms are pounding on the ice shield formed around him. Behind, the screams of a knight being eaten alive haunts his ears.

Midst of this struggle, the only feeling that his soul and body is experiencing is satisfaction.

Satisfaction of being able to kill this monster.

Satisfaction of being able to avenge his wife.

Satisfaction of being able to properly face his son from now on.

Satisfaction of being able to be better than his past.

Satisfaction.

"AELOUS'S WRAITH!" A huge tornedo is blasted at the beast which shakes the entire city of Renock. Ray's private ship struggles to keep it's position. All the remaining knights are holding onto the ice pillar for their own dear life. But worms quickly reinforces the inner part of the dome not even allowing the wind to flow inside, therefore the dome is still standing strong.

"DIE!" Ray strikes forward with rapier. Suddenly, the tornado grows in size. The entire ice pillar couldn't hold it's ground and flies high in the air. The ship quickly loses control and sways along the wind. Joselina quickly grabs Karl and holds on a steel bar.

BOOM! The dome explodes due to high wind pressure from the outside. A huge part of the inner layer is now exposed to the outside. The tornado quickly dies as Ray's mana couldn't keep up it.

The ice pillar falls on the ground just little bit away from Ray. Luckily, the knights held the pillar with all of their might, suffering low casualties. Nia quickly stand up and commands the knights to get into the formation.

On the other hand, the ship finally gains stability. Karl and Joselina runs towards the window and looks at the half destroyed dome. Karl sees a complex web of worms connected to a single centre inside the dome. 'The main body.'

"Alessa! Quickly bring the ship closer to the dome. I am going to kill this beast." Alessa nods and taps on her watch in hurry.

The ship takes a sudden turn and moves closer to the dome. "Are you ready?" Karl asks.

"Always." Joselina answers.

Back on the ground, Ray is on his knees as his mana reserves are empty. He vomited atleast a litre worth of blood. The worm inside his body bursts through his rib cage breaking several bones. Ray coughs more blood. The worm wriggles in a weird way.

Just then, Ray sees multiple spikes and a sea of worms coming towards him. He closes his eyes. 'My work is done. I leave it to you, kid.'

Behind Ray, Nia and her knights are running with all of their strength to save their lord. But Nia knows that they won't be able reach it in time. The first pillar of worms is just few metres away from Ray, yet he doesn't move.

CRACK! Suddenly the ground beneath Ray lifts up in the air. A large pillar of earth surges from the ground saving Ray at the last moment.

"Alessa! Move the ship closer to the pillar." Karl yells. The ship decents towards the pillar. Joselina who summoned the pillar by her magic, tries to extend it high in the air.

"Stop!" The ship stops mid air just besides the pillar. The window opens on it's own and Karl jumps on the pillar. He somehow drags Ray's body and tosses it back in the ship. Joselina picks up Ray rather easily and lays him down on the couch.

"Don't let him die." She says to Alessa.

Karl who is standing on the pillar watches the battle between Nia and the sea of worms. Nia is losing this one-sided battle. She lost half of her knights. She is standing in the back as her remaining knights fight in the front.

Despite being in the back, she is killing majority of worms with her longbow. But the number of enemies is too much for her and the knights at front get devoured by the worms. She takes few step back. Only 17 knights remains including her. All of them are ranged fighters.

"Captain! What should we do?" A low knight asks for orders but Nia is overwhelmed by the situation. She knows there is zero chances of them surviving this nightmare.

"I.." She hesitates to give a order but suddenly a knight besides her falls into a pit full of worms. He screams for help.

"Fall...Fall back!" She commands. The knights quickly move back. Nia takes the vanguard. She throws her longbow at the incoming wave of worms. She takes out the knives from her belt and throws at the endless sea of worms, trying to keep them at bay. She notices that her knights stopped moving.

"What happened, squad leader? Move, faster!" She commands without looking back. The low knight drops his bow. Nia turns back.

"Captain. There is no way out." The outer layer of the dome closes in front of their eyes. The only path of escaping this hell was closed. Now, they are trapped between two layer with nowhere to run to. Nia grits her teeth and removes her helmet. A cute and fluffy pair of wolf-ears strike up. Her lucious black hair along with her fluffy black ears matches perfectly with eachother.

"Don't show fear. You are serving a high knight. If you are going to die today. Die with honor." She throws her knives and removes her metal gloves. Showing her razor-like sharp claws. "CHARGE-"

BOOM! A large wall of earth rises from the ground separating the knights and the worms. A girl with a giant battle axe on her back and a small boy in arms falls in front of Nia. The boy quickly gets up and picks up the Nia's knives from the ground.

"Thank you for your service. We can take it from here." The boy gives a thumbs up. Before Nia could say anything, the girl with the battle axe waves her hands and a series of pillars rise from the ground taking the remaining knights high in the air.

Karl watches the knights jumping into the ship. 'Was that a cat girl? Or dog girl? Whatever. I just want to pet that.'

"Hehehe" He smirks in a very creepy way. Joselina makes a disgusted face.

"If you are done with your imaginations, the wall is going to break soon."

Karl turns around and sees multiple cracks on the wall. "How many times can you summons those beams of earth?"

"About 4 times."

"Good."

The wall finally breaks and the hungry worms spreads all over the place, searching for their prey. A single pillar of earth rises high in the air, above the sea of worms. Once high enough, Karl sees the shallow part of the dome which is there because of Ray's legacy spell. He grabs Joselina by the waist. She moves her hands and an another pillar of earth rises, around a hundred metres ahead.

"If I fall, take care of Fen." Joselina says it in a cold voice.

"Sure. I don't want to be haunted by your ghost." Karl pumps alot all of his mana into his legs and takes the first step. He jumps using levitating steps.

Joselina holds Karl tightly. She didn't expect him to go this high.

Karl reaches the peak height before falling down. He sees the pillar in the distance. He moves body downwards to gain additional speed. Karl smashes into the pillar but couldn't stop in time and skits off the pillar into the sea of worms.

Just before he is about to fall Karl stabs his knives into the pillar's side, saving himself and Joselina. "H-Hey! Move!" He yells Joselina who's eyes are still closed.

"H-Huh? Yes." She quickly climbs up and pulls Karl up.

He is panting heavily. "S-Summon the next one."

"Should we take a break? The worms won't reach us." Karl smiles and points downwards.

Joselina leans to look at the bottom and sees hundreds of worms climbing on the pillar, in just few seconds they will reach the top.

"Eek!" She jumps and quickly summons the next pillar. Karl chuckles as she holds Karl.

Again, Karl jumps. This time he landed perfectly on the pillar. Karl opens the void storage and grabs a mana recovery potion and drinks it.

Currently, they are in the inner layer of the dome. Next jump would be the last one. The number of worms here is far greater than the outer layer. Joselina waits for Karl to recover his mana.

Suddenly a tentacle of worms comes out of the ground and breaks the rock pillar. It starts to fall, Joselina quickly picks up Karl like a bag of potatoes and summons another pillar nearby.

She jumps on it but it broke before she could land. Huge pieces of rocks begin to fall crushing the worms. Joselina is jumping from rock to rock carrying Karl on her back.

"CAN YOU JUMP?" She asks. There is only one rock remains in the air.

"I TRY!"

On the last rock, Karl moves ahead. Joselina grabs his hand. Just before the rock is about hit the ground, Karl jumps.

"I AM SUMMO-"

"STRIKE THE BODY!" Karl points at the shallow part mid-air.

Joselina grabs tightly onto Karl, a magic circle glowing on her thigh. She turns around mid-air and performs a diagonal kick. Karl still holding her hand.

A large spike of rock surges from the ground and pierces the shallow part, creating a opening. Karl sees the black worm inside the main body. But the attack wasn't strong enough and the worms covered the open part. Karl and Joselina lands on the spike.

"No! My attack wasn't strong enough. We can't go inside." She smashes rock below.

Karl's hand glows and he takes out another bottle of potion. He grabs Joselina's face. "You did great. Okay? Now, summon a pillar and go back to ship."

Worms reached the top of the spike. Karl and Joselina are now surrounded.

"What are you saying?"

"Like I said, trust me." Karl pushes Joselina off the spike.