133 Fire In The Hole!
In front of me was a big hole, one that didn’t have smooth edges or the same width of the holes I entered so far.
This one was crudely made by the attacks from the Berserkers. The place was already filled with lots of berserkers fighting with their allied races against minions.
Of course their number wasn’t that much, only limited to a few hundred at most. That was the force that remained after that deadly sneak attack from the angels.
“It’s my friend human Hye,” as I stood on top of that all black hole, I heard the familiar harsh voice of the berserker leader. “Did you come to kill that heart? We just killed it!”
I looked at him and his men, no one had any black colour on their hands or the exposed parts of their bodies.
“Great job,” I said in fake praise, “I’ll let my dragons help in suppressing the minions here. You can lead your forces and search for another heart.”
“Are there more hearts?” I didn’t know why but at this moment I felt that berserker was really dumb.
“There are many,” I nodded, “go and kill more. I’ll hold this useless place here for now.”
“Does it happen that you know of a heart location?” he asked and I just picked a spot randomly and said:
“There.”
“Thanks,” he seemed happy. Dude, I just picked any spot to make you go away from here.
“Ooohhhaaa!”
“Ooohhhaaa!”
He shouted the usual war cry before others responded with the same. He led them towards the direction I randomly selected. And as he and others were gone, it was time to make sure of my realisation.
“Let’s go in,” I said to my dragon, “the rest be here and keep those minions away. Be ready to help me at any moment.”
“Roar!”
The dragons were already fighting so I just went down while holding my breath out of excitement.
The hole the berserkers created was irregular and narrow. It didn’t even go directly to the bottom and midway I found a narrow juncture where the tunnel twisted to the left abruptly.
“Let go out,” I said, “then shower it with your breath.”
I found it hard to cross such a narrow tunnel with my dragon. I wasn’t crazy enough to go alone inside. Who knew what might happen.
*Swoosh!*
The dragon opened his mouth and sprayed fire like it was a fountain. I could see thick black fog coming out from the hole for five minutes before my dragon stopped releasing his breath.
“Let’s go,” I waited until all the fog was cleared before getting in again. This time it wasn’t dark or black, but there were parts lightened up like pieces of embers.
The tunnel got larger and at that abrupt turn it was replaced with a new hole. I just passed through and found myself entering a wide place where it extended for almost a hundred metres.
At one side I saw the tunnel opening that was created by the berserkers. It seemed they took a long path to reach here, just appearing next to the heart.
The heart didn’t look any different that the ones I killed before. The only difference here was the intense black layers of flesh that were near the place of the heart.
“So that was all caused by that strange black ball?” I was sure now that these black balls were the source of the protective energy shield around the neck.
“Get down,” I didn’t waste any time and went directly to the smashed heart. Like before, I gathered all the black fluid, the smashed armour-like pieces of the heart, and finally grabbed that black ball like I used to.
Yet for some reason, this ball seemed more aggressive than the others. Grabbing it alone ignited the black colour on my right hand and expanded its area slightly above my elbow.
“So the more they are left, the more aggressive they become,” I muttered while noticing the fading motion of all blackness in this place.
“Let’s go,” as I got it, I exited this place. As I reached the surface, the first thing I checked was the long black trail that I followed from the neck to here.
“It’s gone!” I expected it to take time to fade away. But it didn’t. It simply vanished like it was never there to begin with.
“Let’s move,” I said to my dragons while beginning a wide search for other killed hearts.
Just like that heart killed by berserkers, I found four more hearts killed by others. I did the same and got everything out of these hearts.
Each smashed heart had the same black trail linking it to the still standing neck. So far I managed to get nine out of eleven possible hearts here, leaving the twelve hearts hidden inside the standing neck.
“So there are still two hearts left,” as I completed a grand tour around the entire belly, I collected all the heart materials and there were still two missing.
During this tour, I found out that all the races that came here had severe losses. The minions weren’t that strong, but they compensated for their lack of strength by numbers.
“It was a nice idea to replace my warriors with theirs,” I muttered while seeing my chariot coming to rain down fire again over the entire monster.
The jumper never stopped attacking the monster. After all, he and that Curasee called Bins had a death feud. From what I knew about the jumper’s attitude, he wasn’t the type to let his grudges slip away like that.
Yet the monster’s body was really colossal! I needed around twenty minutes of constant flying on my dragon’s back to just cover the belly alone.
More than an hour has already passed since I came down here. But it looked like I might need more than one hour to complete the task in hand.
“Should I use another curse?” I pondered about that. The monster was already standing still and didn’t show any movement for long minutes now.
As for that Curasee, he kept his mouth shut and never even spoke since I killed the first heart. ρꪖꪕᦔꪖꪕꪫꪣꫀꪶ
What was going on? What was he trying to do here?
The first heart discovered next was by the Fang gang. He found it and I just aided in widening the hole they created using a strange pickaxe.
That pickaxe was in the hand of Fang, but when he waved it, a giant phantom of the same pickaxe appeared and landed over the ground, creating a hole in less than ten strikes.
Then with the help of my dragon breaths, that hole turned into a wide tunnel.
“Thanks,” Fang said, “do you want to have the honour?”
“Nah, it’s all yours,” I shrugged. I wasn’t caring about the final count of the smashed hearts.
“We’ll kill it and then head to the last one,” he said while turning towards the direction of the remaining neck, looking like a gigantic pillar even from this distance.
“There is still one heart remaining,” I said.
“The dragons,” Fang paused for a second, “they found it, in that direction.”
He pointed towards the opposite side of here. When I first met him during my hunt for hearts, he asked me about the general situation. He also asked about what I was doing here.
But I just kept silent about this. He was smart enough to know that I wouldn’t come here without something good as a target.
And he was smarter to not ask further about that. Once he mentioned the dragons, I recalled the last encounter with their dirty leader.
That dude had a dark heart. Even after all I did, he ordered his men to stand with me all the time when I tried to get to the heart. However when they were faced with my dragons and warriors, they couldn’t help but remain outside.
I had a feeling that the last heart wouldn’t have much left after the dragons finished. That leader of them wasn’t dumped to not realise what I was after. But he was just digging his own grave if he wanted to compete with me over the hearts.
Anyway I decided, the first one to fall from these races here would be the dragons.
Fang’s men moved fast to the heart thanks to the help he gained from my dragons. In less than five minutes, the beating heart was smashed with a loud rumble.
And when that dark trail appeared, Fang also came outside. “It’s all yours,” he said without any greed, “we’ll meet at the neck.”
“Gather the others,” I said, “it’s not worth it fighting those minions.”
“I know,” he nodded before leading his men away. My dragons took control of the situation after they left, and I collected the heart materials and that black orb like before.
Now out of the twelve hearts, I got ten. One would end up in the dragons for sure, and the last one would fall into my hands.
“Let’s go,” even if I was sure of the greedy nature of the dragons, I moved towards the location Fang pointed towards.
Just midway there, I met the group of the dragon forces led by that jerk.
“Hahaha, you came a little too late, hahaha!”
His distasteful voice came even before I saw him.
“Go, it’s in that direction,” he pointed towards the direction of the killed heart, “I hope you can find scraps to collect, hahaha!”
I ignored what he said and kept flying towards the hole. As expected, he cleared every single piece of that heart.
“Idiot,” I shook my head when I saw that black glistering ball in the ground, “he took everything and missed the most valuable one.”
He even collected the black fluid from the smashed heart, yet he missed to notice that black ball embedded in the central small hole here. I collected it before I got outside.
“It’s time to kill the bastard,” I pointed towards the gigantic pillar in the distance, and my dragons flew directly towards it.
After almost two hours of fighting, the number of minions decreased by more than two thirds. Yet the remaining third was large enough to cause trouble to the forces gathered at the neck.
All the races were fighting. At this moment I finally saw the succubus girl, standing in the middle of her girls and a large bodied race stood on her side.
They looked like their bodies were made out of pure brown rocks. They had such a big head, short necks that gave me the impression they didn’t have any, short long arms and legs. As for their trunk, it was strangely small, almost double the size of their heads.
“You finally came,” the leader of the succubi forces noticed me and instantly shouted, “they are fighting inside.”
I looked and saw three holes in the main body of that neck. It seemed that taking out all the black balls left the neck unprotected.
“Stay here,” I left five small dragons to help the forces fend off the minions before entering through the central hole.
Why would I bother with creating a new hole while there were three of them here?
And the moment I flew for almost fifty metres down, I found myself in a big hall like always.
But there was something wrong here.
“They…” I looked around and all I could see was the big bodies of all the three races standing erect without moving an inch. “Keep flying and don’t land for now,” I said to my dragon while using my hawk eye skill to see closer.
They all closed their eyes as if they were sleeping, breathing slowly and regularly like they were sleeping.
But how come they sleep here? That held the fingerprints of that dirty Curasee race Bins.
“Take a tour,” I didn’t hurry to descend. I felt if I did, I’d end up just like them. The dragons with me kept flying around, accompanying the one I was on his back.
And in less than five minutes, I finally figured out what caused all this.
“Sigh, you should have just given up,” I muttered while taking out one grenade from my inventory, “this dirty trick of yours won’t stop me here… Fire in the hole!”