Chapter 974 Stronghold
A figure of a beautiful female acolyte could be seen running through the crowds of confused people. The different behavior she displayed amongst the masses managed to attract the attention of a certain group of people.
“Make way!”, shouted a handsome young man, gesturing to the crowd to make way for the figure to arrive faster. The Harlight Prince watched as the person he called to arrive at his side.
Lyndell was a privileged acolyte who occupied the 32nd rank on the privileged class leaderboard ranking. However, despite her rather high rank, she was never really noticed among the others.
The reason for that was because the female acolyte didn’t really excel in the art of combat, which was what in the privileged class considered as the most important factor.
However, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have any merit. In fact, even before her inauguration to the privileged class, Lyndell was known to be the brightest acolyte from the Path of Restoration. Simply put, she was a talented, great healer.
When she arrived at where Roran was, Lyndell immediately approached the figure-shaped cocoon made of white thread. She extended her right hand, and quickly a similar-looking threat came out of her palm, inching closer to the cocoon.
The thread quickly came into contact with the cocoon, and the female acolyte closed her eyes. Her mind delved into the connection formed from her own thread, investigating what was going on inside the cocoon—to the figure wrapped in thread.
The few figures standing around Lyndell and the cocoon were silent, but the tense atmosphere in the air could be felt very strongly. Most of them waited anxiously for the results of the former’s investigation. But then, a female figure suddenly opened her mouth and shouted.
“What are you all standing here for?! We only have an hour and a half left to send these millions of people into the transport vessel. Get moving, now!”
The one shouting was none other than Jinkan Nephilim. With Emery currently in a state no less than incapacitation, she quickly took command of the entire Platoon 3 who was still stunned by the sudden loss of their commander.
There was close to no ounce of resistance, as everyone all knew or at least heard about who she was. Moreover, the fact that they were currently on the designated territory of Platoon 1 also helped.
It didn’t take long for the group leaders – Roran and Julian – to lead their respective acolytes to rush onward, creating a defensive line around the group of survivors as they began to head towards the Platoon 1 stronghold that was just a few miles away from their current location.
Before long, the large number of people moving through the plains attracted unwanted attention. Hordes of Abyss creatures appeared in the distance, and they swiftly rushed towards the convey from all multiple sides.
While Roran and Julian began to mount their struggle against the Abyss creatures, Klea and Annara didn’t move and stayed close to the cocoon. They both were still waiting for Lyndell to have the result of her examination.
“You two girls, better move as well!”, said Jinkan to the two of them with a smirk on her face.
Klea however blatantly ignored her words as she had absolutely no plans to leave Emery’s side. Meanwhile, Annara proceeded to fold her arms, and with a smirk and her finger pointing at the cocoon, she replied, “Well, technically the guy inside this thing is my squad leader. So, unless he orders me to move, I’d much rather stay here!”
Jinkan gave an annoyed look when she heard such a response. Even so, she didn’t pursue the matter further and just decided to ignore the antics of the two of them.
Taking out her glowing vessel once again, she said, “Well, you all can’t stay here forever. Get inside! We’ll see what happens to him inside the base.”
Seeing Lyndell nod her head agreeing with the suggestion, both Klea and Annara had no choice but to listen to their temporary commander. The four of them worked together to bring the cocoon where Emery was onto the ship.
The ship swiftly flew up into the sky and headed towards the base of Platoon 1, and Klea and Annara could not help but be taken back by the sight that greeted them.
As the vessel arrived in the sky above the area around the base, it could be clearly seen from the sky that the Platoon 1 base was currently under heavy siege by what appeared to be Abyss creatures from all corners of the planet.
On the walls of the base, there were dozens of piles of Abyss creatures that had grown to a height of 20 meters. The horde of Abyss creatures fiercely tried to swarm the 30 meter high metal wall that stretched for 10 miles.
Surprisingly, the base gate was protected with a minimum number of acolytes, and in their place there were about a thousand metal golems guarding the walls from the attacks of the Abyss creatures. Meanwhile, the sky above the base that was filled with countless Flyers and Reavers was protected by a huge barrier formation.
It was amazing to see the number of artifacts and resources spent by the Nephilims.
The base certainly seemed unbreakable, despite the fact that it continued to be attacked by what appeared to be more than a million Abyss creatures. There were even dozens of stage 5 Ravagers attacking, but those huge monstrosities didn’t even seem able to forcibly break through the metal walls.
On the other hand, inside the base, there was almost no sign of humans at all. The whole place was almost like an abandoned city, but towards the center where a dark construct was seen towering in the sky, there were thousands of survivors seen lining up to enter the transport vessel.
Annara looked at the distance between the construct and towards the east where the Platoon 3 acolytes was seen charging in towards one of the gates. Right behind them were the 3 million survivors that Platoon 3 had gathered.
Then, inwardly, she started to calculate the distance and the remaining time they had left.
[1 hour, 28 minutes]
After her calculations were done, she then said to the female Nephilim. “They still won’t make it in time, will they?”
Jinkan, whose expression was as calm as ever, nodded her head nonchalantly and said, “Yes, they won’t.. Not all of them at least.. But you don’t need to worry about this matter. The end of the countdown means we can launch the transport vessel and depart from this planet, but I know for a fact that we can delay however we want, preferably until everyone gets inside.”
There was a certain feeling of relief that appeared in the red-haired girl when she heard such words. However, the Nephilim girl didn’t seem to have finished speaking yet.
“Rather, what you have to worry about is the thing coming from the north.”
Annara’s face changed when she heard that. She immediately turned her head towards the northern horizon, and she could faintly see smoke of dust rising in the distance. Even without her bats familiar, she knew what kind of existence was to come.
“How much time do we have before that thing arrives?”
Jinkan smiled as she said, “Not enough.”