Chapter 69 - Trust No One (5)

Open the door fast? Like that was going to happen. The dungeon had its protocols that it would follow and taking the time to unlock the pathway was going to take much longer than any of them had expected. 

The key might have found its place inside the boulder blocking their path to freedom, but the key was taking its time to turn by itself. Zus tried to force the key to turn with his own strength, but as he did that, it let out a horrifying sound that alerted all of the beasts of the presence of Zus and Cero.

"Motherfcker! What the hell did he do!?" Zok yelled in rage as he saw the creatures stop chasing after him. 

All of a sudden, all of the creatures who had been chasing after Zok turned around and rushed back towards the pathway. The race Zok had been leading came to an abrupt end and now he was in the last place. 

"Damn it! Damn it! Damn it!"

Prinoras were the deadliest creatures there, and unfortunately, they were also the ones who had been trailing behind all the other creatures. Which made the situation much worse for Zus and Cero. 

Even in his full health, Cero would have only been able to take care of two, at most three prinoras. But with dozens of them coming their way, and their injured state, Zok was not much hopeful of their survival. Unless, of course, Zok did something. 

'Cero, rock stomp, Now!'

Zok yelled with all his might using the Hivemind. Cero immediately understood what Zok wanted him to do. Cero stomped his feet on the ground with all his might and the following moment a tall wall rose in front of him, separating the beasts from them.

Now the pathway and the two of them were both safe. With the main issue taken care of, Zok finally let out a sigh of relief. He was pleased that they were safe, but now there was another problem. He found himself standing right in the middle of enraged beasts who were ready to beat the crap out of him. 

"Come one, come all..." Zok mumbled under his breath and attacked before any of the creatures could. 

The creatures were taken aback by this sudden change in the tactics of the Occunian. However, It wasn't like Zok was getting all fired up without a plan. 

Thanks to all the running he had made the creatures do, most of them were a bit tired out. On top of that, Zok had a faint idea of the creatures he was able to one-shot with his current strength. So, he went for those creatures first. 

The idea behind this move was fairly simple. Firstly, Zok would be able to gain some much needed stat points from killing those creatures. And lastly, he would thin out the horde while doing so. A simple, yet effective plan. 

'I will have to keep doing this till the pathway opens. Once that's done, all I would need to do would be to climb over the wall to my freedom.'

Just repeating that thought excited the young lad. He was going to get through this and have his revenge as well. 

With that, the slaughtering of the beasts began. The blood of the beasts soon turned the white snow to azure blue. But it was still not enough. The creatures were tired, while Zok was beaming with energy. 

It wasn't that he had infinite stamina to keep dodging and attacking his enemies. But his title of [Lazy Bastard] was helping him reduce the amount of stamina used to run and dodge the attacks. On top of that, the more agility points he gained after killing the beasts, the faster he could move while using the same amount of stamina. 

This made it harder for even Prinoras to do much against him. Still, even with all that in mind, Zok was outnumbered like never before. Neither was he delusional enough to think he would win against the beasts without suffering some kind of damage.

he might have been fighting like he was going in for the win. But in reality, he was just stalling them till the pathway opened.

'I can probably keep doing this for another half an hour,' Zok thought to himself as he slashed a Prinora between its legs, 'Even my body will have to rest after that.'

Minutes passed and Zok was soon covered in the blood of the creatures he had killed, just like the snow beneath his feet. His hands had finally started to ache a bit, and so were his legs. He had considerably thinned out the horde. 

Seeing him kill so many beasts like insects made the other beasts wary of him as well. They were no longer attacking him blindly. Instead, they were circling around him like a bunch of scavengers waiting for the perfect moment to strike him down.

Cero had sensed their intentions and was desperately trying to help Zok out. But Zok sternly responded to him to not even think about getting down there. He could have easily gotten up the rocky wall to safety as soon as he felt that things were getting out of hand. 

However, the same could not be said about Cero... as he possibly weighed more than even Adrion did. As one of the remaining Prinoras was about to attack him, Zok heard Zus' voice. 

"It's opened, get back here!"

Zus' voice was music to Zok's ears as he used the charging Prinora as a stand and jumped over the wall Cero had created. He landed there with a loud thumb and was hurt as well, but more than anything, he was happy that the task was over now. He could go home... well, Sofina's cave was his home for all intent and purposes. 

He looked around him and saw Zus' happy face. The two of them would finally be able to get their revenge.

'It looks like he is happier than I am.' Zok thought to himself as Zus wrapped his hands around him.

It was at that moment, the two of them realised something weird. The beasts that Zok hadn't killed were stacking the corpses of the one he had killed against the wall. They were trying to climb over the wall using the corpses as a ladder!

"Come on, we need to get out of here!" Zok exclaimed and headed into the pathway, however, something was holding him back, "The hell are you doing, let's get out of here first and then you can hug me all you want!"

However, Zus only wrapped his hand around Zok tighter. Something was seriously wrong with him. Zok realised that as soon as he saw Zus' face. He had the same look that Zok had seen on Taheton's face moments before he betrayed him. 

"We need to get out of here?" Zus uttered in a mocking tone, "No kid, I need to get out of here. While you and your pet will die here. Did you forget what I told you before? I am going to kill not only Skah, but anyone and everyone related to him."

Zok realised what was going on. However, when he tried to fight back, he no longer had the strength to do so. Zus had done something to him.

'Cero... help...' 

As the last-ditch effort, Zok tried to call Cero to his aid, however, Cero had been already knocked down.. Zok could see Cero from the corner of his eyes, there were some darts sticking out of his underbelly.