Chapter 404 - Worms

Gabriel led everyone into the ruins. Upon entering...nothing happened. His team had been expecting some sort of trap would activate upon setting foot into the ruins because Kira had reported that there was a thin film of mana covering the entrance.

Tyra let loose a relieved sigh when nothing happened. Even though she was the one that kept on refuting most of her brother's words, but she was the one that trusted in them the most.

"Hehehe, looks like nothing happened, false alarm, right?" Tyra said aloud.

"Y-yeah...but I felt like I was passing through something slimy earlier..."

"Tsk, that's because you're just too sensitive to mana. Lighten up a little! You're making us all tense for no reason."

"O-ow!"

Tyra had turned around and kicked her brother in the shin. Even after what she said, he was still looking around cautiously and unconsciously making everyone else tense up. Even the NWR's team had turned nervous after hearing Kira's words.

Their little playful antic had lightened up the atmosphere. Gabriel quickly stopped them from causing a ruckus and turned towards Ian.

"Ian, take point. Angelia, keep your monsters by you for now. We'll have Kira use Mana Pulse to scout ahead."

"C-Captain, my Mana Pulse is being hindered for some reason. I can still use it, but it's not as powerful as normal. I can only spread it to about 250 meters ahead of me..."

"That's only a fourth of the normal..."

"Y-yes...anyway, I think we passed through some sort of magic barrier when we came into the ruins. I think the barrier hinders all sorts of magic spells to only a fourth of their usual efficacy," Kira said.

"We'll continue as planned, keep close, and don't wander. Remember to stay away from the monsters and do not engage. We're only going to do an initial scout for today. We'll head deeper after we've discovered the mystery behind the monsters' connections," Gabriel said.

After he said that, the team quickly got into formation and started moving deeper into the ruins. The NWR's people quickly followed after them, but they couldn't help but frown when they heard Gabriel's plan.

"These bastards...they're being overly cautious for no reason. Didn't the reports that we were briefed about already stated that the monsters were only some low-ranked ones? What's the need to be so scared?"

"Tch, they have all that good equipment yet they're acting like cowards—"

"Enough, our commander told us to listen to Captain Gabriel's words, we'll follow them...for now."

"Yes sir."

"Tenil, tell me... is the second team coming in?"

"Right before we entered they radioed in that they were trailing us from afar...they'll probably be coming in after a few minutes. We'll be far away from the entrance by then."

"Good, I'm leaving you here. Tell those bastards from the second team to get plenty of samples of this place as possible. The little kid from earlier said that there's something peculiar about these ruins."

"Yes sir."

"Alright, before we cross into that intersection ahead, you hang back and return to the entrance."

Gabriel and his team were too far away to hear any of their words. They were also too busy keeping their focus on the surroundings so no one saw that someone from the NWR's team had been left behind after they came across a 3-way intersection and decided to move through the right hallway after Kira sensed that there was another magic barrier covering the large hallway.

The other intersections didn't have this thin veil of mana covering it. Kira and Gabriel came to the conclusion that the mana covered hallway was most likely the right direction.

As they continued moving through the ruins, Medel figured that they were somehow moving downwards, into the ground. Gabriel felt a little hesitant to move forwards since the ruins from outside was a few stories high.

"Captain, we're moving downwards for some reason..."

"What?"

"I can feel that we're moving down, not up..."

"..."

"We haven't found any stairs yet and we've only been following the pathways that Kira's pointing out to that's covered in a layer of mana. It may be the right direction, but shouldn't we explore the upper floors first? We were only able to scan those areas and find information on them...right now, we're moving in blind."

"...Alright, we'll head back then. Everyone, STOP!"

Gabriel raised his hand and quickly yelled. After telling the NWR's captain of the situation, Gabriel proceeded to backtrack his way to the first intersection that they had come across and decided to take the central hallway.

The NWR's captain secretly heaved a relieved sigh because he had received a transmission from the man he left behind that he and the second team had gone down the left hallway after they came to the intersection.

From their reports, the second team had come across some monsters, but they were only small fries that couldn't put up a good fight. They were currently collecting data and some samples from the ruins to bring out and analyze.

They had created a device to measure the content of mana and the second team's people were surprised to see that the entire place was infused with a high density of mana. Even the soil beneath their feet contained a significant amount of mana and even the ruin's walls had mana.

"Tenil, come in. How's the second team doing?"

"We're doing great, captain. We've already collected a significant amount of materials from this place. The readings from the Mana Detector shows that everything in this place has mana! Even these low leveled monsters have a lot of mana within them. We can harvest a lot of materials from this place!"

"Good, keep up the good work. We've just found the stairs towards the second floor on our end and we're going up to the next floor."

"Yes sir!"

The captain quickly cut off the transmission from his radio and continued to chase after Gabriel and his team who were now farther ahead of them.

"Tch, aren't they eager to get to the next floor..."

Ahead of them, Kira had been sending his Mana Pulse outwards every 5 seconds and lead everyone to the second floor. There weren't any monsters in the right and center hallways, but while the right hallway led downwards, the center hallway led upwards.

They were able to find the staircase to the next floor and once they got to the second floor, Kira immediately detected a large concentration of monsters moving about in the passageways and rooms on the floor.

However, before they could continue moving any further, the temple began rumbling all of a sudden as if it was about to collapse.

"W-what's happening?!"

"What?! How's that possible?!" The captain of the NWR's team suddenly shouted in confusion.

"Huh?"

Gabriel turned around and saw him yelling into some kind of handheld device. When he took a closer look, it was a radio.

"...bastard, what did he do?"

Gabriel stomped over and glared at the captain.

"What did you do?"

"...I had a second team come in earlier and they went down the left pathway. Everything was fine but when they came to a dead-end after fighting all of the monsters inside the hallway, they were suddenly ambushed by a large worm."

"..."

"We have to go save them..."

"Tch, idiots. I told you to touch nothing and do nothing! This is a dangerous place and you decide to send a second team in and now everything's f.u.c.k.i.e.d up! There's no way a monster would have come to attack if you guys didn't touch anything!"

"..."

Gabriel turned to his teammates and said, "Let's go, we've got a mess to clean up."

Everyone nodded and quickly rushed back down to the first floor. The NWR team's captain heaved a relieved sigh and urged his team to follow after them.

When Gabriel and everyone was rushing through the left passageway, they couldn't help but notice the many chopped up monster corpses that were strewn around throughout the passageway.

Angelia was silently observing the corpses that they passed by and felt that each corpse still had that unique mana connection amongst each other. Kira also quickly noticed this since he had his Mana Pulse consistently activated.

When they all got to the end of the left passageway, an abominable scene was presented to them. The crushed, half-eaten, and mangled bodies of the NWR's second team were strewn about everywhere.

The marks of battle were present everywhere and just as they were going to continue forwards, loud cries of fear rang down from deeper into the large hallway. From afar, the team could see a few humans running away from a large, wriggly, and disgusting monster that was chasing after them.

The monster had its mouth opened, ready to swallow down the pests in front of it. Numerous spikes were decorating the large open hole. The width of the monstrous worm was only half the size of the hallway and it wasn't all that large. The only problem was that there wasn't just one of them.

Gabriel quickly saw more monstrous worms behind the first one that was trying to overtake the worm that was ahead.

"Ugh, that's disgusting..." Angelia quietly muttered.

"R-run! Run! There's too many of them!"

"!"

"Captain, take this!" Tenil, the soldier that the NWR's captain had left behind earlier, quickly tossed something into the air. Before the captain could catch it, a long, golden whip, quickly snatched the object from the air and brought it to Angelia.

"Y-you!"

"Hmm, I wonder what this is..." Angelia said. She quickly tossed it over to Tyra and the little girl stored it into her spatial ring.

"Hey, that's—"

"Shit! Those worms, we can't fight them! Look!" Ian yelled out and quickly cut off the NWR's captain.

Ian pointed ahead and got everyone's attention. The scene was rather appalling. The worms had caught up to the people that were running earlier and were now attacking them.

The soldiers had already turned around and had begun retaliating, but the outcome was horrendous. When they sliced apart one of the worms, the supposedly dead worm would quickly regenerate and the separated part would quickly turn into a new worm that would then start attacking.

"Damn, they multiply after being sliced apart?!"

"C-captain, what do we do?!"

From afar, Telin saw that his comrades were about to rush to his aid so he quickly yelled, "Bastards! Get the f.u.c.k out of here now! You'll just die if you—ack!"

"...Everyone retreat, we have to go!"

"W-wait, don't tell me you're just going to leave him?!" Medel asked in shock.

Most of the samples that the NWR's second team had been collecting from earlier had already been transported out of the ruins and only these few people were left. The Mana Detector had detected a strong source of mana earlier and they proceeded into the passageway only to come upon a small crystal orb.

That small orb was what Angelia had snatched away earlier and given to Tyra. Unfortunately, after Telin had taken away the orb, a large worm had popped up out of nowhere and started attacking them.

After being sliced apart into multiple pieces, the worm quickly multiplied into the appalling amount that was present in front of them. The soldiers tried to escape but since the worms were adamantly chasing after them, there was already no hope for them.

"...Let's go, we're leaving! We have to stay away from those worms."

"C-Captain, we should get going too! The ruins might collapse at this rate!" The rumbling and shaking were still present and the ruins looked like it might collapse any minute.

Gabriel glanced at the backs of the NWR's soldiers that were already retreating and the backs of the soldiers that were being left behind fighting against the worms. Any second now, they'd be overwhelmed and eaten then the worms would turn their attention towards them...

"Everyone, use the magi-tech guns, Third Level, fire at the monsters attacking the soldiers. Angelia, can you use your fastest monster to quickly pick up those idiots over there?"

"Fine...though we could just leave them... Nessie, send some of your offshoots to grab them," Angelia ordered.

Nessie hissed and a few golden strips began slipping down her waist. When the strips landed on the ground, they transformed into large golden snakes which quickly shot forward towards the NWR's soldiers.

Gabriel and everyone else readied their guns and quickly fired at the worms from afar. Angelia released her Oroboros, Jewel, and the ornaments in her hair quickly separated from her and began firing concentrated beams of mana at the worm monsters.

"W-what—AAAHHH!?"

The soldiers were dumbfounded when they received unexpected help. They were then shocked when golden-colored snakes began wrapping themselves around their waists and flinging them backward.

They landed behind Gabriel's team and Angelia quickly had Mao transform. Ian and Medel quickly loaded the heavily injured soldiers onto Mao's back. Once everyone who was injured was on, Gabriel quickly ordered them to retreat.

Even though they had done a number on the worms behind them, the abominable beasts just regenerated and quickly chased after them.

"Hurry, the exit's just over there!"