ALL NOVEL Chapter 58: Would you like to surrender?
A piercing siren rang across the City of Ruin. Even Zyrus and Jacob who were underground had to cover their ears.
“Did you target them for this reason?”
“A part of it. They have many niche abilities.” Zyrus explained to Jacob who was looking at the group of burrow rats.
Their goal was the sewage tunnels that spread all over the city. Zyrus couldn’t use his earth movement to travel with someone else, and even if he could, he wouldn’t waste the precious opportunity for something like this.
Thankfully, he had the rats under his command. Each species had the spawn points that suited them the most. Large ones like ogres and trolls had parks and stadiums as their starting point, whereas humans and orcs spawned in the residential areas.
Kobolds, rats, and goblins were spawned in remote and densely packed areas like sewage tunnels and underground parking lots.
Zyrus ran across the surprisingly clean sewage tunnels along with Jacob, Goblin riders, the rats, and the newest addition to their troops, specter scorpions.
The two feet long creatures illuminated the surroundings as they crawled on the ceiling. They had thin- sharp pincers and four eyes that shined in a blue color.
The eerie part was that the rest of their body was shrouded in a dark haze, almost like it didn’t exist in the physical reality. With his vast experience in fighting against all sorts of monsters, Zyrus knew that that was indeed the case.
The most lethal part about a scorpion was its tail. For this particular species, that part didn’t exist in the physical form.
“I’m glad they’re not our opponents,” Jacob spoke in a shivering tone while looking at the blue lights above him. He was the only one who didn’t have a night vision. It would be uncomfortable to walk in the dark, but he would take it any day if the other option was to walk under a bunch of crawling scorpions.
“Indeed. I’m not sure yet, but their tails should be able to ignore all physical defense.”
“Wouldn’t they be invincible then?”
“Not really. Someone like you can blast them off with ease.”
Since they had such a powerful ability, they must have a fatal weakness as well. They wouldn’t be an extinct species otherwise. There wasn’t much they could do in frontal battles that were fought in broad daylight.
That being said, they were perfect assassins who lurked in the darkness.
“Squeak!”
“Looks like we’ve arrived,”
“It’s a dead end. Are we going up?”
“Mhm,” Zyrus replied while putting his ear on the wall. The reason Jacob was asking such an obvious question was due to the booming sounds that rang above.
‘I hope it’s not someone I know,’ Zyrus jogged his memories as he analyzed the sounds coming from above. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to kill his acquaintances. But whoever managed to leave a lasting impression on him must have done something remarkable.
He wasn’t afraid of the butterfly effect, but it would be unwise to change the flow of events unless it was beneficial to him.
Zyrus listened for a while but it wasn’t easy to guess their identity, and the bangs were getting louder and louder.
“Any guess?”
“Nope. Let’s just go above and see for ourselves.”
“Squeak!”
The rats seemed rather excited as well. Usually, they avoided trouble and only fought when they had an absolute advantage. Fighting alongside a bunch of powerful monsters was a new experience for them, and slowly yet surely, they were evolving in a different direction.
*PShk*
Jacob was disgruntled when he saw the rats tore through the ground with ease. Unlike the walls he failed to destroy, the ground was like a piece of tofu for them.
“Let’s go,” Zyrus commanded the goblins to charge with him once the gap was wide enough.
They weren’t that deep to begin with, so after climbing the slanted tunnel they reached the ground in no time. The tunnel created by the 50 burrow rats was wide and sturdy enough for the wolves to walk on.
On the other side, the fighting had stopped when both crown holders noticed their presence.
“What are you?”
“Humph! you pesky goblins have some guts to interfere in our fight,”
Someone else might’ve been surprised, but it wasn’t Zyrus’s first time seeing a talking orc. They were fighting against humans who were crowded in a gymnasium, and from the looks of it, neither side had the upper hand.
Compared to the orcs, he was more interested in the man who first asked him the question.
“Would you like to surrender?”
“What non-”
“You dare ignore m-”
“Shut up.” Zyrus glared at the orc who was leading a thousand of his kind. The arrogant orc was forced to swallow his words under his boundless bloodlust. After getting intelligence by obtaining the silver crown, the orc chief was much more sensitive towards danger.
The young man who was leading the humans was also caught off guard by the sudden change. A bunch of monsters popped up from the ground in the middle of their fight, and the first thing they said was to surrender.
Not to mention, the arrogant orc who was spewing crap all this time, was quiet after a single glance.
“You -um friend, you don’t like the orcs as well, right?”
“Cut the crap. Yes or No?”
“No need to be so hasty. How about we team up first to defeat them?”
Zyrus looked at the young man with the same bloodlust. The only reason he asked for surrender was because a majority of their troops were spear and bow users. They didn’t have any players who were good at using those weapons. Although he could get them forcefully after killing them, it was better to make them willingly follow him.
‘I’ll just use them as common soldiers then,’ Zyrus took out his spear as he looked at the united players and anxious orcs.
“How ab-”
“Kill them all.” He had no time to waste on someone who didn’t understand their current situation.
*Awoooo*
“Kihihihi…”
The goblin riders charged towards the human troops like a bullet. From behind the hole, Jacob and sawtooth rats also made their moves.
On the other side, Zyrus lunged at the orc troops with a cruel grin.
'It feels great to overpower them after fighting those aliens,’
“Don’t underestimate me!”
[Poison breath]
*Fuuuuu*
[Arcane lance]
*Swish…*
A poisonous fog and dozens of spears flew towards the charging orcs at the same time. Although orcs were the most annoying opponents for humans to deal with, that wasn’t the case for Zyrus.
-500,-750,-500,-250,-1250…..
Hundreds of damage numbers appeared in Zyrus’s vision. Both of his skills were fatal in a closed environment.
Exp +11250
Exp +11250
.
.
“Hahaha, this place is perfect for killing pigs like you,”
[Poison breath]
[Arcane lance]
The blue miasma was unavoidable, and the spears created with his mana skewered through the orcs with ease.
“Even if I die, I’ll make you pay for it,” the orc chief glared at Zyrus with bloodshot eyes and activated his crown’s ability.
“Conviction? At least choose a suitable ability Moron.”
Zyrus scoffed at the red mark above his head and parried the orc chief’s broad axe.
*Clang*
Normally, a spear tip would lose against an axe in a frontal collision.
*Clang*
But this was Zyrus, a man with a thousand years of experience who was fighting against an orc who had just gained intelligence.
“Kuk-”
-59
“What a lousy idiot,” Zyrus muttered with disdain and kicked the orc’s chest.
“Aren’t you being too mean to him?”
“Mean? These fuckers deserve it. Just blast ‘em off.”
“Already on it.”
If the fireballs and his previous attacks weren’t enough, Zyrus once again used the combination of poison breath and arcane lance.
*Thrust*
“Agh-”
-523
Even after losing 75% of his Hp and mana, the orc was no match for Zyrus. It wasn’t for no reason that he, as a single Sylvarix, was treated on the same level as an entire race.
[Level up!]
[+2 Strength]
[+1 Agility]
[+1 Mana]
“Nice, let's finish it up.” Zyrus urged as he glanced at the remaining orcs. He and Jacob had killed or wounded over half of them. After seeing that their chief was in dire straits and there was no hope for victory, a third of the remaining orcs escaped as well.
Now, only 200 healthy orcs were left to fight against the duo. Although the situation was in their favor, Zyrus had no intention to drag out the fight. The specter scorpions and goblin riders were holding off the humans, and he didn’t want a single one of them to die. Even if he subdued all the players here, it would be his loss if a goblin rider or a specter scorpion was killed.
[Spear aura]
Five spear tips penetrated the orc chief’s heart in an instant. From the beginning to the end, Zyrus didn’t give the orcs a chance to lay out a formation or use any skills. He was a master at interrupting skill casting and managing the flow of the battle.
-1000
Exp +50,000
The fallen Orc chief was a testament to his mastery over the art of war. Apart from his mana and vitality, his stamina was also depleted due to spear aura.
However, Zyrus knew that just this wasn’t enough to finish off the orcs. Hundreds of healthy and even more wounded orcs remained in the gymnasium.
“Can you do a big one?”
“Sure thing,”
“We made a pretty good team huh,” Zyrus chuckled and channeled the last bits of his power. There were no opponents nearby, and he had called the scavenger rats for safety measures as well.
[Shackles Of Nihility]
[Fireball]
They consumed what remained of their mana, and as a result, two skills were activated one after another.
*Clank*
*Sizzle*
The remaining orcs were trapped in a living hell.