Keynes’s eyes snapped open as Alice pinged him. A group of intruders were approaching them from the south. Keynes immediately notified Esopp and Serrata, then activated [Spiritual Ghost] and put on his Cloak of Shadows to hide his face.

He needed to find out if the group was a scouting team of a larger expedition or they were on their own. He quietly rose into the air to the limit of his [Flight] skill. If they were coming from the south, it was naturally the first direction Keynes chose to investigate.

It didn’t take him long to find a massive contingent hastily decamping. Keynes’s first thought was that his team had been discovered and these people here were going to attack them. But a moment spent in the air forced Keynes to rest this conclusion.

They were preparing to attack the monster horde.

Either the expedition has some very heavy hitters or something is amiss, Keynes said to Alice. The hundred something ascenders would be torn apart by the seemingly endless mass of monsters.

If there are ‘heavy hitters’ then I cannot sense them inside the camp. Most of the ascenders there are Level 4.

Only Level 4? That was bad. This expedition was going to be devoured by the monsters.

Keynes glanced at the rocky pillars and shuddered at the sight. He had never seen more monsters in one place. He off-handedly asked Alice about the amount of essence and to his surprise she answered.

Somewhere between 4 and 5 percent, considering your penalties, master. Some of the monsters are too far away to gauge their Level.

Keynes had to suppress a shudder. That was a colossal amount of essence in one place. It also meant that this rabble of monsters wasn’t a joke, especially without innate regeneration. A few bad wounds could take any ascender out of the fight for good without a healer.

Eventually, [Spiritual Ghost] ended and a few flying monsters from the horde noticed Keynes despite his best efforts to hide his spiritual aura. Strangely enough, not a single ground-bound monster noticed Keynes. Likewise, the flying ones seemed to be blind to the ascender’s force beneath Keynes.

Let’s get it over with quickly, he said to Alice and flew toward the flying monster, not caring if people in the camp saw him. He was tempted to use [Chaos Aura] and simply let the chaotic energies deal with these critters but he decided to use his shortswords to finish them off.

Before the blades could taste blood, an explosion went off in the distance. Keynes sharply glanced in that direction and his hair stood on end. It was roughly two hundred metres from where his team was. Not close enough to harm them but that wasn’t what brought him up short.

The monster army shuddered like one organism and its attention diverted to the site of the explosion.

Crap.

***

“Let’s make contact,” Serrata whispered, observing the quickly moving group. “They are from the Solar Council’s expedition. I recognise the uniforms.”

Esopp narrowed his eyes. He and Wagner didn’t want anyone to know that Keynes Kid was here. Their future dominion excursions would be heavily contested by the sheer expectation of Keynes Kid being there. If they intercepted these ascenders, they’d have to kill them afterwards.

“Do it but keep Key--” a not far away explosion cut him off. Esopp’s eyes snapped toward the group and saw them speeding up.

Shit, shit, shit.

“This is a damned diversion team!” That meant the monsters would converge on this location. He and Serrata turned around and called their team to withdraw out of the valley.

Roars and growls came from the plateau.

“Get our team out of here,” Esopp shouted to Serrata then he focused on the diversion team. They messed up everything.

“Why?! Where are you going?”

Esopp pointed with his thumb behind himself at the quickly retreating team.

“I’m going with you,” she said and Esopp considered striking her down. No one would know and blame him if he did it. Over the last couple days she’d begun to annoy him.

“No. I’m the leader of the expedition. You’ve agreed to that. Get our people out of here. Try to get through the plateau in the north.”

Not waiting for her to make her damn mind, Esopp shot toward the group. They were fast but he was faster, heavily leaning on his [Endurance] that kept his speed at the very top without a need to catch a breath.

As he got roughly twenty metres behind them, he called out to them to stop. The last man in the group turned his head and his eyes widened in recognition. Then he threw something at Esopp. Esopp veered out of the way and pushed his muscles to maximum, his stamina started to dip dangerously quick but the ascenders in front of him started to show signs of exhaustion and soon ground to halt.

“You--” Esopp was once more cut off by an explosion behind his back, this one hit him. He felt his health pool drop.

He shook off the ringing in his ears and the daze and by the time he got to his feet, the first monsters were entering the valley. He saw two ascenders laying on their back, unmoving. Others groaned on the ground. Esopp approached the first one and pulled him up by the collar.

“What the hell was that, you moron?!” he yelled but these men were unresponsive, their movements sluggish. Esopp let go of him then spied their dimensional pouches. They were too dazed to protest. A quick look into the pouches made Esopp reconsider his next move. There were at least forty explosives spread in four dimensional pouches.

Diversion wasn’t a bad idea but useless to him now. If Serrata followed his order, their team would bypass the monsters from the north and Keynes could simply fly over the motley. When it came to Esopp, well, he’d have to find a way.

He took out all the explosives out of the pouches and dumped them on the ground. He had no idea how powerful they were but it was his best bet.

“Who the hell are you?” one of the diversants asked weakly then added. “No. No, no. You can’t do this! We represent the Solar Council!”

Esopp squinted at the man. He was raising slowly, his legs wobbly. He was bleeding in several places and while the wounds looked shallow and not dangerous, there was a debuff that inflicted a random pathogen infection to any environment-caused wound. Esopp didn’t know if the other man’s wounds were caused by the environment though and he didn’t really care.

The blast struck him too but he wasn’t infected. At least, his debuff status didn’t show any infections.

“Set the detonation for two minutes.” By that time the monsters should get here.

The man shook his head then shouted to his companions to get up.

“You’re insane! We won’t get to safety in time…”

Esopp shrugged then started to jog away.

“It’s your call. If you prefer to be torn apart by the monsters I won’t stop you.”

A few seconds later, Esopp started running as if all hell broke loose, which kind of was. For a while he heard shouts behind. They were trying to save their wounded fellows.

Two minutes later, the diversion team was out of earshot and out of sight. Esopp couldn’t tell if they’d stayed there or had moved to either side of the valley. Or maybe they were already dead, killed by the river of the monsters that pushed deeper into the valley.

Shit.

Esopp started running again.

***

Hideko disapproved of the plan to advance deeper into the dominion but the leadership was indifferent to her opinion. Even worse, Syberius Sael warned her to stay out of his way or else she would not leave the dominion in one piece. That hideous man had appeared out of nowhere and somehow took control of the expedition. He was Level 8 and wore rift items so he was powerful. Hideko didn’t think she would be able to defeat him even with her [Sword Mastery] and her Talent.

The entire expedition waited until the majority of the monsters syphoned out of the plateau. Still, not all the monsters seemed to leave. The massive serpent lazied between the rocky pillars. And there were the rocky pillars themselves, constantly spawning the monsters. If they miscalculated the distance and the main bulk of monsters would sense deaths on the plateau, the expedition was going to be overrun.

“Go.”

A quiet command spread over and the mass of people moved forward. There was a lot of nervousness and concern in the air. She cursed in her mind then she told herself off for giving in to unwanted emotions.

Several minutes after the first explosion came another one. It seemed they were going to lure the monster further away. This actually was smart.

The bulwark of the expedition entered the plateau but for some reason the massive snake didn’t react to their presence. That was good, right? They angled to the south, trying to get as much space as possible between the large monster and the expedition.

Then they heard it. Squeaks far above in the sky, several monsters were falling down. Was there someone up there or did Hideko see things? As the monsters hit the ground, the serpent’s head rose, its cold eyes staring at their group. Other, smaller monsters only now rushed them. The bulwark of the expedition consisted of people with the best defensive Talents and skills and easily absorbed the first contact.

With the number of monsters reduced to about a hundred, the monster attack turned into a slaughter, and that grabbed the large serpent’s attention. It surged toward them with an impossible speed.

“BRACE!” a command came from somewhere.

Suddenly, the serpent was among them, snapping at anyone unlucky to be in its way. And just like that,the order turned to absolute chaos, silence gave way to screams and moans, spells were fired, Talents used.

A few moments later newly spawned monsters reached Hideko. She slashed at any creature that got close, always moving further into the plateau.

BOOM.

The gigantic explosion levelled a part of the valley. Even though it was over two kilometres from their position, Hideko and others were flattened by the shockwave. Hideko forced herself to her feet and pushed forward, ignoring the people on the ground. They didn’t seem to be dead but some were groaning. She was too disoriented to realise that she got in the serpent’s way. It focused its eyes on her then shot forward with a killing intent.

She was too slow to move out of its way … too slow to raise her sword to block the attack, too slow to realise she was about to die.

Something barreled into the monster’s head from the air and it roared, sending a shockwave of painful agony. Hideko felt a searing pain in her chest. She fell to her knees, gasping for air.

I’m-dying-I… Not. Like. This.

Her face hit the ground.

***

Keynes skewered the champion’s head with his shortswords. Well, at least with one shortsword. The other one hit the serpent’s skill and … broke. Damned debuff!

Luckily enough, the first shortsword pierced the serpent’s eye and sank to the hilt. To make sure the monster’s would die, Keynes slammed it with [Chaos Aura] but to his absolute shock, the aura didn’t have any effect.

Upon its death, the champion released a powerful debuff that twisted Keynes’s insides. His Purifying Body buff and powerful spiritual aura did a good job to dampen the effect but the debuff was listed as very strong and therefore way harder to resist.

Keynes stood up, trying to ignore the pain in his chest. Everyone around was writhing in pain on the ground. They’d have been easy pickings for the monsters but all the monsters in the plateau were currently focused on Keynes.

Any idea why the champion had completely resisted my [Chaos Aura]? Keynes asked, gritting his teeth, then jumped into the air, avoiding the sharp claws of the enraged monsters. They were piling one on another just to get to him.

Then stronger members of the expedition started to recover as the champion’s debuff ran out. Keynes had no business here, it wasn’t his mess to clean up.

As he flew away toward the north where his team was supposed to be, a lone figure took into the sky after him. He turned around and saw a severe, blonde man that scowled at him until he got closer.

“You…”

Keynes narrowed his eyes as Alice debriefed him about the man. So this was the infamous Syberius Sael.