Chapter 50 - Snake Ambush
"There's just too many of them, we're surrounded, what should we do?" Scarface asked despairingly.
"We wait until Adrogen takes care of that thing" Bilal replies and points towards humongous snakes in the distance.
He then step-sided to dodge a sneak attack from a chrome-scaled Ground Devil and proceeded to slash the snakes in a flurry of attacks.
-----------------------------------
Following their routine of journeying and breaks, the caravan continued in their perpetual motion for 4 more days.
They crossed over to the Inner zone of the Nux plains and that's when the journey started getting rough.
The Snakes which were only a minor nuisance till now became a nightmare, as they started getting numerous and more fiercer, regardless it be the normal ones or the chrome-scaled variants, their attacks kept hitting the caravan with full force.
Once combined with the water supply problem, a sense of dread filled the caravan's atmosphere.
Whether it be day or night, the attacks kept happening in an perpetually increasing manner, sometimes it was five chrome-scaled at once, sometimes it was ten, there was even a time when a group consisting of twenty chrome-scaled ones, excluding the normal ones attacked the Caravan in the midst of a dark night which resulted in five casualty including two soldiers and three torchbearers.
If not for having Tuek, Befer and Captain, perhaps the vital structure of the Caravan would've been destroyed with too many important casualties on their side.
With their higher Attainment levels, they dished out terrifying attacks which killed two or three chrome-scaled snakes at once, the task that was life-threatening to others appeared a piece of cake to them. They punched through their steel like scales with bare hands and sliced them down with ease.
Bilal just watched the dazzle in silence with his fist clenched, wishing to do the same with burning determination.
Yet he could do nothing other than handling a few normal ones. He couldn't even do that also if not for the System Radar that alerted him with bleeping sounds whenever a snake entered within a radius of 3 meters from him, lending him to easily dodge Lunge attacks and frontal bites.
He wouldn't have such a hard time handling more of them if he could direct his Battle Energy to his legs and increase his speed. But he calmed himself down by getting reminded that he only arrived in this world at most a month ago including the time he was unconscious.
Not getting frustrated, he threw those thoughts at the back of his head and faced that scenario head on, all in all he killed 5 snakes in that battle.
Even though the battle ended, the talks about it did not, after all two Soldiers had died in that attack. This led to the whole caravan searching for the reason behind this frantic behaviour of the Ground Devils since according to the tales and myths even monsters were not that bloodthirsty and wild, to jump right to their Deaths that was an insane phenomenon altogether which they could not put their hands on.
After analyzing their path and many other clues, the wise Soldier Infet inferred that they might've been intruding into the Ground Devil's territory, which also supported the reason why they didn't encounter any Normal animals along the way too, even in the foot of the mountains and the plains there were biodiversity to be expected but strangely they didn't find any.
"Brothers, Let's demand an answer from the Captain" Tuek said and marched straight with his brother and loyal followers into the Captain's tent.
Not a single Soldier from either the Vanguard or the Rearguard joined them, as the people of Vanguard were the loyalists of Adrogen, they described the Magron brothers as newbies who had only joined the Unit in recent times.
While the Rearguard people had nothing to do with them and were Tribal-men who only heard Bilal's command, following the Tribal hierarchy.
Only after witnessing this did Bilal saw the wits and wisdom of the Old man.
The remainder half of the Caravan being naturally curious about it, followed them from a few steps behind as to not being misunderstood. Soon the whole crowd gathered outside of the Adrogen's tent.
They did not have to wait for as very soon, Tuek and his brother came out the tent with their faces ghastly with an atmosphere of gloom surrounding them. Behind them was Dayes and Captain whom held a folded paper in hand.
"I have an important thing to tell you all, which, I should've told you sooner"
"The reason why the Ground Devils are continuously attacking our caravan, is that, we are intruding into their territory, they've build up a Nest in the Core region of the Nux plains and is repelling us to not go any further, but according to the Map, we have to cross the Core region anyhow to reach the Redrock Fire Mountains" The Old man released a sigh and announced.
As soon as it was announced an uproar was ensued, everyone was stunned and fearful as they heard it, some even checked their ears in doubt whether they've heard it correctly, something like encountering a Monster Nest was no joke regardless of how many people there might be. After all the reproducing capability of monsters were manifolds times of humans and they were generally more fearsome and stronger.
"Captain, can't we just go back and wait for the reinforcements to come? I'm sure the Federation would send a rescue team to us wouldn't it? How far is the city anyway? Just some hundred kilometers right?" Tuek asked Adrogen.
"The city state would not send any reinforcements with the Dissonance on the horizons, there's no way other than to move forward, even if you were to survive for a few days, tell me, how would you face off against a mountain Lord? Sometimes Fear cloud our eyes Tuek, and we can't see anything further than our own body, in those situations we have to think wisely before taking any action" The Old man said calmly.
"Captain let's take a turn back, if we have you then there might be a possibility to even survive against a mountain Lord" Tuek's brother Befer tried, gaining the nod of the captain.
"Not happening, I'm not gonna risk everyone's life in a foolish decision of yours, you can escape there alone if you want, you can even take those who agree with your plan, I won't stop you or anyone" Adrogen said solemnly.
"No, how can we do this" Tuek said hesitantly.
"Yeah, Captain"
"No, you sure can, but remember you can't ask for help if something goes wrong" The Old man replied.
"If you say so…..so Who's with me?" Tuek asks the crowd, a total of seven soldiers lifted their hands and a few workers whom they somehow manage to entice.
Taking some supplies with them, they approached Bilal and people of Rearguard
"Are you people coming?" Befer asks them as well.
Representing the crowd as a leader, Bilal came forward and answered "No, we're following the Captain"
"Fine then" Befer said and came forward to whisper something in Bilal's ear "Beware of the Old man, he's not so simple as you think he is"
They then turned around and without word, started walking in the opposite direction, the other half of the Caravan watched them with great interest as they went far away pretty soon, but they abruptly stopped and readily unsheathed their weapons, following which a huge explosion occurred in the middle of their formation and a giant snake arose from that explosion.
It was 50 feet long, and had a diameter of half a meter, it had two large fangs impending out of its mouth and a titanous scaly body Silver in colour. To Bilal it looked like a snake coming straight out from the movie 'An*conda 2'.
As soon as it came out, it unleashed a violent whiplash from its tail and directly sent three soldiers into the air, they got blasted away and fell into the ground a few meters back. But before they could get up, they were attacked by chrome-scaled variants whom sprouted out of the Ground in waves after wave. The Snakes unceasingly poured out of the hole and began attacking the rest of the Soldiers.
The situation appeared Dire for them, Tuek and Befer weren't idle either, they were defending themselves from the continuous attacks from the Giant Snake.
It was not that the rest of the Caravan just stood there staring emptily as they get succumbed to death, instead they were in the same shoes of those who left, as the snakes began popping out of the Ground there as well. Restricting their movement to do anything other than defending themselves.
--------------------------------------
"Watch your legs, don't let them trip you over or else you're dead!!!" Bilal shouted over to everyone.
The System's Radar bleeped every milisecond, to indicate the number of snakes in the ambush. Suddenly experiencing such a situation, a rush of Adrenaline took over, Bilal's senses. He just kept dodging and attacking.
Looking around, he saw the Captain holding a Black emblem in his hand and chanting in a strange language in the midst of the whole chaos.
"Hurry!! Grab my hand, we're teleporting out of here!!!" The Old man shouted to everyone as soon as he stopped his chanting.
He then navigated through the midst of the turmoil and grabbed Trake in a rush. As it is the only thing he had in his mind.
Taking Trake along with him he hastened up his pace and ran towards the Old man whom had already been surrounded by the remaining people, he grabbed one of them gently.
And before he could even react, he felt muddleheaded and the next moment he knew, it was an another place altogether.