Chapter 70: What Is at the Bottom of the Mountain

The sun was already hovering over the top of the mountain.

After an hour of rapid travel, the dimming sunlight fell on the faces of the hunting team. Their solemn expressions nearly overflowed from their faces.

Allen, Paul, and the others were standing atop a tall tree. Monsters continued to leap up from below, only to be instantly slashed into pieces by blades of light slicing through the air.

The snow beneath the tree was stained dark red and filthy.

To the side of the tree, the mountain descended along ridges on both sides, revealing a deep valley.

The valley was surrounded by rugged peaks, with only a small, narrow entrance to the outside world—a "pocket" opening. The team stood on the slope of this only opening.

Looking down from the mountainside into the valley, they saw a surging silver "stream," its constant undulations dazzling to the eye.

As Allen squinted, the scene in the valley gradually became clearer.

What surged upward from the valley floor was not water—but a dense tide of monsters. The monsters came one after another, snow flying into the air beneath their feet.

Allen fixed his eyes on the seemingly calm "small puddle" in the center of the monster sea below. That was the geothermal lake Paul had mentioned.

Rudy and Sylphy had already turned pale.

"It looks like we've been discovered. They're all rushing over," Sylphy said.

"Obviously," Allen replied, slicing through a cluster of monsters climbing up the trunk and turning them into a spray of blood.

They had encountered several monster groups ten minutes ago. By the time they reached the geothermal lake valley, the monsters had already begun attacking them.

Clearly, they had been spotted long ago.

Allen and Paul exchanged solemn glances.

"There are more monsters than expected… but being discovered might actually be a good thing," Allen said.

Rudy looked at him in horror and was about to protest, but Paul's voice reached his ear.

"In a way, it is."

Rudy was stunned.

"What do you mean 'being discovered is a good thing'?"

Allen pointed toward the surging tide of monsters in the valley and turned to Rudy.

"What is at the bottom of the mountain?"

Rudy's eyes widened. That line sounded oddly familiar—but in the urgency of the moment, he couldn't remember where he'd heard it before.

"The bottom of the mountain? The monsters' lair?"

"The bottom of the mountain is our goal. But now, we don't even need to fight our way into their lair. They're attacking the hillside nonstop. In that case…"

As Allen's words still echoed in Rudy's ears, he had already stepped off the tree trunk.

Rudy looked down in shock.

Allen landed in a gap between the monsters under the tree and casually swung his blade.

The motion was slow—

But devastating.

In an instant, layers of airwaves rippled outward from his feet, sweeping in all directions.

Monsters were shredded and thrown aside by the blast. The rest of Allen's sentence echoed in Rudy's ears like a thunderclap:

"We don't even need to approach the target. We just defend the hillside and wipe out the monsters charging at us. Isn't that a good thing, Rudy?"

Paul squinted as he looked at Allen. The fatigue on his face seemed to fade. He smiled, jumped down, and shouted back to Rudy:

"Rudy, the plan has changed! Switch from offensive formation to defensive. Allen and I will hold the line and slaughter the monsters. You stay on the tree and provide long-range support with magic. Hold out for one hour! After that, we'll reassess based on your physical and magical stamina, and the number of monsters killed. Don't be afraid—there may be a lot of them, but their level is low. In one hour, Allen and I will still have enough strength to get you out safely."

Rudy froze for a moment before he snapped out of it.

This wasn't like the woods near the village. There, Paul and Allen had to protect the villagers and the defensive net. They were tied down and had to defend to the death, which made the battle seem "difficult."

But now, they were far from the village, with no civilians or net to defend. For Paul and Allen, fighting D-level monsters was like two lawnmowers walking leisurely through a field. If not for stamina limits, they could probably mow down the entire valley's monster tide themselves.

One of them was a senior swordsman—formerly the main attacker in an S-rank adventurer team. He'd fought in every kind of dungeon, including many scenes like this.

The other was a freshly appointed Water Saint Swordsman. Rudy still remembered how, after Paul and Allen dueled a few months ago, Paul hadn't even touched Allen's clothes. When Rudy speculated about this seriously and Allen nodded in confirmation, he felt crushed by the native genius before him.

So what was there to fear?

Monster tide?

It was just a chilly breeze and a bit of frost.

At most, in one hour, Allen and Paul could still run with everyone. These D-rank monsters couldn't stop them.

Rudy's expression brightened. He looked at Sylphy and saw she had recovered from her shock and was now watching him.

Rudy grinned.

"Then let's go with Paul's plan from earlier. I have to say, this is the wisdom of a seasoned adventurer. Magic is so flexible in combat—not just offense, but also in building a fortress."

"Earth Spikes! Ice Field!"

Massive spikes of earth pierced up from the ground, forming a wall around the clearing that Allen and Paul had swept clean beneath the tree. It became an open-air "war fortress." Paul and Allen immediately jumped onto the earth walls and began mowing down monsters like wheat.

Within the fortress, blood mixed with monster corpses and instantly froze into thick ice—protection against monsters digging in from underground.

Rudy looked up, extended his hands, and recalled the high-level water magic taught to him by Loki.

"Ice Spear—Blowing Snow!"

Straight, gleaming ice spears formed in midair, exploding from Rudy's sides and streaking toward the monster horde like silent bolts.

Each ice spear skewered monsters like candied fruit on a stick, often killing more than ten in a single shot.

Notably, large fire magic had been prohibited due to the risk of causing an avalanche. That's why Rudy had been using quiet water-based magic throughout the journey.

Thanks to his vast magic power and careful control, Sylphy's supporting magician barely had the chance to cast a spell.

Ten minutes.

Twenty minutes.

Half an hour.

One hour.

By dusk, the slope from the valley to the cliff had completely changed color.

It was hard to say—

Was it soaked in blood?

Or merely bathed in the glow of the setting sun?