Chapter 685: Don't tell me he left?
Under the dark sky, saturated with the pungent scent of blood, Kyle's breathless form darted amidst the chaos. Ronan and Old Hal had also joined Wesley and the others after defeating their opponents.
Even though they were close to victory, every single one of them was so worn out that they could collapse from exhaustion at any moment. And to make matters worse, neither they nor the folks from the dark side could leave the area as Kyle, that bastard, had drawn an array to seal it off entirely!
While no one noticed when amidst the battle Kyle sketched the array, they all saw as he pulled out many treasures from his mind space. The instant he brought out the treasures, they disintegrated into particles, and a massive shield emerged from the ground to enclose everyone inside.
Ronan kicked aside a divine-rank demon trying to claw at his back with a grave and frustrated expression. Despite his trembling hands and legs from exhaustion, he knew he couldn't afford to stop fighting.
"By the stars! I swear after this all ends, I will never fight alongside Kyle!"
The people from the dark side, who initially wanted to escape to save themselves, had now shifted to desperate measures.
With all escape routes sealed off by Kyle, the only choice they had now was to face the enemies head-on. Ronan could see that many of them had accepted their fate and were striving to bring down an enemy with them if they were bound to die.
He gritted his teeth and shielded his upper body with his arms when a few individuals attacked him simultaneously.
Normally, he could effortlessly eliminate many divine and transcendent opponents, but currently, his spiritual and divine energy were running low. Moreover, his body was overwhelmed with exhaustion!
In an instant, a surge of power exploded from his body, sending the people around him flying. He glanced at the others. Both Ned and Vexana were clinging to Bia's feet, looking like they would faint any second. Wesley and Old Hal were in no better condition than him.
"There are still fifty or so enemies alive. At this rate, we all are going to collapse from exhaustion. Should I use an artifact?"
He pondered as he fought against the people around him and was ready to use one of the powerful artifacts he possessed, but his eyes widened when suddenly a faint feeling of dread crept into his chest. Ronan wasn't affected by it much, but everyone attacking him froze in their spots and began trembling with horrified eyes.
"Huh...?"
He darted his eyes around and observed that every living person from the dark side in the area had frozen in their tracks. Their eyes bore nothing but fear, as though they were sensing something truly dreadful.
Wesley and Old Hal, too, stopped momentarily, surprised by the sudden turn of events. They quickly took out the people in their vicinity while scanning around to find Kyle, who had once again vanished.
"What's going on?"
Ronan's words had barely faded when Bia's furious voice echoed in the sky.
-"Bastard! If you could use fear skill to halt all the enemies from the start, why the hell didn't you employ it earlier!?"
Immediately, everyone knew who the phoenix was referring to. Their eyes filled with a mix of speechlessness and anger, emotions they couldn't release.
So, Kyle possessed a skill that could instill fear in others' hearts? Yet, he refrained from using that powerful skill until now!
Even though he could clearly see all of them grappling with such suffering!
Ronan and the others scanned the area to find the human, but they couldn't discern his
whereabouts. They extended their senses, yet they couldn't detect Kyle.
Old Hal rubbed his forehead and glanced at the two supreme ranks around him.
"Let's deal with the remaining enemies first, then we can search for him."
Wesley and Ronan agreed with him. With the remaining individuals from the dark side under Kyle's fear skill, they could eliminate them swiftly without much resistance.
Bia grumbled under her breath, silently cursing Kyle. Some of her feathers were soaked in blood, not her own but from the enemies she had eliminated. She was in her phoenix form, but keeping that form was getting more and more challenging with each passing second.
She abruptly turned her cold gaze towards the two individuals clinging to her feet and, with a furious shout, forcefully tossed them away from her body.
-"Ugh, I only let you two cling to me because you were getting in the way of my flames! Yet, both of you decided to make yourselves at home here, huh?"
Ned cursed under his breath and quickly steadied himself in mid-air. Vexana also swiftly regained her balance.
The duo glanced at the phoenix and understood she was directing the anger she harbored towards Kyle onto them. But they knew they couldn't argue with her in their current condition because if they did, they would be the ones suffering in the end.
Bia noticed their gaze and glared at them. She was all set to get into a fight with the duo to show them just who had the upper hand right now but stopped when a familiar voice echoed
in her head.
'Don't start a fight. We're leaving. Let the supreme ranks deal with what's left.'
Bia snickered at the duo.
"You two, count yourself lucky."
Her words had barely faded when a massive portal light up above her. She flapped her wings and swiftly entered the portal, which disintegrated into particles under Ned and Vexana's
astonished eyes.
Ronan halted in his tracks when he saw Bia's figure vanishing into the portal. He eliminated another of the living individuals from the dark race, all currently under Kyle's fear skill, and
looked up at the sky.
"Don't tell me he left?"
Old Hal swiftly dealt with the enemies around him and began searching for Kyle.
"No, he can't just suddenly disappear on me! I followed him to bring him to the war! I can't go back if he didn't go back with me!"
Wesley chuckled at him.
"Did he agree to go with you? I just remember he wanted to rid this land of every person from
the dark side."
Old Hal furrowed his brows. Now that Wesley mentioned it, he remembered that Kyle never explicitly agreed to go with him and join the war. Kyle had only mentioned he would consider it if Old Hal assisted him in accomplishing his own goals.
"That's little something!"
His entire body was overwhelmed with exhaustion, yet there were still some folks from the
dark side alive in the area.
Moreover, they needed to clear the battlefield, which was strewn with dead bodies and blood. Otherwise, the bodies would decay and harm the land.
Old Hal clenched his fists and quickly shouted at Ronan and Wesley.
"I need to find Kyle! His fear skill is still affecting the enemies, which means he hasn't gone far. Hurry up and finish off the remaining people from the dark side!"
Ronan and Wesley exchanged glances. They were sure Old Hal would never find Kyle since he
had left on his own. But they didn't shatter the old man's hope, and in a short amount of time, together with Old Hal, they eliminated the remaining people from the dark side in the
vicinity.
Wesley slumped onto a boulder, stained with blood, yet it was the cleanest spot in the vicinity. Ronan sat beside him, trying his best to calm his breathing.
Suddenly, a sigh slipped from Wesley as he gazed at the dark sky. The shield that Kyle had
crafted earlier with the help of an array was dispersing into brilliant particles above the devastation where they were seated.
"I can't believe... we actually eliminated every being from the dark side in this land. It's all
thanks to that crazy human."
Ronan agreed with him.
"It sounds so simple now that we have succeeded in such a short amount of time. But if it were that easy, someone else would have accomplished it long ago."
The duo had not even calmed their breathing when Old Hal asked them to clean the aftermath
of the battle. The old man looked exhausted, but he dragged Vexana and Ned with him to find
Kyle.
Ronan glanced at the old man's fading figure with a speechless expression.
"We aren't even getting anything in return. So, why do we need to clean up the mess? Screw it, I'm not doing it! I'm too exhausted and can't even move a finger right now!"
He collapsed onto the boulder, only to jolt back up in the next second when the stench of blood assaulted his nose.
"Darn it! Couldn't Kyle just use his flames to clean this place before disappearing??"
Wesley glanced at him.
"Let's rest for a bit. Then we can clean this place because we can't leave it like this."
The duo rested for a while and after regaining their divine and spiritual energy, they began cleaning the area. Completely unaware that a bit of distance away from the area, inside one of the many structures that the dark side had established around the rectangular prism, Kyle and Bia were both sleeping peacefully surrounded by a presence concealing array.