Chapter 568: Sly
"Your faces..." Lieutenant Dante pointed towards them with a concerned look.
Shane quickly ran her hand over her face and noticed it. Her skin was peeling. She looked down at her exposed hand from her sleeve; it was the same thing.
Rafel had also inspected himself only to find out that his exposed skin was also peeling.
Only Hansel was untouched.
Shin, Alystren, Jeci, and Lynus all had their bodies peeling. But they just seemed to care less about it than the Lieutenant's subordinates did.
The Lieutenant threw a glance at Northern.
"Do you have any idea what is going on?"
It probably disgusted his guts to ask, but he was reasonable enough to know that he alone could not bulldoze his way into everything just as Northern had said.
A tier seven rift, for a Paragon to solo, is impossible. It's a death wish!
Northern was silent for a couple of seconds after being asked, then he looked around the fog, pointing to it.
"Right here..."
"I'm pretty sure by now everyone knows it's this damned mist. How are you and your friend here unharmed?"
Northern pointed to himself. "Oh me? I have a regenerative ability so this doesn't mean much."
Lieutenant Dante's eyes widened; he was shocked but immediately eradicated the look of shock from his face and turned to Ryan.
"And you?"
"I have a freezing essence, which has built up a unique immunity system that attacks and freezes any external substance in my body, so I am resistant to toxins of any kind."
The Lieutenant let out a small frown. 'That makes sense considering his ice manipulation ability. It's incredibly rare.' He admired Ryan once more.
However, he just couldn't take his mind off Northern. A Regeneration ability?
'It's insane. What is he?'
Somehow, he felt like that was a question he might not be able to answer, at least not so soon.
His thoughts seized as he heard Northern's voice.
"Are you going to tell us? How you are able to resist it?"
The Lieutenant shrugged. "Extra packages of becoming a Paragon."
Northern gave him a cold stare.
"While you're talking about how you guys are able to resist this, yeah, so great. But I hope you know we have to do something. I have no idea what will happen next with my skin breaking so much like molded sand."
"Anybody that has full body armor should better equip it; at least that can prevent further damage. I don't know how to reverse the already done damage, but I don't think it's going to get any worse as long as your skin is not exposed to the mist."
As Northern spoke, a couple of sparks flew around, and everyone there was now equipped with ethereal armors, each of different kinds of weaves.
It made them look like knights of different worlds that had come to conquer a common universal enemy.
Night Terror, Black Mamba, and Revant were the only odd ones out.
Even Jeci and Lynus had manifested their empire armors. And Northern was pretty impressed that it was an Item.
He remembered in that moment about the strange darkness power Jeci had used with him.
With now not being the best time, Northern shoved the thought to the back of his mind to ask later when all of this was done.
"So what do we do about the mist itself?" Shin asked.
Northern folded his arms, gazing around with a deep set of eyes with soft glow, keenly examining.
He then spoke.
"Well, the mist is here because of a monster. So we just have to find the monster and deal with it, I guess." Northern turned his eyes to Lieutenant Dante, then tilted his head with a sly smile.
"I know you have discovered it already. Don't deceive us. You are the strongest here, aren't you?"
Lieutenant Dante frowned but hid it quickly with a forced smile.
"Oh my, oh my, and here I was thinking I could give you guys the opportunity to learn." He opened his smiling eyes a little bit, frankly glaring at Northern for a quick moment. 'This bastard,' his thoughts echoed.
Northern, completely aware of what he had done, suppressed a grin.
"As expected of the Lieutenant, he was testing us," Shane muttered beneath her full armor- her visor glinted with a red passionate light as she adored the Lieutenant.
Even in her state, she was as passionate.
Lieutenant Dante circled the place for a bit, not entirely sure what to do. Everyone's eyes were on him, and Northern had put him in quite the spot.
He now had no choice but to find the damned thing itself. He was sure Northern would have noticed.
Indeed, there is a monster; the mist did such a perfect job of masking everything that it completely masked the presence of the monster.
That is, while he could very much feel the monster's presence, he couldn't pinpoint it. There was no physical body and no way to tell where the exact location of the monster was.
Lieutenant Dante stopped walking for a moment, his eyes scanning the reddened environment.
They slowly drifted down and stayed on the frozen murky waters for a moment.
The Lieutenant narrowed his eyes and clenched his fist. He threw his hands back and lunged them down into the frozen waters.
His hands became a blur as they whizzed past and punched a massive crack into the frozen ground beneath the Lieutenant.
The webbed crack surged forward like a plague, and a couple of beats later, several crashing sounds resounded around them.
As if several people were smashing the same punch as strong as the Lieutenant's all across the frozen waters.
Things went silent for a bit, then a massive shockwave burst out from beneath, a shattered wave of water spewing from beneath like a massive creature splashing into it.
The sprinkles of water affected the mist, causing it to become less thick before growing stronger again.
However, that small moment was all the Lieutenant needed to detect the monster.