Free Web NovelChapter 108: The Fifth Wave[1]
"Stay close," Faust coughed through the smog. This world was choking him. "Get to the corners of the armies."
Nirvana held back on calling her skeletons as they moved quickly. Her hand was held up to her nose. The choking scent of sulfur was already making her blood-red eyes water.
’If I ignite a fireball here, will the—’
His concern was answered by an explosion. The air ignited and an overwhelming force ripped him off his feet. But he kept hold of Nirvana, felt the direction he was falling, and angled his body to protect her.
He crashed into the rocky floor hard, but didn’t feel much pain.
"Someone... used a fireball," Nirvana said, gasping.
Thankfully, the explosion wasn’t strong enough to kill them, and the smell of sulfur was gone.
They got up quickly and rushed forward. The army kept coming. Spells soared across the sky, both ally and enemy. Looking up, Faust saw giant boulders coming down on them. No fireballs, despite it being a Kobold Shaman specialty.
He picked up Nirvana, jumped out of the way of the first boulder, Dashed forward before the second crushed him, then jumped into the air to bounce off a third.
Behind him, other players were either crushed or protected by the defensive abilities of their teammates.
"They texted back!" Nirvana yelled over the rumbling crash of stones. "They asked us to enter the tunnels. There should be an entrance hidden in the—"
"No. We have to get into the castle. If we go into that tunnel, we’ll be moving along with Jason and the others at the same speed. And we don’t know what’s waiting for us down there; we know what’s in the tunnel."
Nirvana blanched. "Faust, we can’t fight through an army to the tunnel."
Faust smirked. "Who said anything about fighting?"
The neat thing about Narrow Path was that you could take other people into it. They couldn’t see the entrances and had to enter with you, but unlike Shadow Step, you could take people in with you.
The hard part was keeping them alive and dealing with the brain damage.
Pathfinder predicted the movement of complex and simple bodies in relation to his body. To use it for another person, he had to predict a path through the narrow path they could move through without being crushed.
And his brain did not like that.
So he dropped Nirvana to farm kills for ghosts and had each member of the party give him a visual of their location. freeweɓnøvel.com
Thalia chose to stand directly beside the Gate, the only person just standing there not doing anything. Faust appeared beside her and took her into the Narrow Path.
"What skill is this?" she asked.
"I got it as a special reward for the fourth wave," Faust lied.
"What are those—Argh!" she cried out as she tried to look at the dark things moving through the Narrow Path. In the absolute darkness of the Narrow Path, the silver rims of her glasses glowed.
"Those are the creatures of this dimension," Faust explained. "We avoid them or they crush us, but I’m pretty sure they can’t see or hear us. Kind of like the bacteria on the ground."
Thalia hummed. "I’ve always wanted to be a bacterium. Just to see how it was."
The next person he picked up was Zen, who shot a water dragon arrow into the air. He kept trying to small-talk on their way through the path. They already had to hold hands and stay very close awkwardly; Faust threatened to leave him if he made it even worse with his jokes.
Spider flew to their location with.... Faust couldn’t really describe the creatures she was changing into. It looked like fish but had these bony hands. He chose to just forget that.
Finally, he took Greg through the Narrow Path, after finding the boy through an irritating number of texts.
"Jason and Flawless will have a head start," Faust grumbled, "but if we push like hell, we can make it."
"Thanks, man," Greg said randomly. His eyes were screwed shut as the sight of the dark things in the path really hurt him.
"For what?"
"I don’t know. You’ve kind of carried us. I don’t think everyone could have survived the Gate invasion without you. For now, we’ve been able to pretend everything is normal because of you."
Faust almost stopped. "You think that won’t last?"
"I think we’ll all have to confront that this isn’t just a game eventually," Greg said quietly.
Faust didn’t like him much, mostly because he was one of the few people that handed Faust the most losses. Was that a bit hypocritical? Definitely.
But he had to admit Greg wasn’t dumb.
"You worry too much," Faust said simply.
Once they exited the path, they were all together. Each of them shared hugs around and asked how close the others had come to dying.
Faust watched the castle in the distance. It was a dark, sharp thing, looming over a black sea that churned violently. In this colorless world, even the boundless sea looked trapped.
"We’re going in one more time," Faust muttered, rubbing his burning skull. "All together, straight to the castle, Greg at the front."
"You don’t look so good, mate," Zen said. "Whatever that skill is, it isn’t easy on you." He sighed. "Let’s try my way towards the castle."
All of them side-eyed him with open distrust.
"What is ’your’ way?" Thalia asked.
Zen grinned and simply drew an arrow.
Zen’s way was drowning in a water dragon as it soared through the air towards the castle.
Faust had to say it was a bit brilliant.
Sea Dragon, Zen’s Schema, granted him two abilities. One allowed him to breathe and swim quickly underwater. The other allowed him to add the Sea Dragon boost to water spells cast by him.
He shot arrows made out of water using a skill, then enhanced them with his Schema, turning the simple water arrows into dragons, which were vastly more powerful.
He could also control these dragons to a degree.
So he formed the water arrow, then the dragon around him and the five of them. They all held their breath and tried not to laugh as they imagined how this would look if it didn’t work.
Through the bubbling, cool water, Faust saw the other five in a circle, holding onto Zen. Their hair floated around them. Thalia and Zen exchanged a look and almost drowned as they held back laughter.
Zen nodded back to them, then released the arrow.
