Free Web NovelChapter 41: Final Performance
Blechhhhh...
"A-Ah sh-sh-it... th-th-at w-w-as a-all t-th-he b-b-o_oze!" Christian stared at the trail of vomit decorating the swamp. It’d been a solid minute of hell; this hulking bastard rampaging straight for the banging sounds.
The Croc didn’t pause for a damn thing; tree in the way? Smashed to splinters. Vines? Torn like ribbons. Anything in the path got obliterated, and because of all this, Christian’s ride was a hell of a bumpy one; the swamp only made it worse.
"Y-Yo b-b-ig g-u-y... c-ch-ill th-the f-f-u—ck o-u-t f-f-or a m-m-in!" he croaked, trying to plead, as after losing his beer, next up was the food he ate before coming here, but the Croc didn’t give a damn and just kept barreling toward the center. Through the tangle of vines, Croc could now see the hint of a clearing ahead.
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William was about to blast the two bees buzzing in the distance when he caught sight of the rest of the hive swarming toward the center. Not just that, he also heard the cracking of trees and heavy trashing of water as something big was bulldozing its way here; he didn’t need a crystal ball to know that drunk lord and his scaled beast were about to make their grand entrance.
He lowered his rifle, tossing it back into his inventory. No way he was going to spend all those TP expensive bullets; he had his fun; now came the final performance—the reason why he’d dragged Seabas and Boom Fairy along in the first place.
The other bees swooped in and joined the first two, making nine angry bees hovering at some distance. Two of the intermediates, being heroes, tossed their front stingers towards the platform, which Seabas and William directed into the swamp with ease.
After getting embarrassed, they also stayed put with others, whose glossy eyes were glued to the brute and their lord slogging through the last line of trees into the open.
The hulking brute stomped into the clearing, and he started sizing up the place. He was pissed at the murky water, pissed at the trees, pissed at the vines, and extra pissed at the sorry excuse for a lord dangling from his shoulder like a wet towel. fгeewebnovёl.com
Most of all, he was pissed at the bastard who ruled this hellhole. If he could get his fangs on that one, he’d love to rip them apart.
The moment his bloodshot eyes locked onto William, who just grinned back like this was all a joke, while Seabas, next to him, wore that thin, amused smile. The brute’s rage hit a boiling point. He let out a guttural curse-laced roar at them.
"Chill, dude. I’m just here to say hello, not throw hands, well, at least not here," William said, tossing more oil into the fire. The green bastard took the bait and started charging forward with his lord still out of commission on his shoulders.
But as soon as he crossed into a ten-meter radius, ten bubbles of water floated up from the swamp, closing in from different directions.
Inside each bubble was a little red seed, yep, those same explosion seeds from the Imp. That was the whole reason William had brought them along. The seeds weighed next to nothing, so Seabas could use his Water Threading skill to puppet them all without breaking a sweat.
The second they got here, Seabas stashed the seeds under the swamp.
Noticing the swarm of bubbles coming at him, Croc slowed down as his instincts screamed. He didn’t hesitate, snatched Christian by the vest, and hurled him away.
"Ayyoooooo!" Christian shrieked, flailing through the air, no clue what the hell was happening as he sailed toward the muddy swamp.
That was Croc’s oath in action: save his sorry lord first, worry about himself later. At the last possible second, Croc triggered his Dragonhide skill, cranking his defense up by 30%.
BOOOOOOOOM...
Boom Fairy activated every seed in perfect sync; explosions erupted, half detonating right in his mug, the rest blasting his right arm. A cloud of smoke mushroomed into the air, accompanied by a shockwave that rattled the surrounding area.
The brute caught in the blast let out a pain-soaked groan as he crashed backward into the swamp, sending muck flying.
No way was he going to die in that blast, and William knew it. The whole point was just to wear this bastard down a notch. With his Constitution stats, even all fifteen seeds wouldn’t drop him; they would only do just a tad more damage.
William kept five seeds in reserve for Imp to use. He can’t always use them all; let Imp have some fun with her grenades as well.
As the explosion rocked the swamp a few meters away, Christian staggered out of the muck, gasping for air. He was clueless as hell, facing the wrong damn way all the time; he had no idea what the fuck was happening at the front.
One second, he’d heard a voice of a person saying something, and before he could process it, that brute bastard was again charging off, and a heartbeat later, he was airborne, flung like a garbage bag.
Then, half-buried in mud, he heard what could only be described as a nuke going off.
He squinted around for the source of it and saw the brute asshole that shot him in mud was falling from a mushroom cloud of smoke.
Seeing the beast that’d bulldozed its way here now in mud, Christian’s brain went dud. "Yo, what the fuck?" He gawked at the fallen brute for a few solid seconds, then glanced at the platform and spotted William. He’d never actually seen the guy before, just took orders from the blood lady. But he could tell he was the lord by the fact that he was human.
Next, his eyes landed on the other figure, a tentacled freak with a human body. No clue what race that was, but it sure as hell wasn’t a fairy and looked every bit as dangerous as his own brute. Christian mentally pulled up their status screens to check Tentacle’s rank and William’s talent.
Before he could see anything, William called out, "Sup, man! Fireworks up to your taste?" Christian glared at him, eyes bloodshot with half-anger, half-beer. "You—" he started, but William cut him off. "Let’s have some beer on the next floor. I have a crate ’wife beater’ in my inventory. See ya." And just like that, they were teleported to the third floor.
Christian just stared at the now-empty platform, jaw hanging, the words he meant to spit out still stuck somewhere in his throat. He was shocked by the sheer shamelessness of that lord, storming in, fucking up with his troops, then bouncing without a care.
What’s more, Christian didn’t get a proper look at any of their information on their panels, except for the lord’s talent. Ex Rank Absolute Tower Gacha.
The only part that made sense was "Absolute Tower." The rest was blank. "Gacha", he’d heard that word tossed around outside a game casino, but damned if he knew what it meant here. And EX Rank? The tower system always said ranks went from F to SSS, never anything like EX. Christian was E Rank, so he figured "EX" must be another E Rank, with just an extra character.
Christian was still in a daze when Crox finally dragged himself out of the swamp. The right side of his face and half his arm were burned to a crisp with skin and scales dangling in bloody strips.
The first thing Crox did was glare at the bastard responsible, but when he saw the platform empty, his rage skyrocketed.
He didn’t give a single shit about the pain; he staggered over, grabbed his useless lord, and stomped toward the platform. The dumbass bees, who’d just been spectators, buzzed along behind them like idiots.
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"Lord, please allow me to fight the big one," Seabas said, eyes practically begging William for the green light.
After mopping the floor with Christian’s troops below, they all teleported back to the third floor. William wasted no time opening the panel, eager to see just how much damage the explosion had done to the brute. When Croc finally crawled out of the swamp, the damage was clear, but there was another clear thing: the bastard had gone crazy.
Seabas, who already had an urge to fight the green brute from the start, made his request. Counting Christian and Croc, there were eleven on the other side. If Seabas went toe-to-toe with the rampaging lizard, the rest of the team would have to handle all nine bees, five of them high rank. The useless lord was a problem; one glance told you he didn’t know jack about fighting.
William didn’t shoot him down right away. If his crew wanted to throw hands, he wasn’t about to play dictator; he’d had his fun sniping bees, but before deciding, he needed to make sure the others could handle the rest without Seabas.
William glanced at Cent and Aurel, his frontliners. "Could you handle all the bees without Seabas?" Cent gave a confident nod, and Aurel let out a screech that translated to ’With ease’ in his language. Decision made, William looked at Seabas with a crooked grin. "Fine, you can have your brawl, but the kill’s mine. I’ve got a promise to keep."
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[A/N]: Sorry if the fight feels dragging and boring. I wanted to end it in this Chapter, but some work came up. No worries, I’ll conclude it in the next Chapter.
