Chapter 274: Clash of the Strongest - I

"You should rest more," Tom said to Dane who was standing behind him.

"I was getting too bored, don't mind me," Dane replied.

'What a weird guy,' Tom thought.

But considering their mission, it was better that Dane was like this.

"But how did you know that exploding those lands would awaken those monsters?" Dane asked.

Half of their mission involved going deep into the lands that were abandoned and safely planting explosives that Tom provided at certain locations.

Doing so, there were multiple times when their presence would alert the S Rank or SS Rank monsters in the vicinity.

There were multiple times where both of them were killed just reaching that location, but the teleporting artifact helped them a lot.

"Ah, don't ask for too many details," Tom replied as he couldn't disclose that it was Asher who told him to mark all these locations.

"Be grateful that the mana didn't damage your mana meridians too much," Tom said.

Dane and Kai had recovered from the mana poisoning, and the small black veins on their bodies had disappeared.

"Well, I can feel mana properly now," Dane said as he tried to cover his hand with aura.

It was strange for him, as he had never withstood such an amount of mana with his own body.

Unlike the mana in the air or in the mana gem, that wasn't pure mana, but the mana that accumulated in those lands due to the presence of monsters.

That wild mana was present there only due to the mana region that was spreading beneath the land, absorbing the mana in the surroundings.

This made Dane recall the mission given to them.

A month before the Kalvas Gala,

In the land beyond the border of Fashia,

Dane and Kai were standing above a cliff. As they looked downward, all they could see was a current of mana.

"Do we really have to go down there?" Dane asked.

"Y-Yes... do it... don't waste time," Tom's voice was getting a lot of interference due to the mana field that was all around them.

Dane looked at Kai who nodded back at him.

"These mana currents are even more powerful than the one in Desmar," Dane said as he touched the device around his arm.

"But what the hell are these? I haven't heard about anything like this in these forgotten lands," Kai asked, but both of them were clueless.

They had heard that calamities existed in the forgotten lands, but such things were hidden from most people of the world.

Right now they were so deep inside the Forgotten lands that even the biggest guilds didn't venture this deep.

Even the SSS Rank hunters only ventured inside these lands when a large dungeon like a SS Rank or SSS Rank was found near the borders.

Although Nathan had made the Abyss Guild venture quite far into the Lost lands, he ensured that their exploration only happened where the Dungeon was available.

"Let's hope this armor holds on," Dane said as they jumped off the cliff near the stone platforms.

Descending down near the mana current, Kai stopped as he took out a special explosive which had runes all around it.

It was a fist-sized glass ball that started floating along the mana current.

"Ah, this feels like shit," Dane said as he kept dropping the explosives.

He could feel needle-like things poking all around his body, but that was only the wild mana that was forcing its way inside his body.

"SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH," Various flying monsters that were S Rank started flying above where Dane and Kai were standing.

"Shit, let's hide for now," Dane pulled Kai back towards the wall as they hid themselves.

Their eyes were looking at the sky as Kai made both of them invisible, but his magic was unstable.

This made some parts of their bodies visible, but Kai was still trying to hide them properly.

Dane pulled out his sword just in case they were spotted by the monsters above them.

"We only need to drop 20 more," Kai said as he stepped forward.

"I'm ready to use this," Dane suggested as he grabbed the necklace.

Each of the explosives was transparent and full of runes that made them float on the mana current, and they went with the flow, disappearing from sight.

They were told that these explosives would somehow reach the SSS Rank Monsters, but they didn't know how.

But right now, leaving the place alive before their control over mana became unstable was the priority.

This was not the only mana current that they needed to drop explosives on; they needed to go around various places.

"But you should still rest and recover yourself completely," Tom made Dane snap out of his thoughts.

"Okay," Dane said as he went back to his room.

Tom looked at the screen, remembering Asher introducing Alyssa to the team.

'What is he trying to achieve?' Tom asked himself, but he couldn't come to a single conclusion.

Nothing about Asher made sense to Tom.

'She looks similar to the Boss,' Tom thought as he recalled seeing Alyssa's eyes.

But Tom also remembered the fact that Alyssa was related to the Garcia Family, which made him skeptical of what Asher was trying to achieve.

Tom had discovered so many things about the Elite Families that he couldn't believe were hidden from the common public.

And this made him think deeply about Asher's purpose.

"Well, let's start with these companies," Tom said as he pulled out the database that was collected by Dane and Kai in the second part of their mission.

Surprisingly, most of the information they found was hidden in the files Tom managed to retrieve from the database that was present in the data hidden under Osbert's authorities.

This breach of data was not known, as Tom hid it behind the hacked broadcast, and while covering their tracks, he made them think that Zephyr only took access to the broadcast.

But due to the short amount of time Dane and Kai had to exit the building, only a portion of that data was taken by Tom.

"They've issued the warning?" Tom looked at the screen as he noticed the warning signals from various guilds.

"I should inform the Boss about it," Tom said as he informed Asher.

The SSS Rank Hunters had started approaching the calamities, and the Guilds were told to hold off the monster tide away from the cities.

In Desmar,

"Do you sense that presence ahead?" Silvus asked, and the rest of the two nodded.

"Make sure that it doesn't move towards the border," Silvus said as Dalton took charge ahead of him.

"Can you guess the type of monster it is?" The Vice Chairman of the World Association asked Silvus.

Both of them knew that his mana sensitivity was high, so he could somewhat guess the power of the monster much better than them.

"The mana ahead is too chaotic; we will learn about it as we fight," Silvus said.

They had no choice but to learn about the monster as they fought, and this was why multiple SSS Rank hunters were joining hands together. Also the reason why Silvus, Nathan, and Farnus had gone to different continents.

Soon, all three of them stopped as they noticed a yellow-colored monster, the size of a building, looking at them. Scales covered its skin, from which a green-colored aura was leaking out.

"I will start first," Silvus said as various tornadoes appeared all around them.

"Srusphrem Tezel," Silvus uttered, and hands made of lava appeared from the ground to latch onto the SSS Rank monster.

It was the highest-tier Fire Element spell, capable of devouring an SS Rank Monster.

"HUAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR," The monster roared, looking at the sky. The green aura seeping from its skin flared, destroying the spells that Silvus had cast.

Dalton took out his blue sword, and the aura began to destroy the land beneath him. The Vice Chairman unsheathed his sword as well.

Both were swordsmen, and Silvus was there to assist them with their fight.

However, they were waiting for Silvus to get serious, and it didn't take long for them to notice a silvery mana around him, which distinguished him from other mages.

Suddenly, pillars made of stone erupted from the four sides, and Silvus raised his hands, causing the air around him to tremble.

The pillars started shining as Silvus created a barrier, cutting off the mana connection of the SSS Rank Monster from the Mana region.

The monster noticed these pillars and turned its tail to hit one, but before it could, Dalton disappeared and blocked the massive tail with just his sword and aura.

He could feel that his aura was struggling against the monster's green aura.

Before the monster could push Dalton, the Vice Chairman raised his sword, sending a massive aura arc towards the monster's face. The monster used its strange green aura to block it.

Right now, they were fighting a creature more powerful than them, so they could only buy time for Silvus to freely attack and end this monster.

Meanwhile, in Fashia,

"Don't stand too close to me," Nathan reminded Joseph, who was flying with him.

It was a reminder that Nathan possessed the most destructive power among the SSS Rank Hunters, apart from Farnus Calmort.

Even Silvus was slightly below Nathan in pure destructive abilities, but this also limited Nathan's options in a Dungeon.

Thus, he created his special Sword Art, which allowed him to maximize his strength in a confined space. However, this was not known to anyone in the world except those Nathan had taught himself.

All the SSS Rank Hunters thought that in restrictive space, Nathan wouldn't be able to use his abilities properly. But they didn't know that it wasn't only Farnus who had an ancient rune.

The Rune of Eirdin allowed Nathan to accommodate space element in his sword art, without having to suffer the side effects of it.