Chapter 99: Gratitude
Clint has the second easiest fight after Ivan, his shadow element allowed him to blend in with the shadows of the surrounding rocks and even hide in the shadow of the rock snake!
In this state, he was immune to physical attacks to a certain extent, and only elemental attacks would be able to deal real damage to him which the rock snake wasn't capable of.
Clint had blended with the shadows in the tunnel and used the shadows of the boulders and even that of the rock snake to attack it! Tearing at its stone scales like an invisible claw. The shadows were able to slip through the cracks of the snake's scales before pulling them out.
The snake had been very miserable, wriggling its body like a worm that got salt sprinkled on it as it searched for what was pulling its scales and the human it was planning to attack.
After ripping off the majority of the snake's scales, Clint rolled the shadow of a pointed rock from the ceiling and stabbed it into the body of the monster, killing it instantly.
As for the snake that had almost eaten Karin, it was reduced to rubbles under the rain of Ivan's gauntlet; it wasn't able to retaliate and could only hiss continuously as it was beaten up.
From the control seat in the cabin of the land carrier, Eliot watched the fight between Ivan's group and the five rock snakes with an astonished face; he was greatly shocked by the display of strength of these five new Nexulytes, a thought formed in his mind.
'Monsters! They were all monsters!'
He had never seen True King ranked Nexulytes easily deal with rock snakes of this size in his entire life; there would not have been so many skeletons in this place if they were easy to deal with.
After the five finished fights all returned to the land carrier; the fight seemed to have been easy, but almost all of them had used more than half of the Nexus in their bodies; they needed to rest before they could continue.
Ivan asked Eliot not to move the land carrier any further for now; they would stay here and rest. Eliot happily agreed.
The group took their seats and began to absorb Nexus energy from the surroundings. The quantity of Nexus energy inside the dreamscape was a little better than in the real world but it was basic knowledge not to try raising one's AP inside the dreamscape unless in a very safe location like a guarded base.
Since it was easy to lose oneself when trying to increase AP, one would not know when a monster crept up on them and claimed their lives.
While the rest of the group rested, Karin was sitting quietly on her seat and hugging her knees; her eyes stared at the ground of the cabin with eyes like those of a dead fish.
Glen noticed this after a while and went over to ask what the issue was, they had talked a lot on their way here and had become relatively close.
Karin turned to look at Glen with a tearful face; her eyes were red and watery, and her lips were trembling.
Her expression had stunned Glen greatly, he immediately asked what the problem was.
With so much effort and stammering, Karin had managed to tell him that she had failed to kill the rock snake that attacked her and that she had almost died had it not been for Ivan, who came to help her.
"I-i…don't want to die!"
She muffled after reporting to Glen before bursting into tears again.
Glen looked at her trembling body for a couple of seconds before gently rubbing her hair and softly said to her.
"It's alright, you were just unlucky that your opponent was a snake that was several times bigger than you. I'm sure Ivan didn't blame you…he wouldn't have helped you if he did."
" Sob…really" Karin looked up at Glen's face and asked while cleaning the tears on her face with her palm.
"Yeah, really." Glen smiled back, he couldn't help thinking how soft this girl was.
"Ok," Karin voiced out while sobbing softly before suddenly hugging Glen's waist "thank you." She muttered with her face buried in his lower belly.
She hugged him for a few seconds before releasing her grasp on him and stood up, she walked over to where Ivan was.
Standing beside Ivan's seat, the latter opened his eyes and looked at her.
Karin didn't waste time before bending forward in a deep bow toward Ivan.
"Thank you for saving me, I promise to do better next time!" She voiced out loudly before raising herself to see Ivan's reaction.
"Ok" Ivan uttered a casual word before closing his eyes again, no longer paying any attention to the girl.
Clint, Ralph, and Eliot turned to look at this as well before returning to what they were doing.
Karin's eyes brightened when she heard Ivan's response, a relieved smile stretched her lips as she turned to look at Glen while returning to her seat.
"Told you he wouldn't blame you" Glen whispered to her and winked before returning to his seat. Karin smiled at him before sitting down as well.
The cabin fell silent again as they all gathered Nexus into their Nexus chambers, they spent the following hours like this.
…..
Six hours later, the group was done with what they were doing and they resumed exploring the tunnel.
Leaving the place where they had battled with the rock snakes, the land carrier traveled deeper into the tunnel. Passing twisted paths and even climbing cliffs in the tunnel.
They traveled for another kilometer before they encountered another group of monsters.
The A-22G3 stabbed its metal legs into the rocks of the tunnel walls as it proceeded down a long sliding path to prevent the land carrier from falling forward too quickly, an opening that was fifty meters wide could be seen at the bottom.
Thwoop! Bang!
With a last maneuver, Eliot controlled the land carrier in the direction of the opening before jumping through; the A-22G3 landed on the other side with a loud sound as its metal legs stabbed into the ground.
The group immediately looked at their new surroundings.
It was a wide clearing that looked like an underground hall, roughly carved pillars connecting the ground and the ceiling, and in the center of this hall was a strange tree monster.
This monster looked just like a tree stump, its limbs were like those of humans, and its head was a cluster of leaves that stuck together.
Its body was green and brown and it was as huge as seven meters. The monster was standing in the middle of the hall with a small object in its hand and a dead monster that was identical to it was held in its other hand.
The group immediately recognized the small object in its hand, it was a Nexus crystal!
The monster turned around and looked straight at the front glass panel on the cabin, staring directly at Ivan and the others inside.
"Humans?"
A loud chaotic voice that sounded like a lot of people were shouting at the same time sounded from the head of the monster as a dazzling red light glowed in its eyes.
Ivan and the others were stunned when they heard the monster's words, it could talk!