Just before John could continue his words, the two cores exploded like a bomb. Yet it wasn’t like a normal bomb.
A pillar of blue-orange fire erupted all of a sudden, covering an area of hundreds of tres in the blink of an eye, rising for over a hundred tres in a few frantic breaths! Thick arcs of lightning erupted all around the pillar, hitting fiercely at areas far beyond the initial coverage of this piece of hell.
It was the first ti for John to test this grenade effect, and he was totally stunned, like his friends, by the scary effect of it. The deadliest feature wasn’t just in the grand area coverage or the intensity of the fire that emitted from the orb, but from the large number of lightning arcs that ca out from it.
The arcs danced wildly and fiercely slamd at lots of spots for many seconds, expanding the area of damage far beyond the pillar of fire.
John imagined using this against a densely packed monster tide, and he knew at least hundreds, if not thousands, would get severely wounded or killed by all this!
The explosion continued for a whole minute, a roaring vertical furnace that seed too strong even for John’s enhanced abilities. No one dared to utter a single sound, even after the fire and lightning finally vanished, leaving behind nothing but scorched earth and a lingering smoke line that rose from many spots the lightning had hit.
"John..."
The first to speak was Cissel. She turned her head slowly, her face ashen white, and her eyes opened so wide they looked painful. Her voice was a re whisper, trembling with a mix of fear and sudden, intense desire. "Can you... Can you give a part of the stash you have? I know you gathered tens of thousands of these..."
"No way! I also need so!" As if Cissel’s request had jolted her awake from a trance, Elena jumped in at once, her sledgehamrs forgotten as she wanted to claim a share of the pie.
The sheer destructive display they had just witnessed was enough to make any warrior’s heart race with greed. Not to ntion these two had a thing towards grenades.
"You already have more than enough," John laughed at their sudden avarice, shaking his head. He reached into his storage and distributed a handful of the cores to each of them, his expression turning grave for a split second. "Just be sure to not throw these near anyone from our side, okay? If you’re caught in that pillar or dancing lightning, not even I can save you."
John didn’t stay with them any longer. He left them with dazed expressions and numb heads, turning to walk toward the North with a confident stride and a big smile on his face.
"I knew those two would like the grenades, hahaha!" he laughed to himself, though a small part of him hoped the two girls would be wise enough not to overuse the lightning grenades in the upcoming skirmish. They were a trump card, not a plaything, and they should be reserved only and solely for critical monts or worthy foes.
He walked toward the northern den, the only place in his territory that was still heavily shrouded in the thick white fog. During the past day and a half, his friends had diligently used the piles of Wrathers and yellow monster cores to push the fog away, effectively terraforming the region.
Before the fourth wave had even begun, John had taken back the magical core. That resulted in their base being covered with fog again. Yet he watched while his friends used the active cores to reclaim the cleared zones.
By the end of the fourth wave, his territory was almost entirely void of fog, except for the extre southern and northern periters. He didn’t want to risk alerting the Bulltors or the Hivemind to the full extent of his progress just yet, so he had restrained his friends from clearing the southern border.
As for the northernmost parts, he had kept the fog intact specifically for the final battle against Sorolith. He didn’t want that monster to gain any lightning advantage from the cleared atmosphere until he was ready to face it head-on.
"Isn’t it a bit too much?!"
John had already spent considerable ti theorising about his clash against Sorolith. Based on his experience dealing with the Bug Dungeon boss and the formidable Ogolith, he was certain Sorolith would be a giant of similar, if not greater, proportions. Yet, when he approached the coordinates of the den, he was taken aback by what he actually found there.
The den on the map appeared empty—a silent, white void. John was sure this had to be a mistake or a system glitch. According to the quest requirents, Sorolith should be at the den. This discrepancy was exactly why he activated his long-range Wirefra Sight the mont he stepped into the white wall of the fog.
The mont he walked deep enough into the fog, he spotted sothing entirely new. The general fog structure consisted of the usual white code lines, but deeper in, he spotted weird purple-shaped codes.
These purple codes were far off his current location, extending for many kilotres away, creating a vague, blurring shape on the horizon of his digital vision. However, when he cross-referenced their direction and location, he found them situated exactly where the den was supposed to be.
He began to run toward the anomaly, his hand squeezing the hilt of his blade, his guard raised to its maximum, while running theories about the nature of that alien presence.
His best guess was that lightning was raining down in that direction, covering up the den with a protective layer. Yet the absence of any booming thunderclaps made this theory a bit of a fantasy.
He double-checked his ntal Points to ensure he was prepared for a sudden engagent. As he drew closer, the true nature of those purple codes beca clear.
At first, he thought it was a simple protective bubble or a structural do made out of reinforced purple code. Yet, when he reached out to stretch his hand through the shimring boundary, a sharp, red-pulsing warning from the system jolted his mind, exposing the true nature of the environnt he was about to enter.
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