Chapter 244: Trap
The transport aircraft banked sharply through a thick, yellow-tinged bank of clouds before leveling its descent over the Central Continent.
Through the cabin window, the skyline of the Central Capital gleamed with imposing, hyper-modern glass monoliths, but beneath that pristine exterior lay a suffocating layer of military tension. Sirens blared continuously across the outer sectors. Convoys of heavily armored vehicles rumbled down the perimeter highways, kicking up dust as they rushed toward the eastern quarantine lines.
Two days ago, reality had ruptured once more.
A 3-Star Dungeon Break had violently detonated in the eastern provinces of the Central Continent. The twenty-four-hour suppression window had been missed, allowing a massive, corrupted landmass from the dying world of Rilth to forcefully anchor itself to Earth's bedrock. For now, the invading Calamity beasts were contained within the borders of the newly manifested Dead Zone, but the situation had escalated into a continental emergency.
The Central Continent—widely regarded as humanity's apex fortress—was in a desperate bind. Most of its elite S-Rank and A-Rank Exterminators had already been deployed overseas to assist the collapsing frontlines of the Eastern and northern Continents. Those strike teams were currently locked inside active multi-star gates or bogged down in prolonged urban sieges, making an immediate recall impossible.
With the Southern Continent similarly stretched to its absolute breaking point, the high council had been forced to mobilize auxiliary forces.
They had called upon the newly registered Black Shield Agency—led by Hide Volter.
Inside the cabin, the atmosphere was thick with quiet anticipation. Ten Exterminators sat in the jump seats, checking their tactical harnesses and running diagnostics on their weapons.
"Hey, Fuu," Kai called out with a relaxed grin, adjusting the leather straps on his newly forged elemental staff. "Make sure you don't drop your shield the moment a beast roars this time."
Fuu scowled, tightening the grip on his tower shield with a grunt of irritation. "Shut up, Kai. I am also a C Rank now!"
"Yeah, yeah," Kai laughed softly. "Just saying, we're both C-Rank now. Try to keep up."
He looked away, clicking his tongue, though a faint trace of envy lingered in his eyes. It had taken Fuu months of grueling, near-fatal gate runs just to climb a single rank, while Kai, with his natural adaptability and rigorous training under Hide, had effortlessly caught up to him in a fraction of the time.
Beside them, Ryan adjusted his glasses, meticulously reviewing topographical scans on his datapad. Flanking the cabin were five other junior Awakeners recruited recently, their faces pale as they listened to the distant drone of the aircraft's engines.
Seated near the cockpit door was Risa. Her eyes were fixed on the floorboards, her posture unnervingly still. Ever since her awakening as an Oracle, her presence had grown distant, as if she were constantly listening to a frequency no one else could hear. Across from her sat Elara, her hands resting quietly on the slender crystal wand resting across her lap.
Hide stood alone near the rear cargo hatch, his arms crossed over his chest, his ocean-blue eyes staring blankly at the metal floor.
He hadn't joined in on Kai and Fuu's banter. He hadn't offered words of encouragement. The cold, suffocating revelation of the Greater Realm still wrapped around his heart like a shroud of frost. Every time he looked at his friends, he saw fragile mortals walking across a minefield laid by celestial gods.
The aircraft touched down with a heavy hydraulic thump, taxiing into a secure military hangar.
When the rear cargo ramp hissed open, the dry, ozone-heavy air of the Central Continent rushed inside.
Waiting on the tarmac, flanked by two squads of elite operatives clad in matte-black, was an elderly man with sharp, aristocratic features and slicked-back grey hair. He wore a pristine, high-collared military trench coat adorned with golden medals.
Walter Bigiva.
The 1st Commander of the International Exterminator Corporation.
Hide's expression did not waver. He kept his face completely blank, walking down the ramp with steady, measured steps.
"Welcome to the Central Continent, Hide Volter," Walter Bigiva greeted him, a polite, practiced smile stretching across his wrinkled face. "And welcome to the members of the Black Shield Agency. We appreciate your country sending reinforcements on such short notice."
"We're here to do a job, Commander Bigiva," Hide replied flatly, his tone stripped of any warmth or deference.
Walter's smile tightened slightly at the teenager's cold demeanor, but he merely gestured toward a fleet of heavy, armored transport trucks idling near the hangar exit. "Naturally. The situation within the breach is deteriorating. The convoy will transport your unit directly to the primary containment perimeter of the Dead Zone."
Without another word or ceremony, Walter turned on his heel, motioning for the tactical squads to escort them toward the vehicles.
"Hold on," Hide called out suddenly, stopping in his tracks.
The entire squad halted, turning their gaze toward their young president.
Hide stood silently in the middle of the tarmac for several long seconds. His fists tightened slightly inside his jacket pockets. His mind churned with chaotic calculations. Taking his friends into a newly merged Rilth territory felt like walking directly into the jaws of a trap.
He let out a slow, heavy sigh, looking directly at Risa.
"Risa," Hide spoke, his voice carrying a firm, indisputable weight. "You are to stay behind. Go with Commander Bigiva's administrative detail."
Risa's head snapped up, her eyes widening in confusion. "What? But... but why, Hide? I can track the spatial fluctuations inside the zone to help the vanguard—"
Hide didn't even look at her, keeping his gaze fixed forward. "It is an order as the president of the agency. You remain at the command base."
Risa opened her mouth to protest further, but seeing the unyielding coldness in Hide's posture, the words died in her throat. She lowered her head and quietly stepped back toward the corporate liaison.
Hide then turned his head, his ocean-blue eyes settling on Elara.
The young mage stood clutching her wand. It had been months since she had actively fought on the frontlines of a lethal gate; after Garret's death and the psychological trauma of their early campaigns, she had stepped back to manage agency logistics, only recently finding the courage to take up arms again.
"Are you sure you want to come?" Hide asked her quietly, his voice softening by a fraction. "You can stay behind with Risa."
Elara looked down at the crystalline wand in her hands. Her fingers tightened around the polished wood until her knuckles turned white, but when she looked up, a bright, resolute smile appeared on her face.
"I don't want to sit in an office being useless while everyone else is out here bleeding," Elara said, her voice steady and clear. "I'm an Exterminator, Hide. I want to fight for humanity, too."
Hide stared at her for a moment, then lowered his gaze to the asphalt, giving a slow, quiet nod. "Alright."
The armored convoy brought them to the edge of the quarantine perimeter thirty minutes later.
The border was fortified with massive, high-voltage alloy barricades and reinforced observation towers erected by the International Corporation. At the center of the road sat a colossal, humming runic pylon—an S-Rank defensive artifact projecting an iridescent, semi-translucent barrier that completely sealed the Dead Zone from the outside world.
Heavily armed guards subjected every member of the agency to biometric scans before deactivating a section of the barrier, allowing them passage into the abyss.
The moment they crossed the threshold, the world completely transformed.
The familiar concrete roads and rolling hills of the Central Continent abruptly vanished, replaced by an alien, subterranean nightmare.
The terrain was a massive, sprawling labyrinth of jagged, pitch-black rock formations and gaping cavernous mouths that plunged deep into the earth. The sky above was choked by an unnatural, bruised-purple gloom that blotted out the sun, bleeding the pungent, acidic stench of decaying dark mana into the freezing air.
"Look at this layout..." Ryan muttered, adjusting his glasses as his scanner chimed frantically. "It's a subterranean hive structure. There are dozens of separate cave systems descending into the lower bedrock."
Hide surveyed the gaping chasms dotting the rocky valley. "We cover more ground if we sweep the tunnels systematically. We split into teams of two. Clear the sub-dens and maintain contact on the emergency frequency."
"I'm going with you, Hide," Elara said immediately, stepping up to his side and raising her wand.
Hide nodded. He assigned Kai to pair with Fuu, Ryan to lead the auxiliary members in securing the upper cavern network, and watched as the teams dispersed into their designated sectors.
Summoning his dual obsidian blades, Hide led Elara toward the largest central fissure, stepping into the yawning maw of the dark cave.
Inside, the tunnel sloped steeply downward. Water dripped steadily from stalactites, echoing off the damp, jagged walls. The temperature plummeted with every step, and the darkness grew thick enough to swallow standard flashlights.
SKREEE!
From the shadows of the ceiling, three massive, chitin-covered rodent beasts lunged downward, their razor-sharp mandibles dripping with corrosive venom.
SWOOSH!
Before the beasts could even clear five feet, Hide's figure blurred in a burst of speed. Two clean arcs of dark-violet mana flashed through the gloom, slicing the rodent monsters cleanly in half before their bodies even hit the ground.
A few hundred yards deeper, the tunnel widened into a vast, cavernous hall where two towering golem-like behemoths, forged from jagged obsidian stone and pulsing with corrupted mana, blocked the path.
"I've got them!" Elara called out.
Chanting a swift incantation, she swung her wand forward. Brilliant spikes of glacial ice erupted from the cavern floor, spearing straight through the golems' joints and shattering their heavy stone frames into harmless rubble.
"Nice cast," Hide noted quietly, flicking dark blood from his blades.
"I've been practicing," Elara smiled faintly, panting slightly as she caught up to him.
They continued their descent, pushing deeper into the freezing subterranean labyrinth.
Then, without a single warning, the entire mountain violently convulsed.
BOOM!
A concussive shockwave ripped through the bedrock. Behind them, massive boulders and tons of solid stone collapsed with an ear-splitting roar, sealing the cave entrance in a cloud of dense, suffocating dust. The spatial mana around the fallen debris hardened into an impenetrable, unnatural barrier, cutting off their path to the surface completely.
Hide instantly pivoted, throwing his arm out to shield Elara as his ocean-blue eyes narrowed into lethal slits. His true sight flared, sensing a terrifying presence condensing in the pitch-black abyss ahead.
From the frozen depths of the dark chasm, slow, rhythmic footsteps echoed against the stone.
And then, a cold, rasping voice echoed from the shadows of hell:
"So you... are Hide Volter."