Roberion was dazed; the place was chaotic, and he was afraid of dying by a stray bullet or spell. But he saw that whoever stopped walking, the undead would circle them, reducing their distance little by little. If the participant didn't get the hint or were too afraid to enter the fray, the undead attacked without piety.
Roberion tried to calm himself and slowly directed Shining Crown. Looking at the target of his hunt, he saw that some spells had reached the armored guys. All of these spells seemed to come from a single point: a weird construction, a mix of a half dome made of bodies, stone, crystals, and ice. All around it, multiple magical shields seemed to sprout out.
The place where the barricade is constructed is inside the park, not far from Roberion and almost one and a half kilometers away from the armored guys.
All the living participants that seemed to survive the killing grounds ran in the direction of the improvised shelter. Roberion, seeing that he didn't have a choice, followed them and took a better look at the spells that rained on their two warriors.
Fireballs, throwing objects, ice, and earth spikes seemed to be more numerous but less effective.
The most damaging spell seemed to be a concentrated electrical blast that shocked all the regions where the armored warriors were, with enough area of effect to hit their entire body. Secondly, a laser crosses the air, burning it on contact. As it reaches one of the warriors, it eats the protective domes projected, sadly not enough to do any damage to the armored fighter.
Roberion didn't waste any more time observing the battle. As he directed the roothon into the park, the beast's legs sank to the ground, like he was in some sort of swamp. Looking down, the null saw that the thousand liters of blood of the uncountable victims had transformed most of the vinicity in a scene from hell. He still remembered the slaughter of nulls when they were on the hearing grounds of the seven-tree bulls, but that seemed like only a fragment of the horror he saw now.
One thing was seeing a horrendous place from afar; the other was entering yourself into it. The iron smell in the air is mixed with the smell of carnage; was there a hint of sewage? Roberion didn't even know what it was; he had some resitance against bad smells, but that was strong even for him.
Seeing that the roothorn stopped, he tried to guide him, but sadly, the roothorn was stuck in place. Strong as he was, it was not enough; the plantbeast's own power was working against him in the mud. Roberion knew what he had to do. "Sorry pal, we will see you later. You did well", he said, giving a pat on Shining Crown and summoning it back to the bangle. "Alright, Percival, we walk on foot."
He hid his disgust and regretted his choices instantly. But he didn't have a choice, so he kept walking as fast as he could; it was more into swimming than walking, though. The sound of explosions and fighting was a constant signal for him to keep going after the barricade, the only place that seemed like some sort of protection in this hellish fight.
"Where is that damned "Gentlemen"? For fuck sake, is he already dead? I'm going to steal his stupid hat and put on Shining Crown", Roberion said, angry, spitting from time to time as blood splattered in his face and body with each step.
"Sir, I don't think it will fit", if the creature was having any problems with the smell or the carnage, it hid well, his red fur mixed with bloddy mud. Roberion was sure that if he saw the scene from afar, it would be hard to notice the knight capybara here; he was practically camouflaged.
The other participants that tried, just like him, to reach the makeshift fortification were less than he thought; most didn't dare to enter the place. It was their loss, though, literally. Roberion heard their screams as the undead killed them mercilessly. You only had a choice: embrace the risks and go fight the armored warriors.
The only reason the armored warriors didn't try to reach the makeshift shelter was that the undead were like a wave, running after two warriors like a suicide squad. Roberion thought that the Cerulean Baroness was only employing the dead participants, but now he wasn't sure. There were mounds of dead bodies; almost all of them were undead. The dead beasts didn't seem to notice or care, just climbing it; some were just walking around.
Not having enough time to care for the other participants, the armored warriors kept exploding and penetrating their purple skinned enemies; sometimes they had enough of a breathing room to attack the participants, like Roberion, who tried to cross the blood swamp. Roberion was brushed with death each time such an attack occurred. Using the [Behemoth Skin] to its fullest, he is trying to only protect his head, the place where the armor power was weaker.
In the beginning, Percival tried to protect him, but it got more in the way than helped. It was tough enough to walk through the mud on his own; just think of how much more difficult it would be if a large capybara got in the way! Percival, by the way, had a better time than Roberion crossing the bloody swamp. Whether it was because he was a capybara or just some sort of knightly ability he had, the important fact was that he was going first without problems.
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No participant had time to fight between themselves or even study the other participants; Percival, which was weird even for Roberion, only had a glance directed his way. The null was at first afraid of crossing the distance, but as time passed, the anger powered his way through; the situation was ridiculous. Why did he have to cross this stinking mud? More times than he could count, he just wished to take his [Hellish Plamas Cannon] and just shoot these stupid armored warriors from where he was.
The only thing stopping Roberion from doing just that was that he was afraid of missing it, and they weren't cheap mana wise. Maybe he could shoot two times a medium VIII-tier shot, but from what he saw from these spells that rained down on his enemies, even the plamas shoots didn't seem enough. There was also the risk that some undead got in the way or a spell that diverted his way too.
So he just walks like a madman at the makeshift shelter; sometimes he gets hit in the leg or chest; it was so many times that he lost count, the [Behemoth Skin] doing its work, healing him as fast as it could. Roberion was sure he would have died from blood loss without the armor, but even with its usefulness, it didn't seem any less ugly in his eyes.
Percival didn't seem to take more than glancing shots, being the first to reach the place. The knight capybara looked back, waiting for his patron to reach him. It didn't take long; Roberion accepted the open gauntlet hand of Percival and got up with his help. Looking back at the twenty participants that tried to cross the swamp with him, four got there first, three were still in the way, and the rest all died.
It didn't seem to stop the flux of participants, though; he saw two more trying to cross the hellish carnage swamp. Some with looks of disgust, some just trying to walk as fast as they could. The ones near Roberion just looked at him with fear mixed with anxiety; he was sure that any sudden move in their direction would make them try to run away or fight him to death.
Helping them could also be an option, but Roberion didn't want to have more contact than he needed; everyone would try to kill each other when the two bastards died anyway. So Roberion just ignored them and turned to the makeshift defense; it was time to meet the other participants.
Nearing the place, he could see that the defense was shoddy but worked; it seemed like a mix of spells, a few bodies there, a mix of crystals here, some stone and soil on the bottom, some ice to make it all solid, and some magic shield to finish the thing. From afar, it looked more impressive, but now that he was near, it was a miracle to be working.
The shoddy construction was right at home there, ugly and hellish as all the rest, but Roberion didn't care; he just wanted the other participants to take their thumbs out of their asses and just fight the warriors in his place, while he just did the bare minimum to be counted as a fighter. The last thing Roberion needed was the Cerulean Baroness's anger; he was already in a stinky calamity.
Nearing the other side of the macabre construction, he saw the other participants that survived the crossing. The four that crossed first before Roberion seemed totally uninteresting. Roberion noticed that one had red hair, which is rare for the humans he saw, but they just seemed like fodder.
His brain was already full of things; he didn't have time to analyze any poor sod that got in his way. If they were different or powerful, they would show it in one way or another. But that doesn't mean he would be fooled. He would treat anyone with caution, and with all the prejudice he could muster, they could say sweet things, courageous things, or threaten him, and he would put them down anyway, or try to do it.
Seeing the other people, now that is a difference; there were nineteen people there aside from him and the four others. The ones that got his attention were first a man, or woman, he didn't know, that was made of crystals in the format of a human; the only difference is that they were made of crystals and that all their features were sharp; there wasn't anything round in their body, not even his eyes that looked like retangules.
There is also a bald guy; he looked like a monk. Why did we have a monk in this hellish place? Who knows. He had a robe caked in blood and eyes that were like shining rubies. Roberion had an inkling of who the laser guy was.
Then there was a man in a light blue robe; his blond hair was long, and strangely, all his clothing and body didn't have a speck of blood. He gave off a chilly vibe, as cold air seemed to permeate around him. His puffed chest and raised chin directed at us newcomers seemed to show that he was someone important, or he thought he was.
Surprisingly, the most striking figure was a humanoid beetle; his face looked human but without a nose; aside from that, his body is all beetle, having wings, multiple legs, and a carapace, the full combo. He had no idea why the orange creature had such an odd color or even if the beetleman could speak. He wouldn't want to talk to him anyway; for Roberion, he is the scariest of the bunch.
There were also two familiar faces: the lance lightning woman, and now Roberion noticed that she had black hair and dark skin. She didn't seem to recognize him, so the null concluded that the camouflage in the saferoom worked, or she was faking it and remembered him.
The other familiar face was way less welcoming than the other, and that is saying much because no one was happy for Roberion's presence; it was just the orc that almost killed him and that Roberion almost killed; he still seemed to be angry but lucid and mostly intanct, wounded as hell but intanct. And who would have thought? When he glanced at Roberion, he just started to yell at him.
"I WILL KILL YOU STUPID VAT RAT. TRY TOO SHOOT ME WITH THAT SHIT—", before he could keep talking, the blonde with the white robe grunted audibly, chilling the air, probably with his magic. The blood mud that is all splattered on Roberion just got more solid.
"Silence, brutish orc! We will obey the Cerulean Baroness and then go back to sullying our hands with impure blood like yours. For now, let me present myself. I'm Icaro, and the appointed leader of this operation. Now you five, are you with us, or can we just add your bodies to the barricade?"