Chapter 445 - Golden Rain of Death

On the building rooftop which was the nest of the underground sandworms, Ren and the others who had suddenly woken up from the powerful illusion that they were trapped in, had finally noticed the change to their surroundings.

At first, they were relieved to see this because they thought that Cecil had finally dealt with the illusion that was interfering with their minds but they weren't given any time to relax. Just as they were all about to plop down and rest, the concrete-metal foundation under them had suddenly begun to tremble and break apart.

Through these cracks, a few medium-sized sandworms appeared and one of them had appeared below a member of their group and directly swallowed them whole. The person wasn't even given the time to react because of how exhausted they were.

Ren saw cracks appear below Xin who was nearby and he immediately rushed over and pushed her away before quickly aiming his rifle below him and firing in the next instant.

His instinctual movement had paid off because right when the concrete broke apart and a sandworm emerged and were about to swallow him whole, his rifle's laser pierced straight through the concrete and shot straight into the sandworm's open mouth.

The worm didn't swallow but instead began screeching in pain before it waved its head around which allowed Ren to jump out of the sandworm's mouth. He quickly raised his voice and ordered everyone to focus.

"Don't just stand there dumbly! Get ready for battle!"

"Y-yes!"

"Hurry, these aren't the last of them! There's probably more under this so be careful of your footing!"

Everyone began gathering together and they cautiously stared down at the floor.

"Try not to move around so much! Remember, these worms can sense the vibrations we make from our feet! That's how they hunt, so try not to move unless you really have to!" Ren cautioned.

Unfortunately, this was only the case during the sandworms' hibernation period. Right now, after being stimulated by the light from the fifth stage's sun, they had become active and would attack anything that smelt like food.

This wasn't knowledge that Ren or anyone would know so it was inevitable that he made the wrong call. However, the constant rumblings underneath them had alerted everyone else that them staying there was a bad idea.

"Shit, they aren't acting like before! We have to get off this roof!" Ren cursed.

"H-How?! We're so high up!"

"We'll have to jump! We have no choice we'll all die if we stay here!"

As everyone was contemplating on Ren's suggestion, the sandworms began bursting out from underneath.

A few small ones burst out before they were followed by even larger ones. Ren and everyone began sending attacks at the monsters and were able to quickly kill some of the smaller ones, however, even more, popped out from underneath and they began spitting acidic thorns at them.

They dodged the attack but Ren and a few others were narrowly scathed by it. The acidic thorns melted parts of their clothes and armor while the ones that were hit directly on the skin wailed in pain as their flesh turned black due to the corrosive thorns.

It was lucky that the thorns didn't hit them directly. A graze had already resulted in their skin and flesh being corroded so if the thorn struck them directly then it would kill them without a doubt.

"We have to jump! Now!" Ren yelled out.

He was one of the few whose body was directly grazed by the acidic thorns. It wasn't due to carelessness but because he had pushed away from the person behind him.

However, just before they could jump off the building, a large tremor suddenly shook the building and in the next second, the entire space of the rooftop which remained intact suddenly burst apart, and a large mouth opened up from underneath.

Ren and everyone was already caught within the jaws of the enormous sandworm. At this near-death situation, Ren was able to catch a slight glimpse of someone familiar reaching the rooftop on top of the head of a large creature that was also familiar.

"Angie?"

*****

Angelia had just arrived when Ren and the others were falling into the large sandworm's mouth. Her eyes widened in horror but she didn't yell in despair. Instead, she ordered Nessie to quickly slice apart the sandworm's head that was trying to eat up her companions.

"NESSIE!!!"

The connection between them had long since informed Nessie what its master wanted so before Angelia even yelled, Nessie had already sent a large water blade flying at the sandworm that just burst out from the building's rooftop.

The blade cleanly bisected the monster, but Angelia was still afraid. She knew how corrosive those sandworms were since she had plenty of experience and troubles dealing with them from her time on the fifth floor.

Just being touched by the monsters' corrosive fluids was deadly so even with the monster supposedly now dead, if her friends that were already inside the monsters' mouth were to be doused in those fluids... she didn't even want to imagine that.

Thankfully for her, the flight-capable automata, Agenor, Hana, Helen, and Pollux came swooping in the next second and began using their weapons to slice apart the severed sandworm's head and with quick precision began pulling out the humans, minimizing any further damage done to them from the monsters' corrosive fluids.

"Nice!" Angelia cheered.

She then turned her attention towards the building filled with sandworms and mercilessly ordered, "Level this building and kill everything inside, Ness!"

Nessie roared and conjured an enormous ice spear above the building. It hovered in the air for a moment before abruptly dropping down on the building. The building along with all of the sandworms inside was frozen and then crushed by the massive spear of ice.

Hana, who was carrying a few people looked down at the destroyed building along with the massive ice field that was created in the aftermath of the attack and reevaluated Angelia's danger threat in her database.

"Update, High Human Female: Angelia Silvaria. Alignment: Friendly. Immediate Threat Level: B. Overall Threat level: EX2."

After leveling the building, Angelia had to direct Nessie to go help with the others in defending the place and clearing away the monsters that were swarming at them.

Angelia got off Nessie's back and headed back to the power station where Hana and the other automata brought the people they had just rescued. Mary and Desmond were already working to heal them of their injuries.

The corroded skin and flesh of the people that had unfortunately made contact with the sandworms corrosive fluids were slowly beginning to heal. Ren, who was affected in some spots, began to marvel at his saviors' capabilities, but he also questioned their identity.

'Are they friendly? Well, I guess they should be since they rescued us...'

The other automata had already left for the battlefield once they dropped the group of people off at the power station so once their injuries were healed, Ren remembered that he saw Angelia earlier and asked Desmond who was the one responsible for healing his corroded injuries.

"Excuse me, but do you know someone called Angelia?"

Xin was thankful that they were rescued. This wasn't the first time she had nearly died while inside the trials so she was just about to plop down and close her eyes but they immediately snapped open after hearing Ren's words.

"Angelia? You saw Angie earlier, Ren?"

"Y-Yeah, right before we were nearly swallowed..."

"...Are you sure you didn't delude yourself because you almost died? Man, our loverboy sure has quite the imagination~" Xin teased.

"Th-that's not true! I really did see h—"

"Ren! Xin!"

Xin turned towards the source of the familiar voice and saw her friend running over to her.

"N-No way? I-it's true?!"

"I told you!"

Angelia quickly arrived next to them and pulled them into a tight hug.

"I almost lost you guys!"

The two returned the hug and said, "Thankfully, you came to rescue us!" "We were saved thanks to you."

"Did you guys come to look for me? Also, was there anyone else with you guys?" Angelia asked after releasing them from the hug.

Ren was the one to reply, "Only Master was the one that went to rescue you guys, but we were somehow dragged into this place. Our group was bigger, but we were separated because of an illusion. I'm not sure where everyone else is at the moment."

"Big brother is here?"

"Yes, but master went to destroy the large illusion array so we separated for a moment. I'm not sure where master is right now."

"Well, if you guys have any strength left to fight, please come and help. The buildings around here are all filled with monsters and they've all turned restless and are now swarming at us."

Ren was troubled when he heard this. If every building had monsters in them then the others in his group were probably in some kind of danger right now.

"The others in the group are probably in danger..."

"Who are the others that are with you?"

"Well, Robin, Marylyn, and a few others from our kingdom are also here. Then there's Matheus's fiance, Celestina, and her sister who had brought along a group of holy knights and priests with her, and finally, Karen, big sister Fatima's fiance's sister and her group."

"Come help us then, we have to—"

Before Angelia could say anymore, a large sun suddenly formed in the middle of the air just above the large sky fortress they were on. This sun rose high into the sky before suddenly bursting apart and raining down a shower of golden bolts of mana on the sky fortress.

The golden shower of mana bolts obviously couldn't cover the entire sky fortress but the location where Gabriel, Angelia, and the rest were was within the area that the golden shower covered.

When the numerous golden mana bolts reached Angelia's location, all of the monsters were immediately struck and killed by the mana bolts that indiscriminately rained down on them. The golden bolts of mana dodged all of Angelia's monsters that she summoned out and even avoided the automata that were a new addition to their group.

"B-Big brother..."

"That's master alright..."

"Wow..."

Everyone could only look up into the sky at the approaching shower of beautiful but deadly golden lights. In the next instant, the sounds of explosions rang throughout the air.