Chapter 27 - We can't go up

Alex who was right in front of Carl had been watching his fat friend all this time, and had noticed Carl's strange behavior.

"Carl, are you all right?" Alex asked and stopped fighting, and when he heard no response from Carl, his face lost its emotions and he suddenly faced upwards with a dark expression.

"I won't let that tragedy happen once again." He muttered underneath his mouth. His face turned grim. Looking ahead, he crouched and pushed his palms to the ground!

_BANG_

All of a sudden, a huge block of midnight blue crystals shot up from the ground in an instant, creating a 2 meter think wall of crystals to shield the perimeter! The wall's shadow invaded the hunters' figures, and then a loud collision resounded on the other side, but the wall was as sturdy as iron.

The loud crashing continued for ten seconds, and died down, as the wolves started to evade it for good, seemingly forgetting them as they all hurriedly rushed downwards.

Everyone stood there in shock realizing the direwolves weren't going for them anymore, and amidst the realization, they also could not help but stare at the blonde teenager.

'He's already a decent fighter, but to think he could do something of this scale!'

The captain gulped, shocked. This was also added by the fact that crystal magic was quite rare.

All the veteran hunters were the same, their mouths wide open, as they stared at Alex in astonishment.

At this point, however, the mood changed as a fat boy lifted himself from the ground, spitting out dirt and grass from his mouth.

Carl cleaned his mouth and narrowed his eyes.

"Hiss…what you do that for?"

Seeing that Carl was back to normal, Alex's expression returned back to normal.

He spat out a sigh of relief, and realizing what he done, he scratched his chin, and chuckled abashedly.

"Heh heh,"

'Are you serious?'

Carl stood up. He immediately got shocked at the crystal formations around them since it was an advanced element, but he was not surprised that Alex was capable of something like this. More importantly, there was something he had to convey to the group before it's too late.

The Captain too could see the urgency of the situation and spoke;

"Everyone stand up, we have to get to the rest point immediately, and join up with the GKS members. It's already dark so it's risky to proceed any further, but we don't know when the next wave will come. Advancing to the rest point is our best hope!"

Ordered the captain and everyone quickly prepared to climb again.

The Captain's words were logical, but in Carl's mind, the cause of his worries weren't the priority.

All hunting grounds had what was called a rest point where stationed hunters of the managing club occupied and in this case GKS.

During normal times, it usually serves as a checkpoint for hunters to buy food and rest, but during times of emergency such as monster riots and migration, it serves as a fortress for the club and hunters.

But Carl knew that hope might have already disappeared.

"We should not advance further." Carl stated.

All of them stopped in their tracks and turned to the fat boy, surprised to hear his voice, but even more stunned of what was said.

When the veteran hunters realized who was talking, their faces contorted and glared at him.

Most of them had already doubted his abilities at first thinking he was going to give up during the climb, but his performance to keep up with the pace changed their minds. However, during the fight, they clearly remembered him dodging every little thing, and not covering for the others.

All of them were filled with scratches, scars, and bruises. They could still feel the shock in their muscles from battling those monsters head-on. But not a thing hit him, despite being so large of a target.

A mere fat child who was too scared to fight and get his hands dirty has no right to say anything in this raid!

Before anyone could, Mason blocked Car's path halting his footsteps as he stood before him with a psychotic smile.

"Oi, I told you right? The moment you bring us, I feed you to the monsters myself. Take one more step, and I will kil--"

Mason swallowed his words, or to better say, he had to stop.

Alex was glaring at him and his face was even scarier than earlier.

Mason clicked his tongue recalling Alex's abilities, but his eyes went crazy when he noticed that the fat boy was looking at his face, his gaze extraordinarily heavy and sharp, as though he was staring at his soul.

It only lasted for a second, as Carl then ignored and passed by him. It was almost too subtle and natural the man forgot what he was doing.

"You!"

However Carl already stood before the Captain.

"We can't go up." Said Carl slowly.

Recovering from his stupor, Mason barked a laugh.

"I told you. Not only is he a loser, he's a fat coward. He would rather run away hahaha."

The captain frowned at Mason's behavior, but he also did against Carl.

"I know you're afraid, but we're advancing. You can run away if you want, but I assure you that you won't be safe down there at all, especially since its already night."

"You're not listening." Carl said.

The captain turned around and ignored him.

"Let's go!" the captain said. "And don't eve—"

The captain wasn't finished talking, when Carl raised his voice mockingly.

"You guys are idiots!"