Chapter 568 Entering Lacertilia
"…In return for 'Isolating' certain things within the barrier, it sends everything else that does not meet those criteria out of the Barrier."
All the people here were quick to figure out what the spell had done the moment they heard Evan's words.
They realised that they were the 'things' that did not meet the criteria to be isolated within the barrier, hence the reason they had all been teleported out upon its activation.
"Then…what's the criteria for the things 'Isolated' within the barrier?"
Though he had all but guessed it, the Living Legend still asked and Evan once again did another round of appraisal before answering.
"From what I can see, everyone in Lacertilia who was above a certain level got kicked out, meaning the Barrier's condition—is everyone below Level 460.
460 seems a bit even so I'd guess 450."
"Isolating every existence in Lacertilia below level 450 from the rest of the World…indeed, a World Isolation Barrier."
Evan gave a wry smile as he saw the frown adorning the man's face.
"Glad you're quick on the uptake."
At that moment, his shadow expanded rapidly, and from within it, a familiar blonde-haired priestess emerged, holding a certain black-furred cat in her arms.
"This is quite the crowd…"
Following her words, Pride and Greed emerged from the young hero's shadow before it finally shrunk back to normal size.
"Did you get anything from them?"
Evan spoke to the high demon who was holding two unconscious people in her hands, Senior Members of the Demonic Hand's Ninth Division who had been beaten black and blue by Greed.
Although the hijacking of the train they were on earlier was not orchestrated by the Demonic Hand, the commotion the fighting on the upper deck caused enabled them to discover Ninth Division and Sixth Division members who were using that train to enter Lacertilia.
The two high demons had sensed the contracted demons of the Senior Members and had drawn Evan's attention towards them, making him appraise them and discover they were indeed Demonic Hand Members.
As for apprehending them? It was very easy with the party's combined effort, and since the Members were mostly Superior Masters and just a few inferior grandmasters—a walk in the park for the current them to handle.
Follow on NovᴇlEnglish.nᴇt"We didn't get anything useful out of them. All they kept saying was that 'it wasn't supposed to be activated now'."
Greed replied with a shrug of his shoulders while walking towards the barrier with a bit of surprise showing on his face—he could sense a whole lotta demons behind it, after all.
"Who are these?"
When the Living Legend asked the question on behalf of everyone here present, Evan pointed at the barrier and replied.
"Friends of the guys who cast the barrier behind me. They were on our train which got hijacked and we found them.
I'm quite familiar with them, and they happen to have a very big grudge against me—I was the one who ended the life of one of their Executives last year, after all."
Evan grabbed one of the bodies and turned the man over, searching through his pockets while he continued.
"They targeted the GWE last year. The whole Undead Crisis was them."
"Wasn't that the 'Necromancer of Disaster'?"
"Necromancer of Disaster, Strange guys casting a Barrier over Lacertilia to trap millions of civilians and adventurers below level 450, during a dungeon break where we can have level 500 monsters coming out?
They're cut from the same cloth."
He found the item he was looking for and pulled it out from the man's pocket, holding up the communicator and checking if it was still functional.
"Weird…things weren't supposed to be this early. Did that other guy lie? To think that he could still lie to protect his organization while under interrogation…"
The boy's low mutterings entered the superhuman ears of all those present, making them consciously or unconsciously assume that Evan had captured one of their members beforehand and had 'interrogated' the person, hence, the reason he was knowledgeable about them.
"Good. It's online."
He put the walkie-talkie-esque communicator in his inventory before apporting a badge into his palm, along with the Demonic Hand brooch he had collected from the man.
The symbol on the badge was not his crest as the Count Bourne, but the crest of the Beast Kingdom's Royal family, something that was given to him about a year ago by Malaya herself.
"A Military Regiment would be coming here soon enough, with Princess Malaya leading it.
I want you guys to relay all I just told you to her, and to give her these."
He passed the two items to the Legendary Level adventurer before continuing.
"The badge's for Her Highness, she'd understand when she sees this one.
As for the brooch, it's so when she sends in the military personnel below level 450 in, they are to attack upon sighting anyone with that brooch on.
Tell them to act in teams as their opponents are most likely going to be higher level than them.
And lastly, tell her we need a Sovereign to break this thing."
The man blankly stared at Evan who just tossed him a few things and gave him a list of messages to deliver to the Princess who he didn't even know why she would be coming over with a Military Regiment.
"All right, let's go guys."
Evan turned around and walked towards the barrier as he called out to his party members.
"Huh? Do you want to enter? We tried, and it didn't work."
"You're above Level 450—of course it would not."
The teenager pushed his palm towards the barrier and instead of rebounding off it like it did when others present tried, his hand phased right through it without problem.
"But I'm not, so I can enter.
The problem is, I can't get out when I do until the barrier is broken. Even so, I have no choice. Because if what this barrier was put up for actually happens, you'd have at least 12 million corpses to deal with—and none of them would be from monsters."
Collective gasps of shock rang out from the crowd when he spoke but he paid them no mind and spoke to the Legendary Level man.
"Please, do me the favour and pass my message to the Princess.
Thanks in advance."
Right after he said that, he pulled the other half of his body into the semi-transparent barrier, along with his party members and together they all dashed off into the distance.
◇ ◇ ◇
"There's a possibility that Kethryllia would reduce the conditions for the barrier later on, and the next benchmark is Level 400.
Follow on Novᴇl-Onlinᴇ.cᴏmSo, Greed and Liz. You guys have to take away the brooches from the Demonic Hand members you meet and-"
[The goddess 'Artemisia' says that would not work.
She further states not to worry about it as she would make sure your companions are not ejected by the spell.]
"Oh… never mind then, Artemisia says she'd handle it."
'I really wonder where the limits of Artemisia's 'Non-interference' lie…'
The boy thought to himself as he jumped a park fence and out of the area, before kicking off the ground and charging forward with boosted speed, courtesy of the ring of green light circling his ankles.
Not too far behind him were Greed, Pride and Eliza, with the spirits riding on their bodies as they moved through the residential area that they were in.
Their first goal was to do a sweep of the city, defeating any Demonic Hand members and monsters they met on the way as they moved towards the Dungeon.
It was going to take a while but the monsters in the dungeon area were still around the level that the adventurers present there could handle with ease—their numbers were a problem, however.
Said numbers were so many that even tens of thousands of adventurers and soldiers working simultaneously still let a couple of dozen monsters slip through by the minute.
And when you considered how many minutes had passed, plus the momentary panic and break in the command chain when the World Magic spell was activated, then a lot of the still evacuating civilians probably had hundreds of monsters on their trails.
That was clearly NOT good.
[KRAAAAAA!!!!!]
**BOOM!!
"A wild Lizard randomly spawned!"
Evan shouted out the exact same line he had when he faced the first monster during the Lizard Lord's quest in the game, jumping out of the way to avoid the building it had broken from crumbling atop it.
With his shout attracting its attention, the creature turned a head towards him and roared out, before condensing magic power in its maw and unleashing it as a beam of golden light through the air.
Evan used void steps to create multiple platforms which he used to manoeuvre in the air and avoid the beam, before landing back on the ground and drawing his sword.
"Wait a sec…a scaled lizard, with three heads, uses lightning and can fly too?
Ain't this a bootleg 'Ghidor*h?!"