358 The second portal
Hearing Liam's words, everyone was surprised once again. They had already defeated the demons, and the fat lady also sang.
Actually, in this case, it was a thin goddess. Nevertheless, she had also spoken, creating the portal.
So what other job did they have here in this strange creepy violet world that seemed to be straight out of a mind-bending sci-fi movie?
Liam grinned, reading their confused expressions. "What are you all looking at?"
"We haven't even touched the real reason we are here and doing this spatial rift event!"
He couldn't outright tell them what was what, so he modified his words and continued.
"Based on the information I have gathered, there should be another set of portals in this place."
"We should split up and search for them. Also, be on the lookout for any herbs, ores, or other materials."
"I heard through the grapevine that some of these spatial rifts are rich in crafting resources."
"Another set of portals? To where?" Alex asked, unable to rein back her curiosity.
"I don't know for sure. But most probably to the place where the demons came from," Liam smirked, not keeping them in dark completely and giving them a little titbit.
What!!! Everyone stared agape. They could actually go to another new territory? Was this like a new expansion pack?
Now everything made sense!
Everyone looked at Liam in amazement and marveled at his ability to gather information.
This was the thing that made their guild stand out even among the first-tier and top-tier guilds.
It looked like these spatial rifts somehow contained more secrets, and their boss knew about it!
Everyone looked thrilled and excited, but Liam spoke again, strictly warning. "We don't have much time to be standing here like this and talking."
"Let's split up and search. The person who finds the portal first will get an extra reward!"
The group nodded and then scattered quickly, all of them trying their best to find the other set of portals.
More than the extra reward, they simply wanted to find out where everything was leading to and what was the secret behind these spatial rifts.
The group carefully and methodologically combed through the vast purple desert that seemed never ending.
Some people even came across some weird-looking rocks that could be valuable ores and harvested them.
However, other than that, the search was very disappointing.
Other than the portal opened by the priestess from the divine temple, there seemed to be nothing else in the desert.
Even after searching for several minutes, they did not find anything.
And from the looks of things, they were also roaming around in circles, trying to find out if there was more.
Liam, meanwhile, did not focus on searching. Instead, he was busy with something else.
As they started spending more time in the spatial rift, the number of voidlings the guild members encountered also increased.
Moreover, not everyone had Derek's ability to hold back an array of voidlings until help arrived.
So Liam had ordered Derek, Mia, and Alex to keep a lookout and be ready at all times to face these strange creatures. He was also doing the same.
Now that he had already figured out a method to deal with this type of voidlings, it wasn't a big issue.
Only that they needed to hold back until he or another mage arrived to take care of the problem.
With this taken care of, the search should have proceeded smoothly but that was not the case.
They still had not found even any clues about this second set of portals. However, everyone continued searching without giving up.
They knew better than to doubt Liam's words at this point.
So the whole guild kept searching and eventually, their efforts paid off.
Some of the group finally ran into a portal of sorts.
This one was black in color as opposed to the previous one which was white in color and it looked very small, like a dot.
"Hmm?" Liam stood in front of the small dot and stared at it.
Portals were created using strong and powerful magic. It was impossible for something like that to be this small.
He asked everyone to wait for him and soon arrived at the portal location as well, everyone gathering in front of it.
"Is this the one?" Mia asked. "Is this the portal to the demon world?"
Liam nodded. "Yes. This is the one, but let me check one thing first."
He gazed at the small dot suspiciously and looked at it up and down. He then added. "Luna, do your thing."
Kyuuuu. The fox opened her mouth and immediately red hot fire sprayed everywhere, completely drenching the small dot.
Huh? Everyone was startled and confused as to why Liam was doing this. But the next second, their doubts were answered.
Where the small and minute portal dot was previously present, there was now a huge humongous network of voidlings that extended to several meters.
The entire place was rather a high voltage zone.
If they had gone ahead without thinking, they would have definitely burnt to a crisp. Everyone's scalp became numb just imagining it.
This thing was much bigger than the other voidlings that they had faced up until now, and this one was blocking their way to the portal.
"Everyone back up," Liam shouted, but it was already too late.
As if the voidlings were now aware of their presence, all the energy nodes started thrumming alive and crackling and sizzling.
The next second they started shooting out, sending bolts of lightning everywhere.
Every hit was loaded and removed a big chunk of health when they struck someone.
Zing. Zing. Zing. Zing.
Everyone frantically ran, trying their best to evade the voidlings network.
Liam tried using icicles this time also to freeze the nodes. However, now it wasn't that effective.
When he tried to freeze a voidling, a surge of energy rippled to that node and prevented it from shutting down.
The others were protecting it. The entire cluster was acting in unison. It looked like they had to take down all of them to take down one.
"Hmmm…" Liam then tried freezing three at the same time but once again it was useless.
"Everyone move back. This is going to take a while."
The other mages stayed behind to help him, and Mia and Kang Minah also stayed behind to heal the group.
The group tried various possibilities freezing out a wider array of nodes or different nodes in different parts of the network.
They tried multiple times to find some sort of weakness. However, nothing seemed to work.
On the other hand, even with Mia and Kang Minah healing only five of them, they couldn't keep up at all.
Time was running out quickly.
Liam frowned. This was an opportunity that he did not plan to let slip by no matter what.
The chance for their guild to enter the nether realm was something they couldn't afford to lose.
They could always let this one go and escape back to the Xion realm using the other portal, but then they would have to clear another spatial rift all over again before getting access to this portal.
Who knew what difficulty they might face then. It was still better to somehow use this opportunity at hand.
Liam took a deep breath and quickly made a decision.
"In a second, I will try to lure this thing away from the portal. Everyone should use this chance to take the portal and enter the demon world."
As his voice thundered, the group looked at Liam in shock because what he meant was he was going to sacrifice himself for them.
This time even Mia and Alex were dumbfounded. The Liam they knew was different. Why would he sacrifice himself for others?
Only Derek, as obedient as always nodded in agreement.
"Brother!" Mei Mei shouted back unwillingly. "I am not leaving here without you."
Others as well one by one came to the same conclusion. "Boss, we won't leave without you."
"Boss, you can't die for us."
One person was even so touched that he began to shed tears.
Seeing this Liam's face twitched. These guys!
Time was of the essence here! If they did not do something quickly another one of these giants might show up.
"You guys are overthinking things. If I say something, there is a reason for it. JUST DO AS I SAY!"
He roared again as he sent several blasts of ice spheres at the huge network of voidlings.
Everyone gulped and they did not dare talk back any longer.
One by one smoothly skipped out of the battle and entered stealth mode either using their skill or the potion.
It took an entire minute but soon the giant amalgam's full attention was on Liam and only Liam.
He used his own attacks and bombs to interchange between hot and cold attacks and slowly lured the thing away.
