Chapter 165: Making Nekkers Feel Pain
Letho suddenly felt a tug on his arm. He turned to Lynn beside him, who immediately made a shushing gesture before pointing to his front-left.
Letho squinted, following Lynn's finger, and noticed a nekker standing in that direction. The nekker nest was directly ahead, yet they were smart enough to place a sentry to the side.
Nekkers didn't need alarm bells or war drums; if they detected an enemy, they'd instantly let out a shrill scream. A nekker's screech was sharp and effective.
"I'll take it out," Letho said, slowly sheathing his silver sword and drawing the two short swords from his front.
"No, let me." Lynn retrieved his Kovir longbow from his magic-imbued leather pouch.
He expertly drew, nocked, and aimed an arrow. He released the string. The arrow flew like a shooting star, piercing the nekker's skull. The creature didn't even whimper, the impact sending it backward against the wall before it slid down like a rag doll.
Lynn put away his Kovir longbow and remarked, "Very clever, but not clever enough. Otherwise, they'd have placed two sentries."
Having dealt with the sentry, the two continued forward, approaching the entrance of the nekker nest.
From here, they could already smell the indescribable stench wafting out—a mixture of excrement, sweat, dampness, and mold. Taking a quick glance, Lynn noticed over thirty nekkers inside the nest, either sound asleep on the ground or actively working to expand their tribe.
They couldn't see the deeper parts, but the actual number of nekkers in the nest was certainly far greater than what was visible.
In a head-on confrontation, even an equal number of human soldiers, fully equipped with silver weapons, would struggle to defeat so many nekkers.
They lacked experience fighting monsters. But witchers were different. Although it was his first time here, Lynn quickly scanned the surroundings and noticed that this nekker nest was built in a recessed area of the underground sewers.
It looked like a storage room, probably used by the elves to store tools when they built the sewers. After the sewers were completed, the area wasn't sealed off, which was why it had now become a nekker nest.
However, this terrain actually worked in Lynn and Letho's favor.
Since this nekker nest had only one entrance and exit, they could effectively neutralize the nekkers' numerical advantage by holding that choke point. Lynn estimated that the entrance could only accommodate five nekkers walking abreast at most.
This was due to the slender build of ordinary nekkers. Witchers weren't superhuman warriors, but a two-on-five scenario still heavily favored the witchers. What's more, they had alchemical bombs, which were key to overcoming numerical superiority.
Lynn checked the number of alchemical bombs stored in his magic-imbued leather pouch. There were definitely enough for the upcoming battle. Moreover, the confined space was ideal for maximizing the bombs' effectiveness.
Once ready, they wasted no time. Letho made the first move, pulling out three Superior Dragon's Dream bombs Lynn had given him, and forcefully hurled them into the nekker nest.
Sizzzz—
The Superior Dragon's Dream bombs that landed in the nekker nest rapidly released green, toxic gas. Even for monsters like nekkers, it was poisonous and harmful.
The sudden gas filling the nest alarmed all the nekkers, whether they were sleeping or engaged in other squalid activities.
Soon after, some nekkers quickly spotted the two witchers standing at the nest's entrance.
Piercing screams instantly echoed through the nest. All the nekkers surged forward, like sharks smelling blood. Dozens of nekkers swarming at once presented a far more impactful sight than any zombie movie.
Lynn, unhurriedly, unleashed a concentrated blast of fire from his palm. This was another activation method for the Igni Sign—focusing the flame instead of spreading it. The concentrated flame cut through the nekker horde, igniting the Superior Dragon's Dream bombs Letho had thrown into the nest.
The next moment, accompanied by a tremendous roar, the savage and bloodthirsty nekker horde was instantly engulfed by an even fiercer sea of fire. The nekkers at the very back were torn apart by the explosion, their organs and flesh raining down.
Letho, at the moment of the explosion, activated his Quen shield, protecting both himself and Lynn.
Splatter! Splatter! Splatter!
Shattered organs, dismembered limbs, and debris from the explosion crashed heavily against the Quen shield. Letho was incredibly grateful that the Superior Petri's Philter he had drunk had significantly increased the Quen shield's strength.
Only when everything returned to silence did Letho drop his Quen shield. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," Lynn said, looking at the still-flaming nest. "Careful, the next wave is coming."
The recent explosion had been very successful. At least ten nekkers were directly torn apart by the blast, and twenty more were severely burned. They lay scattered on the ground, whimpering. But the remaining nekkers, who had escaped the initial blast by being deeper in the nest, surged forward like a tide.
Lynn pulled out two test-tube-shaped alchemical bombs and threw them forward. A large nekker chieftain, mixed among the horde, immediately ordered a few nekkers to move forward and press down on the two alchemical bombs.
However...
The bodies of those several nekkers, who had forcefully pressed down on the alchemical bombs, rapidly became covered in a layer of frost, visible to the naked eye. Not only that, but the layer of frost quickly spread outwards from them, freezing the other nearby nekkers into lifelike ice sculptures.
Only the nekker chieftain and a few other nekkers managed to narrowly escape, thanks to standing far enough away.
And while they were still in a state of shock...
Crash!
Sounds of shattering echoed. It was Lynn, smashing through the frozen nekkers, moving with lightning speed towards the surviving ones. A flash of silver sword light. The struggling nekker's sharp claws were severed at the root, along with its lower abdomen.
Its nearby kin were sprayed with nekker blood. Before it could react further, Letho, who was right behind Lynn, cleaved it in half from head to groin.
The two witchers' swordsmanship was elegant and deadly. The remaining nekkers lost their lives in the gleaming flashes of their blades, including the large nekker chieftain.
The nekker chieftain was indeed a dangerous monster, especially when it was part of a horde. But that was only true for an ordinary, impoverished witcher, poorly armed and without alchemical bombs or potions. When facing two fully equipped witchers with ample alchemical bombs and enough Superior potions consumed beforehand...
Its doom had arrived.
.....
For early access to 100 advanced chapters on p_treon
p_treon.com/Chaos_God
Thank you so much for your support and for reading