Chapter 993 Manipulation

Inside the cave, Theo clicked his tongue and turned around, not caring about what others thought.

"Joker?!" Melinda was confused by this action. Her voice broke the silence as all of them turned to her before their gaze shifted to Theo.

Even Brad raised his voice. "Joker. Where are you going?"

"Saving your sorry ass." Theo snorted while raising his sword, swinging it around.

"What did you say?" Brad was bewildered by his words. After tolerating him this whole time, Brad thought this was it and shouted, "Joker. Do you know what you are doing? Are you going to keep annoying us?"

Theo ignored him and slashed a few rocks before moving them to the tunnel that led deeper underground. He was trying to block the route they were going.

Even the others frowned upon his action.

Brad immediately came to him and grabbed his collar. "I have enough. I'm the leader here. You need to follow my order."

"Unfortunately, your order is just going to kill me." Theo snorted and slapped his hands. "I don't have time to deal with you. If you just want to go, you can do it. I'm going to stay here."

"What did you say?"

"Can't you even figure it out? This is a trap." Theo started releasing his killing intent. His words had been ignored this whole time, so he had accumulated enough stress. "Just freaking go. And you will kneel before me later."

"You.." Veins appeared on his forehead. Brad really wanted to beat this Joker.

"The military is holding the enemies right now. If you just want to waste my time and get us killed here, leave!" Theo shouted. He couldn't afford to waste more time on him because a single mistake might take his life here.

He never thought there would be another group that came after them.

"Enemies? Military?" Melinda was the first one to speak. Whenever they talked, Theo always mentioned his uneasiness in this entire operation.

However, he couldn't do anything because he had no proof. Even Brad had been ignoring his warning this whole time.

She thought if she broke the ice and let Theo explain everything, some of them would understand his worry.

"Joker. Do you know something that we don't?" Melinda asked.

"I already told you. The enemies are ambushing the military and will soon come after us. It's you who are stopping me from doing everything necessary." Theo snorted and brushed Brad's hands as he continued moving all the stones to the tunnel.

"What? There is no information like that." Brad shouted in anger.

"Numerous people—" Before Theo finished his sentence, a huge explosive sound shook the hill.

"!!!" All the people immediately looked around. But no matter how hard they tried to locate the source of the sound, they could only pinpoint it to the tunnel they had just crossed. In other words, the enemies were already on their backs.

This one explosion was enough to prove what Theo said because there should be no more fight appearing behind them.

Theo didn't bother with their reaction as he placed the stones near the entrance while making a hard enough sound to wake all these people up.

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"Ah!"

"There are enemies from behind."

"What's that explosion?"

"Does this mean what Joker said was true?"

The people were panicking. Theo said the military would be destroyed sooner or later, so they thought the enemy force might be far stronger than them.

Their only thought was to run to a deeper area as their instinct told them to regroup with the rest.

However, Melinda shouted, "Stop! Are you all going to run to a deeper area? Didn't Joker tell you that he's going to stay here? Are you going to sacrifice him? And even if you go deeper, the enemies will be able to surround us, or even worse, flood this entire cave. There's no escape route."

Theo looked at Melinda in silence. He thought of her as a normal person that would react the same way as the others.

Still, Theo's words about having Brad kneeling to him had become the turning point for her.

While the others were stunned, Melinda immediately grabbed a block and stacked it on top of the stones Theo had carried. "I am just a useless healer, so I can't help you much. But it's better than nothing."

".." Theo had been trying to seal the tunnel this whole time while listening to their reaction. It was a surprise that there was someone that chose to trust his words.

"You better go." Theo shook his head with a serene tone as if he had given up on his life. Suddenly, he placed two fingers on his forehead while working in silence.

"What are you doing?"

"My monkey told me.. The enemies are two Mythical Rank Experts with a few elites. Those two are known as Ama Bamapana and Ground Snake. The former has subdued a General Class Monster and ordered it to gather the monsters in the entire region.

"That explosion earlier was enough for me to know the people behind us were getting butchered left and right. That's why I will seal this entrance and prepare an ambush to create some opportunities.

"You should join with the rest since it's going to be safer. And tell them that this entire plan was devised by Ama Bamapana to create friction between the Lowe Organization and the Starry Group while dragging the military. After all, the Starry Group will think the Lowe Organization is a spy by doing this.

"Even one of us is enough. As long as someone can tell the real plot, the Starry Group and the Star Group should be able to handle the entire case. And I hope it's you because you're the only one who believes me.." Theo explained what his clone had seen with a serene tone.

"You.." Melinda was shocked while continuing her job. She didn't have the intention to leave Theo's side. "You said you want to create a chance. If that can give us an opportunity to leave this place, I'll help. We first need to cover the entrance, right?"

The others suddenly walked back and helped bring the stones for them. Some of them even asked how to help him by using their Earth Element.

If even their healer had this kind of resolve, they would be too ashamed to meet other people if they ran away today. Some of them, who couldn't even gather enough resolve, also got pulled in.

Theo maintained his silence, but behind his mask was a huge smile.

Sacrificing himself? There was no way Theo would do that. He was just trying to gain the sympathy of these people and turned them into his slaves for this operation since he couldn't escape alone.

Explosion? It was just him manipulating their sense with his Illusion Manipulation to make them believe. He was unaware there was a group of assassins coming toward him.

As he said a few days ago, he would prepare for the worst, which meant he had been changing Melinda's train of thought for the last two days.

Since Brad was a loss case, he used Melinda to be his partner to convince the mass. This was the only way for him to persuade them since he didn't have any teammates that would trust him no matter what.

It was true that this was the worst case scenario since they had no escape route after the enemies sealed their exits. But, instead of giving up, Theo was planning to challenge this man who was blessed by a local Trickster God.