Chap 149: The Voice Inside Her Head
A momentary lull settled over the air. The absence of monster shrieks created an eerie silence. Yet unsettling sounds of snapping and shifting from all directions sent shivers down their spines. Tee finally seized a fleeting moment to draw a breath, her senses momentarily relieved from the chaos.
Though aware of the destructive potential of her supersonic scream, she had willingly accepted a demotion in rank to conceal her dark powers. Both Kie and Zod mainly obliterated the monsters on the ground, but Zod’s new ability was a refreshing sight.
Gasping for breath, she managed, "Nice going, Zod. You were absolutely crushing it."
Saeda stepped back, squinting against the dazzling radiance, her eyes tracking the snouts darting in every direction.
With a hint of wistfulness, she said, "Yeah, it's impressive, but it still doesn't compare to flying."
But neither could speak further amidst the blinding illumination surrounding them.
"More of them are coming," Miko interjected, her gaze scanning the expanse above.
Zod, growing increasingly annoyed, couldn’t shake the memory of their previous Harbinger mission. The time wasted trying to navigate the treacherous void.
"We can't keep fighting these things," he muttered, squinting down one end of the seemingly endless tunnel. Uncertainty gnawed at the edges of his mind, casting a shadow over their predicament.
Tee forcefully stamped down on yet another snout as it began to rise from the glowing ground.
"You can say that again," she replied, her voice thick with frustration and weariness.
Kie's gaze swept the luminous walls, instincts warning of the ominous darkness waiting at the tunnel’s far end. Though he kept his thoughts to himself, the tension in the air was palpable.
Doubt wormed its way into their minds. Was it the creeping monsters, or some other lurking peril, that caused their unease?
As monsters emerged again, descending from the walls, Zod's voice cut through the chaos.
"Saeda, can't you try sensing the fragment?"
Determined to conserve his energy, he summoned two swords to slice through the overgrown vegetation.
Hearing Zod’s plea, Saeda recognized the urgency. While her comrades continued decimating the encroaching monsters, she extended her palms, shutting her eyes to sense any trace of the fragment. Yet the sharp needles piercing her body warned of a different danger—one not posed by the monsters.
Her eyes snapped open, and with a bone-chilling scream, she shouted, "We have to get out of here!"
Saeda’s words hung for only a heartbeat before she bolted down one end of the tunnel, the others following in synchronized motion. They weaved past the throng of monsters and the luminescent walls, moving like five bullets in flight. Pressing forward, the encompassing darkness swallowed them whole.
In the midst of their rapid escape, Zod’s fear of encountering something ominous in the darkness sparked an idea. He blasted a ball of energy, hurling it ahead to illuminate the tunnel walls. Their swift pace left no room for commentary on Zod’s brilliance. Survival demanded full focus on the treacherous path.
Within seconds, a subtle tremor reverberated through the space they had just vacated, shaking the very air around them. Relief washed over them—a collective sigh of gratitude—as they realized they had narrowly escaped a catastrophe, whether a literal bomb or the insidious red cloud that could have spelled their untimely demise.
Zod’s continuous barrage of light guided their path, each burst cutting through the darkness at astonishing speed. They moved swiftly, keeping close behind the fading glow until Zod unleashed another blast. As they progressed, a subtle shift in the tunnel’s trajectory became apparent. It veered slightly instead of leading straight ahead.
Positioned at the center of their formation, Saeda felt a fleeting sense of security amidst her teammates. She closed her eyes, shutting out the disorienting darkness, and concentrated, hoping to sense any clue that might bring their relentless journey to an end. Time stretched endlessly, leaving her to wonder if that seemingly interminable tunnel would ever conclude.
Doubts crept into Saeda’s mind. Had they chosen the wrong path? Would the other tunnel have led them directly to the Harbingers? If that were the case, someone would have to pay for their folly. She cursed herself, remembering that she had been the first to flee in haste.
Miko, however, viewed their ceaseless running as progress compared to fighting monsters in confined spaces. She remained convinced that they would eventually stumble upon the Harbingers and that thought alone was enough to quell any impatience about the seemingly unending tunnel.
Kie’s heartbeat thudded in his head, his attention fixed on the energy ball tearing through the darkness.
Tee despised trailing behind the rapidly moving light source in the oppressive darkness. The uneven tunnel walls, riddled with dents and bulges, took on an eerie, mesmerizing quality as Zod's energy ball reflected off them, casting distorted shadows that danced along the corridor, deepening the unsettling atmosphere.
She couldn’t shake the haunting memory of the red vortex that had ensnared her—a never-ending abyss much like this endless tunnel. The circumstances of her escape from that crimson inferno remained a mystery, and the mere thought sent a chill down her spine. In a flash, the vision of red flames engulfing everything pierced her heart, a painful reminder of the horrors she had witnessed.
As shadows twisted along the walls, Tee’s mind became a battlefield of disturbing images. It felt like a relentless nightmare, echoing the time she had encountered captive Xeno-victims confined in cages near the dreaded sewer bomb.
Desperately, she repeated her mantra, affirming her humanity, that she was not a Xeno-victim. But just as Zod's energy ball extinguished, plunging them into total darkness, a deep voice resonated through the void, shattering her fragile reassurance with a single statement:
"Yes, you are."
A spike of anguish pierced Tee’s heart, abruptly halting her steps. The weight of those words bore down on her, immobilizing her in the suffocating darkness.
Within that black void, the sinister obsidian creature that had once stalked her in the bathroom resurfaced in her thoughts like a specter. Apparitions of Jack and Tetra, eerily ghostlike, emerged from the park, their presence deepening the enigma. Overwhelmed by the weight of those memories, Tee froze mid-run, her mind grappling with their profound significance.
In the darkness, pain flooded her body, forcing Tee to her knees. Images of terrified faces from the park flashed through her mind. Had she really caused that incident? Was it about to happen again? Her fingers clawed at the ground, trying to bear the agony. What was happening to her?
Meanwhile, Tee’s absence sent tremors of fear through the hearts of her teammates, unsettling them to their core. In an attempt to illuminate the obscure path ahead, Zod blasted an energy ball, piercing the darkness and confirming her absence from their synchronized sprint. The group screeched to a halt, the energy ball racing ahead through the labyrinthine tunnels, leaving them in darkness once more.
Amid the shrouded silence, Miko whispered, barely audible, "What if it's the Harbingers?"
No time was given for a response. Zod and Miko darted toward Tee’s location, their comrades close behind. Kie swore that Tee must have a valid reason for stopping, otherwise, she was in for a fierce scolding.
Using their telecoms, the team swiftly pinpointed Tee’s whereabouts. But they didn’t get there in time.
Tee forcefully opened her eyes—filled with black. The danger signals piercing her teammates’ awareness made them stop running—but it was already too late. A surge of scorching red energy unfolded with such speed that their eyes struggled to follow the chaos.
The sensation of danger coursing through their bodies was unlike anything they had ever experienced, leaving them with precious little time to react. In an instant, a massive explosion engulfed everything in that space.
In the dimly lit space, the main source of light shone faintly behind massive crisscrossing black beams, creating a bewildering sight. Each beam resembled a gigantic pole, thick and wide enough to serve as a bridge for trucks. Resting on one of those beams was Sade’s purple force shield.
He felt the intensifying dark energy signature that permeated the space. His fellow members, frozen in anticipation of him deactivating the Sealed Bond, were now spurred into action.
The telepathic message from the Dark Lord reverberated through their minds, reminding them of their true priority. Like a phantom, Lilith’s slender form almost melded with the darkness as she vanished, followed by the eerie glow of Riven’s four red eyes and the looming figure of Legion.
Alone within his protective shield, Sade began to regain focus, concentrating on breaking the stubborn Sealed Bond. It was essential to prevent the fragment’s defenses from unleashing further trouble.
Though breaking the bond was challenging, Sade found solace in the delay it provided, buying precious time for the Sentinels to arrive. He yearned to see the vessel once again.
Even the vessel’s recent attack on him did not stir ill feelings. Sade knew that if he retained even a trace of humanity, he would be smiling at that very moment. The vessel was simply unaware of his true intentions. If she understood the extent of what he had done for her, she would realize he was not her enemy.
As Sade pondered the Dark Lord’s command and his isolation, a longing stirred within him. Before the vessel’s arrival, hunting the Alpha Seal fragments had seemed futile, but a revelation—once lost to time but found in her—gave them new purpose.
With the vessel by his side, as it should be, they held the key to preventing eternal suffering for their world. The fragments they sought bore remnants of other worlds that had met their creators’ end, and the dim, cold expanse around him attested to that truth. That was a place where luminous life had been stripped away, abandoned as a defense, shattered, and left with no other purpose.
As Sade’s thoughts came to an end, he realized his energy was rapidly depleting to a critically low level. The stubborn Sealed Bond prevented him from breaking through the first layer of defense. He yearned for the Sentinels to arrive and provoke him, giving him a reason to leave his seemingly hopeless station.
Meanwhile, Lilith and her two companions swiftly navigated the spaces between the crisscrossing, gigantic beams. Their intangible forms shielded them from the chilling air as they moved at incredible speed, their focus locked onto the lingering dark energy signature and the message they were tasked to deliver.
At a considerable distance, in the path of impending danger, two glowing blue constructs illuminated the vast dimness. Within each construct lay the motionless bodies of Zod and Miko, resembling ants on separate oversized beams.
The dim light concealed their forms within the glowing barriers that enveloped their bodies. Their heartbeats brought life to the otherwise lifeless space. But movement in that space triggered a danger alert. Suddenly, they jolted awake, eyes flickering with blue light, gasping as the memory of the powerful blood-red explosion and the pain reverberated through their bodies.
Like Zod, Miko surmised that the tunnel walls had detonated prematurely, unlike the other bombs they had managed to avoid. Despite the pain, she mustered the strength to rise from the deep crater on the dark, coarse surface where she had fallen. As her glowing eyes blinked, she noticed drops of blood falling from her face.
Surveying her surroundings to the left, Miko was taken aback by the glowing energy construct that had enclosed her, blinking at the very moment it crumbled away, exposing her to the cold air and making her shiver.
With the barrier gone, she noticed a similar glowing orb in the distance, situated on another giant beam amidst the dimness. However, several crisscrossing beams formed a barricade between her and it. Oddly, some beams stretched as if reaching toward an end. Her danger sense eased as she realized the source of the alert.
The surface of the beams was far from smooth. Instead, it resembled a tightly interwoven mass of pitch-black vines. The enormous beams seemed to stretch endlessly across the space, with no apparent beginning or end, emphasizing the vastness and dimness of the expanse. Everything appeared oversized, making Miko feel small and insignificant in comparison.
Amidst the pain, Miko frantically searched for any glowing orbs indicating the presence of her other teammates. Her attention was drawn to the giant beams that seemed to stretch toward one end of the vast space.
Upon closer inspection, she realized the massive beams originated from a wall-like surface, demystifying their origin. She imagined herself inside a colossal cylinder filled with crisscrossing, web-like structures stretching from end to end.
Her focus then shifted to a deep hole in the wall, standing out due to the absence of surrounding beams. The hole emitted a red glow, triggering a flashback of the blood-red explosion. Fear gripped her, and she suspected it represented the section of the tunnel she had been in before the blast. Concern for her missing teammates filled her mind. Were they still trapped inside the tunnel?
Driven by curiosity, she activated her holomap, confirming her suspicions about Zod’s location in the nearby glowing orb. Her heart sank at the realization. With trembling lips, she called through her telecom, hoping for a response.
"Zod, are you there? Is anyone there?" Miko’s voice echoed in the dimness.
Zod, lost in thoughts of a past mission involving lava and energy shields, was startled by her voice. His mind refocused on the present as his impressive energy shield crumbled and vanished, leaving him exposed and in pain.
Realizing the other glowing orb belonged to Miko, he brought his telecom to his lips, wincing at the discomfort, and replied, "Miko, I’m here."
Relief washed over Miko at Zod’s response. Though separated in that treacherous space, they found solace in knowing they were not alone.
Miko crouched on her knees, trying to catch her breath and regain strength. "I think the tunnel exploded with us," she said to Zod, who seemed to be the only one listening in the eerie silence.
Zod rose to a similar position and began surveying their surroundings. The sight of millions of gigantic, crisscrossing beams sent shivers down his spine. It looked like a multi-level highway, but on an unimaginable scale—complex, endless, and cloaked in darkness instead of a familiar blue sky. The atmosphere was undeniably creepy.
Noticing a light source far above, Zod speculated, "There’s a light source in here. I bet that’s the fragment."
Amid the absence of any other familiar voices, Miko and Zod began planning their regroup. But Zod couldn’t help noticing Miko’s eyes glowing blue from a distance. Concern prickled through him as he realized his own eyes were glowing, too. Something felt off, adding to the unease of their already unsettling situation.