Angel Monarch

Everyone on the battlefield breathed a sigh of relief when the zombies fell and their powers came back.

All of them had smaller injuries and close to a dozen were in critical states. Bea healed all of them, which was tiring, but necessary.

About ten people were still unconscious, so they sent those back to New Athens. All the Black Crusaders and a fourth of the Ouroboros Cohort were out.

The rest congregated in front of the broken building. Bea looked at everyone with a serious expression. They all had their swords, armor, and charms out.

With Bea in the lead, they walked into the building. There were a few splintered furniture around the room, but her focus was only on the wide staircase in the middle.

Its steps were glowing, and without hesitation Bea went down, with the others following close behind.

At first the walls and stairs were dirty, but after reaching the bottom, they became cleaner. After a few meters, the walls were clean and white. Above, bright lights shined down in the hallway. They made a small, near imperceptible buzzing sound.

Nobody said a single word as they moved along the hallway. Eventually, they reached a T junction, and they stopped to talk things through.

Together, they made the decision to split up into two groups of 15. They then continued their exploration.

Melinda went with Bea, and she kept a constant connection with David, who was with the other team. They made sure to check-in every minute, and they reported every notable feature. Read the latest on empire

The hallway moved along with lots of bends and junctions. After reaching another T junction, they decided not to split up further, and instead they began marking the direction they went.

It was obvious after a few more junctions that the place was set up like a labyrinth, and they found quite a few marks they left behind. At some point, they even found places where the other unit was beforehand.

They must've spent over an hour before something changed. At first it was just a loud screech coming from seemingly everywhere.

Then they heard an approaching thumping sound, like heavy footsteps. With it came another sound, the breaking of glass.

Bea and her unit watched in curiosity what was approaching, but then the lights began to explode. They only saw darkness, and it was getting closer by the second.

Cass was with them too, but whatever the creature was, she had no way of defeating it, since even she couldn't see through the darkness.

The thumping came closer, and when it finally reached their hallway, the darkness was almost upon them.

"RUN!" shouted Bea, and they all sprinted in the opposite direction.

Melinda was quickly typing David about their discovery, but what he said wasn't better either.

David: We have the exact opposite problem. Some creature is following us, but it makes the lights extremely bright, blinding everyone. What should we do?

While running, Melinda informed Bea about their situation. They were manually mapping out the labyrinth, but there was a lot of missing information and unexplored hallways.n/ô/vel/b//in dot c//om

As another junction was approaching, she made a hard decision. It was a crossroad, one that none of them explored yet.

"Everyone! Spilt into three units of five, and choose a hallway! Me, Vicky, Melinda, Lucy, and Faith will move to the middle!"

While she spoke, the others had already formed two groups, and by the time the junction arrived, they each ran their separate ways.

One group was led by Adam, and consisted of Lilith, James, Sarah, and Cassandra. Kim and Astrid led the second. The twins and Will were with them, too.

They each had a person who kept communications going, and another who mapped everything as they ran.

Behind them, the darkness reached the junction too, but it only went after Bea's group.

The others breathed sighs of relief, but soon something else attacked each.

Kim's group ran until they reached another T junction. They were about to go right when an ominous fog began to fill that part of the hallway. From inside it, a beautiful singing female singing echoed.

The sweet melody instantly captivated all the girls. Luckily, Will knew exactly what it was, and he slammed a mental shield on each. It wasn't very strong, but it was enough for them to gain back control.

They sprinted down the left junction until they couldn't hear the singing.

Adam's group faced a different trouble. They heard rushing water from behind, causing them to run even faster.

After a few minutes, they saw the extremely large amount of water approaching. It was blue, and in its depths, a pair of eyes stared at the group.

It was faster than they were, but with Sarah's ability, they managed to keep it at a distance.

David's unit spilt into three at some point, and with six groups, they explored the whole labyrinth in a few extremely long hours.

By the time they found the exit, they were all tired. Kim's group was the first to find it, and after telling Vicky their exact place, she opened portals and teleported everyone there.

With the thirty of them regrouped, they entered the long staircase, which led deeper into the facility.

...

In a dark room, Harold sat. The dozens of holo-screens provided the only light. Each showed the group of thirty from a different angle, and some even focused on the previous battlefield.

He watched each of their struggles with a wide, excited grin.

On the table in front of him were a myriad of buttons, each labeled something different.

As the unit approached the bottom of the staircase, Harold pressed a few, causing immediate changes.

Around the group of thirty, the walls changed, and staircases moved. It took them a few seconds to realize what was happening, and by that time the one group of thirty was broken into ten groups of three.

Each of them stood in different places, and they immediately typed to each other frantically.

"No, no, no. No cheating my little test subjects." He whispered to himself and pressed another button.

Each of their watches suddenly exploded and fell to the ground in broken pieces.

Most groups began to explore after they realized there was no mode for communication.

Bea stood with Vicky and Faith. They looked around for a moment, then they looked at each other and nodded.

Harold watched with curiosity as Bea threw a seed onto the metal floor. Faith made an enormous bubble of shadow around them, so even Harold couldn't see what was happening.

When the shadow disappeared, the seed grew into a small tree. It had a doorway-like opening, and the inside was hollow. On another screen, Harold saw the tree's roots. They burrowed through the metal with ease.

With Bea's lead, the three of them exited there. Then, just as Harold was about to press another button, Vicky opened a portal and they teleported away.

He grunted in annoyance and spent a few minutes entertaining the other groups. Each was in a separate hallway or room.

One group was in a room with no doors, and upon pressing a button, the room began to fill with water. Another group was fighting off a bunch of hand-sized fire-breathing ants.

A third was in a room, which had a very tall ceiling. The walls on the sides had a bunch of handholds and platforms. Below them, acid rose, and all three had to climb fast, so they wouldn't melt.

The rest of the groups suffered in similar experimental rooms, but even after a few minutes, Harold had no sight of Bea's.

After the portal, the three of them disappeared, and as time passed, Harold became more and more annoyed.

He watched each of the cameras, and after another few minutes, they popped up again.

The trio looked around the room until Bea saw the camera in the corner. Her mouth widened into a grin, and soon they teleported again.

This happened a few more times until eventually Harold left the room.

A few seconds later, the portal opened into the empty room, and the trio stepped out.

Their eyes went to the holo-screens. Upon seeing what each of the groups was suffering, Vicky began to teleport everyone out.

When the thirty of them were in relative safety, they took a few minutes to destress. At that time, James looked over the data on the holo-screens. It was full of information about the different sick experiments Harold had done, but they ignored that.

He scrolled through it fast until he found what they were looking for. It was the exact map of the facility. The place was gigantic, with over a few hundred floors and thousands of rooms.

Each had a different label, but James was only looking for one... Sera's location.

They were on the 163th floor. This floor was empty of experiments, and it mostly housed the data servers.

It took him half an hour to look through everything and find Sera's location. The room was labeled little angle on the map, and it was on the 378th floor.

Luckily, they didn't have to use stairs to get there, since with the map came exact coordinates and Vicky could teleport everyone there.

After a bit of discussion, they decided that not everyone was necessary. Vicky opened a portal to the room's outside hallway.

Bea stepped through first, followed by Vicky, Faith, Melinda, Damien, Adam and Lilith. Others wanted to go as well, but it just wasn't feasible.

The portal stayed open though, so everyone could see when they opened the room's door, and in that moment, their heart dropped.

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