CHAPTER 908: THE HORUS TEMPLE ARC (PART-4)

"Get lost," Sarah replied right away, coldly, without even taking a look at him. He scratched his hair, wondering whether she was in a bad mood, as she usually replies with a smile every time.

Meanwhile, Azrael was on his way to meet his superior. After verifying his identity with biometrics, followed by a retina scan, and then receiving approval from Albert, he finally managed to step inside the room.

"Sir." He greeted him with a salute.

"At ease," Albert nodded and handed the file that was on the desk. "Agent White Wolf, get prepared to deploy. The file contains the basic info of your teammates."

"Understood, Sir," He nodded and then took the file.

On his way to the training room, Azrael opened the file. His eyes fell on the image of a tough-looking fellow with a scar from his forehead down to his cheek. The first document contained the details of team captain, David, Codename: Cyro.

"12 years of experience, and completed 4 five-star grade missions, 19 four-star grade missions, and 97 three-star grade missions so far. 83% successful rate, not bad. Let’s see... what else... His Arcana Spirit itself is Ice Manipulation, huh. People with elemental Arcana spirits are very rare. They don’t just have to depend on soul skills. They can even create soul skills on their own. Anyway, let’s look at others."

"Kai – Echo – Rank-7"

"Myra – Aqua Seraph – Rank-8"

"Celia Storm – Aurora – Rank-8"

"Jaden – Stryker – Rank-7"

"Olivia – Serpentia – Rank-8"

"Lucas– Steel Guardian – Rank-8"

"Iphi Magnolis – Scarlet Flames – Rank-7"

The last one was a familiar face to him, but he wasn’t surprised at all.

He nodded in satisfaction as he read his roommate’s data, "she had fewer missions compared to the rest, but has an incredible success rate of 98.6%. If there’s anything that is a problem, it’s her personality. That woman needs to stop being an immature brat and act her age."

Letting out a sigh as he remembered Iphi Magnolis’s face, he further murmured. "Anyway, the team is a good one, although Iphi Magnolis’s addition does seem to make the team imbalanced. This Myra girl’s powers are completely of the opposite nature from Iphi Magnolis’s. It would become a problem if they ended up on the same team. Hmm..."

Keeping the file in his bag, Azrael then continued to walk.

After a while, he reached the training room. He swiped the training pass and entered the room.

It is just like usual. Javion is fighting Iphi Magnolis under 7 times the gravity. However, this time, he was going all out, transforming his whole body into stone and not just his fists.

Meanwhile, Azrael sat on the ground and practiced his telekinetic ability to levitate under this enormous gravitational force. During the past three days, he was practicing to improve his demonic eye while taking advantage of the gravitational force. The higher the pressure exerted on him, the faster he was improving.

Once they were finished, Javion sat nearby, "Hey, bro, I heard that you were leaving on a mission."

Azrael glanced at Iphi Magnolis and nodded silently.

"I’m quite envious," commented Javion with a smile before adding, "It’s been three weeks since I saw the sun. You get to leave in just a few days."

"Well, if not for the emergency, I reckon they would keep me here for longer than you." Azrael shrugged his shoulders in response to his friend’s comment, making them curious.

Neither of them knew much about his past, and they didn’t bother trying to enquire about him as he was only a probationary agent. Now, they couldn’t help but wonder what kind of mess he had made that he had to make such a statement.

Time passed. Like usual, Iphi Magnolis and Azrael returned to their room after dinner.

Until now, Azrael felt like everything was going well between them, based on their last few days of conversations. He planned to talk to her about the mission and ask her about the other members, but as soon as the door was closed, she turned serious as she took a seat on her bed, "Look, Azrael. I’ll be direct with you."

"Hmm? What is it?" Azrael, who had just closed the door, raised his head and looked at her.

"Tomorrow, when we meet our teammates, I need you to stay away from me. It’s like we don’t know each other and behave as if we are meeting for the first time," She said to him directly, without bothering to hide anything in her heart.

"Eh? Why?" He asked.

Iphi Magnolis explained while looking quite serious, "A few of them are my former teammates, and I don’t want them to look down on me."

Azrael stared at her for a few seconds of silence. There’s a lot going on in his head. He thought she was past the difference in their ranks, authority, or whatever. But, now... it felt like those conversations he had with her when she was smiling all seemed like a lie.

But in the end, being the bigger man, he took a deep breath and nodded. "Alright."

"Thank you." She bowed slightly before leaving with a towel for the shower before bed, as usual.

Before she returned from the shower, he lay down and slept.

The next day;

It was just around the time for sunrise.

The sunlight hit both of their faces, bringing a rare smile to a broody Iphi Magnolis as they finally walked out of the underground secret facility.

Azrael, on the other hand, was only in the dorm for a few days. So, he was calm and his eyes wandered around, thinking, "No one could probably imagine that there’s an entrance here to an underground facility that spans several acres."

Soon, they got onto the helicopter and rode to another military base located in the neighboring country of Aclor, a city-state island nation located in the southern ocean.

The vehicle slowly descended onto the helipad. There, a person in a suit and a couple of guys in uniform were waiting for them.

Both of them stepped down, but only Iphi Magnolis received a warm welcome. After the exchange of salutes was over, one of the two soldiers extended his hand toward Iphi Magnolis, "Welcome to Aclor, Miss Magnolis. And you must be the intern. Anyway, please follow us..."

The soldier’s voice turned cold when he addressed Azrael, clearly expressing his disgust on his face for some reason.

Azrael’s treatment wasn’t good, but he didn’t have any expectations from the start anyway. So, he maintained his calmness and silently followed the others.

After a while, they reached a conference room with the rest of the team members sitting in their seats while a pale woman, with a delicate V-shaped face, porcelain skin, and almond-shaped eyes, from the north, was seen, wearing a suit, standing at the sheet screen with an image projected on it. Two members were still missing.

"Hello." Iphi Magnolis greeted everyone with a bit of nervousness as she spotted her former teammates. "Sorry for the delay. I hope I didn’t miss anything important."

"Miss Kitty Ranger had only briefed us about the strategy of our allies." The buffed man replied with a smile. He is none other than the leader of the operation, David, aka Cyro, also popularly known as the Snow Emperor. The only one with two Codenames, Cyro is his official codename, and Snow Emperor is something everyone in the circle used to call him. "Come, take your seat. You too, Mr. Azrael." He said, extending the invitation to Azrael.

As soon as Cyro addressed Azrael respectfully, everyone who wasn’t paying much attention to their former teammate abruptly turned their heads. "A rookie joining our team, eh! What could be more insulting?" A collective thought appeared in almost everyone’s head.

In an instant, everyone’s gazes changed, and Azrael found clear animosity from a few. As the room wasn’t that large and no one bothered to hold back their tongue while talking to the others, Azrael and Iphi Magnolis also heard the words.

Iphi Magnolis then remembered how the soldier had treated him and what Azrael said to her. She felt pity for him, but put the thought away.

Meanwhile, Azrael calmly took his seat without greeting them. Considering the situation in the room with a simple glance, he sat at the end of the table, a bit far away from the others.

As Cyro gestured for Arcana Master Kitty Ranger to proceed with her briefing, everyone shifted their attention to her.