CHAPTER 72: TRAPPED

Jekyll was engraving runes on the body of a corrupted beast in the lab when someone just barged in without knocking on the door.

"L-Lord Jekyll!"

"You dare enter without a knock! And why the hell are you yelling?" Jekyll roared furiously.

"There’s trouble. Some people have found the entrance and are in the base right now. two of our men are down."

"How many?"

"Five. Layla Ranatosh is with them."

"Shit! Is her sister here too?"

"No. The one who escaped and ran here said they seemed like some young adventurers, and...one of them seemed to be from the temple."

Jekyll went silent. his brows creased in worry. His tests were still not done and he needed a bit more time.

"Activate the emergency protocol system and release the first gen Homunbis’s. Hold them back for as long as you can. I’ll try to finish here too."

"Yes, lord Jekyll." He nodded and hurried away.

"Lets get you up and running. I have no choice now." He looked at the silver backed Kong in the tube, worry apparent on his face.

******

"One of us has to stay back and wait for elder sister." Layla said.

"I’ll stay. I won’t be able to move that fast anyway." Ruby volunteered.

"Alright then. Let’s go. I don’t know if they know we’re here. But it’s better to catch them unprepared." Layla sprinted ahead as the others nodded and followed her.

They were rushing ahead through the tunnel when suddenly after moving for just a few meters, the tunnel started shaking vehemently.

They stopped and used mana to hold their feet to the ground, keeping balance, and after a few seconds, the shaking stopped.

"What was that?" Luke asked, curious.

"Don’t know. Let’s move and keep you guards up." Layla was surprised herself, the shaking seemed very unusual. She had a bad feeling, but instead of worrying, she prioritized moving ahead fast.

They started moving again, maintaining a stable speed, so as to be prepared for any sudden attacks.

They stopped again as this time they arrived at a fork in the road. The path split into two.

"What now?" Raguel asked.

"We have to split. Or we’ll waste time." Luke said.

Layla was perplexed now. They had to split into teams of two, but she didn’t want to ger separated from Luke and leaving Raguel alone with a commoner will make their team weak.

After a bit of contemplation she sighed and finally decided to think of her brother first.

"Lord Raguel, can you accompany my brother. I would be assured if you move with him."

"I don’t mind. He’s strong though, so you don’t need to worry much."

"But sister..."

"It’s alright Luke. I am a fourth circle, probably the stronger one here. I can take care of myself."

"Can you fight?" She asked turning towards Adam.

"I used to be a mercenary. I can wield the sword well."

"Good then. Here!" she pulled a silver sword out of her ring and passed it to Adam.

"Take care."

"You too sister." Luke nodded and they split into two teams taking one path each.

Luke and Raguel took the left path, while Layla and Adam went to the right one.

They rushed as fast as they could. The tunnel seemed too long, they were running for about more than ten minutes and nothing could be seen except the same tunnel walls moving past.

Luke abruptly stopped in his tracks.

"What happened?" Raguel asked, curious.

"Don’t you think we’re moving in a circle?" Luke asked.

Raguel went silent, he started looking around carefully. After a few seconds of observation, his eyes opened wide, he was shocked.

"We really are moving around in a circle. We passed this spot with that bent stand with the luminous stone on the wall just a few second earlier."

"Activate your eye technique and move this time, let’s see what this is." Luke activated his eyes of revelation while Raguel used his mana technique and they started moving forward again.

They kept going and even after a few minutes, they were always back at the same spot again and again. even with the eyes of revelation, Luke couldn’t find anything, everything looked normal, as if they were moving in a straight path.

"Did you find anything?" Luke asked Raguel as they stopped.

Raguel shook his head. "I might be wrong and just making a guess, but I think we are trapped in a formation."

"You mean this is an illusion?"

"No! It’s too real to be an illusion. We’re in an array formation." Raguel said in a serious tone.

"How can we get out of it then?"

"There is a core in every array formation and secondary nodes. We have to first identify them and then break them. breaking the nodes will weaken the array and the core will reveal itself then."

"But my eye of revelation didn’t reveal anything. How do we identify them?"

"So that’s what your technique is called."

"Well, we have to use our brains here then, because I couldn’t see anything too." Raguel said.

They started looking around, trying to find anything that may be acting as the node of the formation. Just then Raguel moved towards the wall and he conjured a flame on his palm and threw it at the bent luminous stone stand.

The luminous stone and the stand caught fire and immediately crumbled into dust.

"What kind of flame was that? It burned the stand and the stone into a crisp instantly." Luke asked in surprise.

"It’s a normal flame spell." Raguel said. He turned towards Luke and as both of them looked at each other, their eyes opened wide in realization.

They immediately rushed and started burning the stones one by one. most of them just kept burning in the wall, but three of them burned immediately into dust.

As the four nodes were destroyed, a blue circle appeared on the wall.

"That’s the core." Raguel said as a smile crept on his face.

Prana gathered on Luke’s fist and he punched hard on the circular spot in the wall.

The wall was blasted open as rocks crumbled down. A hole formed on the wall and on the other side was another tunnel similar to the one they were on.

Luke and Raguel jumped through the hole towards the new tunnel that opened.

Just when they landed on the floor, a burning huge fireball came rushing at them and fell right where they just landed.