After a few hours, they see on their screen what seems to be the results of the scans, and there were some things that surprised them about what they saw. It seemed to be an ancient wall surrounding something. The scan showed that it was made of stone or marble, although its colors were faded.

These markings seem to indicate something in front of the wall that could have been used as a gate. The two marks seem to have been for some sort of lock mechanism which was apparently not present anymore, which led them to believe that perhaps these were left behind after a time when people did not want to come into this place again. The next mark seemed to indicate some sort of guard tower. However, there were no remains anywhere in sight of any kind that indicated where such a thing might have stood.

"That looks like something I don't want to mess with," says Valens while looking at the scans with interest.

However, despite the markings shown on the tablet, they can confirm, this place was indeed a part or maybe the Blovik Empire.

They decided that it was best to continue their search and see if anything else was left behind inside the ruins. It seems as though everything is intact within here, even after hundreds of years; except for the wall around the city ruins. They decided to try to break through it, which they did, but the stone crumbled over time. This made it hard for them to find anything that was hidden there.

Ember said, "I guess we can try breaking down the door and going inside."

"It might not be safe," responded Valens, still looking at the tablet.

However, it did not take long until they found what they were looking for. It seemed like there was an entire underground city inside of this one, although they cannot determine how many levels this place actually has.

As soon as they reached the third level, it was then they noticed some other things, such as the fact that a lot of these walls are missing their doors. They do not know why this is, but it seems as though whoever built this place had planned on leaving it.

After they finished examining the place for clues about how it all looked when it first got started, Valens says: "I think this might be the reason why the Blovik Empire has not been found or the reports might say that it has just disappeared."

They decide to investigate further into finding the cause of its disappearance and see if anything else could possibly give them hints.

Ember and Val are still in search of more clues to find out exactly what happened here. They are hoping to find something that can give them more information about how everything went down. They are searching for clues everywhere throughout the entire underground city.

"We're missing something," said Ember to Val, who is sitting nearby, leaning against a wall.

Valens shrugs at his comment and responds: "What do you mean?"

Ember speaks again: "Something that would show us exactly what happened. Why they disappeared, or why the wall collapsed."

They then heard something behind them and turned around.

A man in black with an armored body stood in front of them; a black sword was drawn. His skin has been covered by armor that seemed to have metal parts inside of it.

Ember was about to say something when suddenly, the man in black attacked. However, Ember countered it and was able to dodge him. He was surprised at how fast he was moving but did not give up, so instead of attacking right away, Ember waited until the next attack.

Val on the other hand, was on high alert and was about to attack the mysterious man too, but just before he could, Ember jumped in front of him and blocked his strike. Then he swung his own blade and cut off the mysterious man's arm in a swift movement, while Val dodged a backhand slash.

They were surprised that he survived after their attacks; however, the man still moved as though nothing had happened. It was only then that they noticed that this man's body had not shown any sign of injury.

Both brothers did not hesitate anymore; they knew they would have to fight him. However, as they were preparing, another mysterious man in black appeared and attacked them again.

This time Valens used his Void Ability to teleport himself and Ember outside of the battlefield, where he was able to dodge a slash that was meant to hit him. After both escaped, both brothers noticed something else: the mysterious man was moving fast, faster than anything they ever witnessed.

Ember yelled: "We should get back!"

"You're right," Valens replied. Both started running away from there until the man in black finally stopped chasing them and let go of his sword.

Ember said to Valens: "Let's get back to headquarters and tell everyone what we saw."

Ember pulled out his phone and called General Luis. While waiting, he continued talking: "I guess that creature or whatever that was chasing us, must be related to why the Blovik Empire vanished."

Both of them were out on this mission for almost a month. And when they got back to HQ, Ember, and Val went straight to the headquarters to share what they experienced yesterday. He told the general that they have now some clues on how and where the Blovik empire disappeared, although it took a lot of time to explain what happened.

Meanwhile, Exeo, Bo, and Riggs had also just arrived back at HQ. General Luis had heard of this and had them go directly to this office. And so, they entered his office where General Luis was already waiting. As soon as the rest of the team arrived, they waited as Ember explained his theory.

"So basically we found an underground city that used to belong to the Blovik people," Ember said to General Luis, starting at the beginning of their trip, and showed them the scanned images along with several drone footage.

"And inside it, there is another place where I think something might have happened..."

"What kind of creature is it?" Asked General Luis.

Ember looked at Valens. "Well... I don't know exactly."

Valens looked back at him. "We saw something that is human-shaped, and with an armor of some sort. However, what it really looks like is unknown..."

Exeo was quite curious about the report the two had made, which made Bo and Riggs also got curious. "So tell me what do you mean?" He asked Ember.

Ember sighed and pressed something on his chest and a video came out in his hands. "You must be wondering why we didn't bring back more intel than this." Ember then pressed play.

In the video, a mysterious man appeared to the two brothers, along with another mysterious man standing behind him. The scene showed their attacks against the two Bellators. The first thing Ember noticed were their movements: they are faster than anyone he ever saw; however, despite the speed of these creatures, he could still dodge and parry their moves.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

He then watched the next scene. This was when Ember slashed the arm of the so-called man or not, but even so, the mysterious man still survived, and when it attacked again, the other man also attacked. On the video, it shows that Val had been forced to use his Void ability to transport them from afar but even if he did, both the mysterious creatures were still able to chase them until they finally got away and fled out of the location.

After seeing this, Ember told them that what they saw in the video was a man or something human-shaped with armor. It then started attacking them, even with its own weapons.

Exeo nodded: "This is quite interesting. And this man or creature... you think is responsible or related for the empire to disappear completely?"

"We can't rule that possibility out." Ember said, "Although I don't know how..."

The group stayed in General Luis' office for a few hours and before the team left, General Luis had also added something.

"Exeo, I think it's time for the other role of the team to be known."

This made Ember raise an eyebrow: "General? What do you mean? I thought that with our other role, we would still be working behind the scenes."

"Yes, that's what we have discussed before. However, the top brass had decided to change and have given me permission to use your team as my main unit from now on..."

Exeo and the rest of the team were surprised by this: "You're really going to put us into this?" Exeo asked.

"Yes," General Luis replied, "I want your team to join as my main unit but, of course, your identities will not be revealed. I have ordered Dr. Lewis to make you all different masks..." upon hearing this, all of them groaned while some rolled their eyes.

Dr. Lewis entered the room and said, "We will just add a layer of deception." He continued by taking off his glasses and then placed something on the table in front of the general, which they saw was a black mask with a hole on each side. "This is just a disguise."

General Luis nodded, "Yes. We can't risk any leaks of your identities to anyone in the army so this will just work as your disguise. It might even be enough to confuse the enemy if they see it right away."

Ember looked at the mask then back at Dr. Lewis, he asked, "How does this thing work?"

Dr. Lewis replied with a grin on his face: "It's magic, of course! I made sure that it would work as planned. This is how we will protect you guys."

Ember nodded and continued to ask, "So, what made the top brass decide to have us as your main unit?"

"Because of their decision, our army now needs more support. They decided to make me use other units in my team so they will be able to send reinforcements when necessary."

General Luis explained the situation to the team. After that, he told them the other reason:

"There is one more reason why the top brass have changed their minds. It's the annual military conference that will start soon. For this year's conference, there will be a demonstration of every country's best unit."

Everyone's attention turned towards him then General Luis continued, "I was thinking of doing some sort of demonstration but after looking at your skills, I think it should just be you all."

Ember nodded and asked curiously, "Demonstration of what kind?"

General Luis answered, "A demonstration of how effective your unit can be. Others may say that it needs a larger unit, but I want you Exeo, and your team to have a demonstration that with just those members, you can cover all strategies and tactics needed against a foe."

The general looked at the others and gave them instructions, "We'll start preparing immediately; first off, I want all of you to wear these masks when we start training, then we will work on military strategies and tactics for different kinds of scenarios. Also, the conference will start a month from now so we still have time..."

He finished explaining before walking out. The team had decided to spend a month training on the island from when they had trained for two years.

A week passed after they arrived, General Luis started making plans for their training and they were working towards it.

They all sat down near the edge of the water while talking. They were eating fresh seafood: lobster and crab claws. Exeo said, "It's been a while since our last training."

"Yeah, we should get started."

Ember nodded. He looked towards the horizon and noticed the sun starting to set in the background, making him realize how tired he was. He laid himself out and looked up at the sky, then he slowly closed his eyes.

Ember thought back to what they were talking about earlier when he had heard General Luis saying this:

 "There is one more reason why the top brass have changed their minds. It's the annual military conference that will start soon. For this year's conference, there will be a demonstration of every country's best unit."

The next thing he could remember was hearing the sounds of someone talking nearby, then suddenly, he could hear faint running steps which seems like in his direction. However, he could feel the killing intent and dodged whoever just tried to attack him. He rolled himself on his back as quickly as possible, looking up at who tried to attack him.

Ember smirked and drew his sword while standing. A small flash of purple energy appeared in his right hand. As he looked up, he saw Dr. Lewis in front of him.

Then he asked: "Did you think that you can sneak up behind me and get away?"

Dr. Lewis answered: "No, I didn't, but I am impressed that you managed to dodge my magic."

Then another surprise attack came from Ember's left, which he was able to dodge while Dr. Lewis dodged a little too late making a small portion of his hair burnt.

The doctor yelled in the direction where the surprise attack came from, "Oi! Be careful about targeting my hair! It's a very important asset."

Exeo emerged from where he was hiding and said, "I'm sorry doctor, didn't mean to target your hair, but...it will be unavoidable if it's a real war right?"

Ember was holding back his laughter and when Exeo said it with all seriousness, he started laughing so hard. He rolled over on the ground until his head was upside down and held his stomach while trying to stop his laugh. After a few seconds, he got up again and continued with what they were doing before the doctor attacked him again.

After an hour of sparring, Dr. Lewis was getting tired and he said: "Well...I'm really not cut out for this. You guys sure have some serious skills..."

Ember and Exeo eventually sat down, when Dr. Lewis noticed that the other three team members, Bo, Riggs, and Val were nowhere to be found. They usually would sneak in and join in the training but they didn't this time. So the doctor stood up and looked around to find them, but was soon greeted with a very loud explosion near the beach.

The three hurriedly went towards it. They finally made their way through the smoke, they found themselves looking at what seemed like a small crater. It took them a few moments of standing there wondering how this had happened until Val walked out of the smoke and smoke began billowing up behind him. The three were panting at the center of the small crater.

As Dr. Lewis approached the three, his eyes widened and he asked: "Where did you learn to use that!?"

Riggs groaned but sat up and answered: "Uh, I just knew how to make some bombs and explosives with my ability."

Ember and Exeo followed and surrounded the three young men currently lying down on the ground, exhausted. This time, Ember asked and grinned, "Then Riggs, did you throw your homemade bombs at these two?"

Riggs flinched slightly and lowered his in embarrassment. He looked at Bo and Val who are currently holding back their laughter, and looked up at Ember and said, "I didn't actually make anything this big, but yeah, I made something pretty powerful. Just that something unexpected happened...."

Ember raised a brow. "Unexpectedly? What could it be?"

Riggs sighed and looked like he was about to answer when Bo was the one who responded with a poker face.

"Well, since you three were doing your own training, we didn't mean to barge this time. So, we three tried to train including some explosives. But..."

Bo sat up and pointed at Riggs, he said, "He was carrying the explosives and by some shit luck, he tripped on a small stone and happened to throw all of the explosives at me and Val. Good thing my Ice Wall was able to withstand it."

Exeo looked over at Riggs who was looking down with a pouty expression. He chuckled softly.

"That's just what happens when you try to do too much in one day. It's best not to get into the habit of trying to get too powerful in one go."

Val held out a hand toward Ember and asked him if he had seen what happened.

Ember shook his head in amusement at the three but answered after he took a look around.

"I don't see any other traces of explosions. They must have been small and quick ones since this is a small area, or else there would be some serious damage here."

He turned toward Exeo, "We should probably head back, it looks like our training is done for now. We can take tomorrow off for recovery and start again on Monday."

"What!?" The three exclaimed. They all jumped up and rushed back towards the cabin.

As they returned to their room, Riggs looked at Ember and said in a quiet voice: "Why did I have to be carrying them? That was a stupid mistake. I didn't think they'd actually work on me that well."

Ember shrugged casually: "The odds of you having bad luck and setting yourself on fire were high, I'm not surprised."

Riggs shook his head. "This has just gone from bad to worse."

Ember chuckled lightly. "That depends on what happens next. But, those bombs, can be an element of surprise for the enemy."

Riggs sighed and looked at his hands, still slightly burned, and frowned.