As they made their way into the pitch-black subway, the hairs on the back of Logan’s neck stood on end, his pulse racing. And yet, [Life Fabricator] didn’t lie. If they were walking into a monster swarm, he would have been able to sense it. He could sense unleveled insects crawling deep underneath the concrete and stone; ants trailing along a crack in the wall; but other than that… nothing.

But even knowing that his skill was telling him that they were home free, Logan didn’t lower his guard. He couldn’t. Not after he’d been fighting non-stop since the morning. At this point, everything being go go go was business as usual. Not fighting was abnormal, not the opposite.

And yet it was undeniable that there wasn’t anything here to fight.

His tension collapsing like a deflating balloon, Logan blinked, before removing his facemask so he could rub his eyes. Scrubbing his face as if trying to wake himself up, Logan sighed and scanned his surroundings. Without the mask, he could smell a dampness to the air, as if the tunnel had flooded and left behind mold. Odd, since it was normally so spotless.

Logan flexed his shoulders as he rummaged through his spatial storage. He’d thrown everything in Lara’s house inside of his collar, which was a lot. Despite the fact that he could mentally rummage through it, swiping by items like swiping in an online shop, he was starting to accumulate a massive amount of crap. Once he found Lara and the kids and he had a chance for downtime, Logan needed a better organizational system; either that or discard the items he no longer needed.

At first, he assumed he’d have to use the makeshift torch he’d used in the tactician trial, but amongst Lara’s items, there were two flashlights. Either Lara hadn’t had the chance to take them, or she’d forgotten about them. Lara had lived in that house since the kids were born; that was a hell of a long time to accumulate junk.

The flashlight was one of those clunky ones, and it was like carrying a carton in his hand. When he turned it on, the light bloomed like a spotlight, illuminating the subway.

The subway was missing the car, nothing but endless tracks, the rail trailing off into a dark tunnel. With illumination, he could see signs of a struggle—discarded shoes, a woman’s high heel with the heel snapped off, a man’s dress shoe. But no clothes, just shoes.

Odd.

Just like up on the street, dried blood and what he suspected were guts littered the normally pristine subway floor. Something had happened here, but whatever had caused it, had long since left.

Or fled.

Logan turned to Shoot, giving her a look. Her tail was swaying, but with the full suit, it was difficult to see her expression. Oh well, there was no use keeping an invisible suit active if there was no one to hide from in the first place.

With a blink, Logan adjusted her armour and then collapsed her face mask. She shook her head like a dog shaking off water, sand dropping to the floor in a pile. Shoot blinked her wide green eyes at him, her vine tongue dropping out of her mouth in a pant as she jumped up and down in excitement, making a yip before twirling around as if she were chasing her tail. With a feeling of chagrin, Logan pointed the flashlight away from her and at the ground instead. Since the mirror effect was still active, Shoot had been chasing her invisible tail like a cat on drugs.

“Aww,” said Ernie, crawling out of his pouch and leaning over Logan’s shoulder. “She’s so excited!”

All very well and good, but an excited vine cat wouldn’t get him closer to finding Lara.

“Shoot, are you sure we’re in the right place? There are no rats down here.”

Nothing was down here.

“Yes, mother!” she chirped. “It’s this way!” Jumping off the subway platform and onto the tracks, Shoot darted down the tunnel like a cheetah, her tail flicking behind her as she quickly disappeared into the depths.

Logan blew out a breath in annoyance. She reminded him of when Ernie zoomed through the underwater cavern, too excited for his own good. “Hold onto me, Ernie.”

Ernie made a sound of acknowledgement as Logan dropped down to the tracks and then powered through the tunnel. His arms swinging, the muscles in his upper thighs bulging; it took only a few seconds before he caught up with her.

Illuminating the walls with the flashlight, his jaw flexing in tension, Logan scanned the tunnel for anything unusual. But unlike on the subway platform, there were no signs of a struggle.

However… it was a tunnel. A tunnel was normally full of dust, and underneath his feet was a clear sign that something had travelled down here; footsteps, what had to be human, but also paw prints, some the size of a normal rodent’s, others huge like bears.

They had to be in the right place.

But Shoot kept going with no signs of stopping.

“Where are we going, Shoot?”

“Just up here!”

One more turn, and Logan came to a skidding stop, scanning from side to side. This would be the perfect place for an ambush. But he’d kept [Life Fabricator] active, and unless there was a way to fool his skill, there was no life around them.

Logan swallowed, his throat feeling dry as his talons twitched around the handle of the flashlight.

No organic life.

That wasn’t to say that there wasn’t technological life.

In front of them, light bloomed on the walls of the tunnel, illuminating everything. So bright it was as if they’d walked underneath a strobe light. Logan turned off the flashlight to save the battery, throwing it back into his spatial collar as they crept closer. Whatever it was, it was so strong that it lit up the tunnel from around a bend.

And yet the power was still out, so unless there was a generator down here, the light had to be coming from something unnatural.

Logan flexed his talons and then with a blink, took out his sword. There was nothing but deadness around him, but he felt better with a weapon in his hand.

Shoot pranced in place, jumping up and down as if her feet were on a springboard, her tail wagging in excitement. She would be invisible to anyone else, but with [Life Fabricator] deployed, and with her covered in armour sourced from [Mimicry Armour], Logan could see her clearly. After all, it would defeat the purpose if he couldn’t see his own skill. “This way! This way!”

“Wait, don’t—”

Logan sighed.

She’d already turned the bend.

Creeping forward, Logan held his sword up as he scanned his surroundings and followed. It was…

Shit.

On his shoulder, Ernie twitched, ducking his head close to his body and mumbling underneath his breath. “Not the cavern again! Not the serpent queen!”

Against the wall was a portal. It emitted a prism of light which danced on the subway walls like a rainbow. Unlike in the serpent’s lair, this one wasn’t spherical. Rather, it was as if it were part of the wall.

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It was the size of three doors stacked side by side and it reminded him of the white doors inside of the trial dungeon. But this one went all the way to the top of the ceiling, and in fact, the fluctuating light went beyond the ceiling. Which didn’t make sense, since if an animal were so big it wouldn’t fit in the subway tunnel, how would it fit through the portal?

Logan looked for the lodestone on the wall, but unlike in the serpent’s lair, there was no signs of it. It was as if someone had already activated the portal.

A continuous portal?

“I don’t think we have to worry about the serpent queen, Ernie. This is something else.” Logan’s stomach sloshed. He didn’t know what this was, but the possibilities were too numerous to count. Another trial dungeon? Or worse yet, a portal that took them to another world? If they ended up trapped, he had [Portal Generation], but if this portal sent them somewhere far away, he might not have enough Karma to return home using his own skill. He could very well suffocate to death.

Logan tried using [Idiot’s Inspect] on the portal, but just like the last one, it came back with incomprehensible text:

[##!#!##!##!]

Logan had assumed that meant he wasn’t high leveled enough yet to identify the portal, but now, he wondered if it were something else. Could this mean that it came from a different world? Ernie’s ‘sky people’? Maybe Logan needed a skill to understand it, like Asthea had given him [Universal Language] before he’d been forced to abandon it due to the skill limit.

“Shoot, is this where that thread is leading you to? To the portal?”

Shoot pawed the ground, her sandstone boots scratching against one of the rails. “It’s leading me here! I know this is right!”

Fuck.

Okay, okay. So, it was possible that the thread was leading them towards a portal that might require more Karma than Logan had, but at the same time, if there was no lodestone, could the cost be different? Stepping through this thing might mean instant death, but couldn’t he say the same thing for everything else? Every monster fight, the trials, the fight with the Silverdagger Clan? Everything was life or death in this new world, and if he refused to take a leap of faith, he might as well throw in the towel.

His thoughts racing, Logan considered using [Foresight], anxiousness eating into his stomach, but he could only activate the skill once per 24 hours, and he might need it for a real fight. A fight against the rats or who knew what. For all he knew, the sky people were on the other end of the portal!

“Shoot,” said Logan, gesturing with his head for her to come closer. “I’m going to reform your facemask and give you flexibility so that you can use your thorns as weapons.”

Shoot wiggled, her green eyes bright with intrigue. “Yes mother!”

Clenching his fist, Logan reformed her facemask and then collapsed the bottom of her boots, allowing her to extend her thorns. Or her vines. Unfortunately, it might create noise while she walked, but the camouflage issue would be negligible. If they saw her claws, he’d imagine they’d doubt what they were looking at anyway. How often did people look at the ground, after all?

Logan quickly reformed his own facemask and then took a deep breath. Anticipation was thrumming in his belly just as much as trepidation. He was finally making progress. He was that much closer to Lara and the kids, but that also meant if something had happened to them, he’d be closer to finding out.

“Remember to be quiet,” Logan said, addressing Shoot. Ernie knew that they could speak with their mental voices and would never draw unwanted attention if he could avoid it.

Logan looked down at his sword, debating, then kept it clenched in his fist. It might be a giveaway if the portal brought them to hostile people, but at the same time, he’d rather have a weapon in hand if he needed it.

“Keep close. Keep alert. We could be going into the thick of it.”

Cracking his neck, Logan strode towards the portal, glancing to his side to make sure that Shoot followed.

Logan took a step forward and then let the light take him away.

***

When he’d entered the portal in the queen’s lair, it had been a traumatizing experience, an experience he’d never wanted to repeat, but that was because he’d been missing an arm and convinced that he’d left Ernie to die. This time, there was no pain, but he still felt a coldness seep into his bones as he stepped through the other side.

Interestingly enough, there was no System announcement, and no cost for this portal. It was as if he’d stepped through a normal doorway.

Logan moved forward, the portal behind him flashing light, Shoot trailing by his side as he took in everything in front of him in an instant, from the huge cavern up above their heads that might as well be as high as a fifty-storey building, to the wide hallway. Unlike in the Subway tunnel, light illuminated the whole space, shining down on them from all directions.

In front of them, a man stood behind a stone counter on the left, his elbow leaning on the countertop, his chin cupped in his arm as if he were sleeping.

Making a snap decision, Logan willed his sword back into his spatial collar, and then paused, staying motionless and holding his breath.

It was a man. Just a man.

Human.

He was in his early twenties, with curly, short brown hair, and the beginnings of a mustache. He looked like a boy trying to grow his first beard, with bare patches of skin around his chin. The man was skinny; a hundred and thirty pounds soaking wet, with dark circles underneath his eyes, his mouth pinched in a thin line, as if he were bored and barely staying awake. Unlike Brooke’s group, his clothes were clean and spotless, and he looked clean.

Not like someone who’d been struggling to survive for a week.

Snorting and his face dipping, he blinked and then straightened, glancing up at Logan.

Logan felt a trickling of alarm, but then he realized that the man looked but didn’t see, his eyes glazed as if he were looking at a portal with no one in front of it.

Logan scanned him with [Idiot’s Inspect]:

[Elliot Ruston: Level 22. A human being.]

[Highest Stat: Dexterity. Characteristics: Contracted to the Kingdom of Pied. Hidden name: Elliot.]

The Kingdom of Pied? Logan remembered what that creepy contractor kid had said, about Pied and the rats. Was this someone who’d signed a contract? Since he was standing in front of a counter next to a transportation portal, Logan was betting that he was here to monitor the arrivals.

And doing a poor job of it.

“He can’t see us,” Logan sent to Ernie with his mental voice. “Let’s try to pass unnoticed.”

Ernie sent him a mental acknowledgement in return. Now, it was just a matter of keeping Shoot under control. She was eager as hell, and Logan worried that she’d get too excited to stay silent for long.

Each step felt like a lifetime. Unwillingly, Logan thought back to when he was a teenager. His parents had kept a strict curfew, and many nights, Logan had crept down the creaky stairs, trying to sneak out of the house without waking his parents so he could meet his girlfriend.

But this time, he wasn’t stepping on stairs that would give him away. Logan took each step at a time, wincing when Shoot’s thorn claws clicked against the limestone floor.

The man’s eyes kept closing, his head dropping, before he snorted and straightened. Logan gave him a narrowed eye look and then crept past the counter and further down the corridor.

They might be in the clear.

But what the hell was this place?

After they’d passed the counter, they entered what Logan could only describe as a stone overhang. On one side was a stone wall that went up so high that he couldn’t see the top. On the other side, there was a railing, and over that, was a drop. Logan inched his way towards the railing and stared over the edge.

Holy shit.

Another ten storeys below them, the cavern continued until it opened into a huge open area. It had to be the size of two football fields. And inside was an army of rats. From two-headed rats to rats the size of mammoths, level 20 all the way up to the high 200s. Thousands of them.

Thousands.

Ernie clung to Logan’s shoulder and stared. With a silent squawk, he jerked, clinging tighter with his suction cups, his colors fluctuating from the mirror effect to his more natural Liche color.

“Ernie, watch your skill!”

Ernie closed his eyes as if concentrating, and slowly, his skin went back to the mirroring effect.

Next to him, Shoot anxiously shifted, brushing against Logan’s leg. “Don’t say anything,” Logan hissed and then held his breath, hoping that they didn’t have high perception.

Down below, the rats didn’t jerk, just continued to stand in place. With that many animals in one crowded area, Logan would expect to see jostling, shifting, movement, but there was nothing. It was freaky, as if they were frozen in place.

Or awaiting orders.

Either way, he’d found the rats, but he hadn’t found Lara and the kids.

If this was where they brought people, there had to be another area. Logan crept away from the ledge, hiding from the rats’ direct line of sight and then continued down the corridor.

“Logan, imagine Ernie at the helm of an army like that! I would truly rival all and take over the world!”

Despite the anxiousness in his stomach, Logan smirked. Trust Ernie to not be intimidated by the sight of a thousand strong rat army. Instead, he wanted to convert them into minions. “You’d be a powerhouse indeed. Those level 200 rats don’t seem like easy converts, though.”

Ernie sighed dreamily. “Imagine riding on top of one of those! I could fashion a throne, a mighty rat throne! Although, Larry, my mighty steed, might get jealous.”

“Ernie, focus.”

Even though Logan hadn’t come across anyone else in the corridor yet, Logan made sure to keep as quiet as possible, monitoring his surroundings for any hint of people.

Eventually, they came across what looked like a metal elevator, one of those elevators you’d see in a construction site. Fuck, and they’d reached a dead end as well. There was no where to go other than up. But the problem was, Logan was invisible, but if an elevator arrived with no one on it, their chances of creeping by unnoticed was zero.

There had to be another way.

Ten storeys below to the bottom and another twenty storeys straight up—at least. No stairs, only an elevator. Peering up, Logan could see signs of more corridors, more railings.

Wait a minute.

There was another way up.

His pink sock.