Reaching the top of the ladder, Hera pressed the button to bring it back, turning the tool into a small brick of metal about the size of her hand. But before jumping out, she took a look around. It was an eerie sight, as if she was staring at an ocean of leaves. Not trees, bushes, or branches. Just leaves. An endless expanse of leaves in a repeating pattern, like a bad image edit. She couldn’t feel any of them, she tried to pick them up and nothing happened. Her hand passed through them with no resistance. Even the smell wasn’t what it was supposed to be. There was no grassy scent around her. Which was odd since her torso was passing through the leaves, making them much closer to her face than one would expect.
Shaking her head, she turned in the direction the hollow trunk pointed at. That was where Korrin told them to jump to, which she did. The drop shouldn’t be that high, and if it was, she could just call Nimbus. With her current attributes, any height that was too small for the Sentinel to appear and carry her away wouldn’t be enough to hurt her.
Just as she moved, the scenery changed again. No longer she was in that sea of leaves, but now in the labyrinth proper. To her left was a wall of sky pencils. It was a thin shrub that reached 8 meters tall in this room. Back on Earth, they generally stood at only 2 and a half meters. The same type of plant was all around the area, forming a box with one single opening.
Both the Shadow Talons and the Harmony Guardians were already there, not hidden but also on high alert as the Empress landed, her tail helping spread the impact of the fall.
“Did it work? Your skill thingamajig?” Korrin asked.
Hera nodded, “More or less. It gave helped me figure out something to ask my relic.”
“Wasn’t the skill supposed to just mark it on the map?” Syrinx asked.
“It was, but I realized that doing that wouldn’t help. Even if it says ‘it’s here,’ we are in a labyrinth. What if the actual path to get there was on the other side of the room?” Hera replied.
“Oh… didn’t think of that,” for the first time since they met, Syrinx looked impressed.
“But it will be expensive. Mana wise. So Neria, I need that mana stone. If that’s ok. You can have mine instead,” Hera passed the two belt attachments to the healer. She had gotten those stones in the agency, and together they could store around 20 million mana. It was an impressive amount, but it was there just as a backup. One that she didn’t have to use so far.
The triton sighed, “I don’t like the idea of not having some extra mana in case we need, but ok,” she swapped her two stones with Hera’s. The ones carried by the healer were a group purchase. Each with 50 million mana. In a tough spot, Neria could just slam someone with a series of supercharged heals to save them. Extra mana could only do so much, but when it came to saving a life, every little bit counted.
“Thank you, I’ll work on charging them up right away,” Hera nodded and pulled Ariadne. Taking a deep breath, she thought about the question Asterion helped her come up with, “Working as a radar until we reach the destination, can you show me which path will take me to the laboratory I’m searching for?”
For a brief moment, nothing happened, and the Empress barely felt a trickle of mana leaving her. She started worrying that the phrasing was wrong. By asking if the relic can do that, it might just come up as a yes answer. But if that was the case, Asterion should’ve said something. Just as she was about to start spiraling, she felt the mana from the stones rushing to her relic at a speed that she never had seen before. From the 100 million mana, only a bit over 8 million remained. The small screen on Ariadne came to life as a sonar pulse appeared. Hera turned slowly to see if there was any difference, and once she pointed the relic towards the only passage leaving this area, the pulse became more frequent. However, due to her connection with the item, she could tell that the option of asking questions to her relic would be on cooldown for a full day.
“I guess it worked,” Hera sighed in relief.
Everyone nodded as they started to move. This time, Hera called Nimbus, Viper and Crimson to be in their full forms, while Lurize and Livy kept to their weapon forms. Vulcan was, unfortunately, waiting inside the legacy. They would be going after a lab and had to be stealthy right now. The Empress couldn’t risk having him lashing out due to the Daemonic influence.
Korrin, Viper, Crimson, and Syrinx took turns scouting ahead. They would warn the group of monsters on their path. When that happened, they waited, or used a spell to make the creature sleep. Killing them was an option, but any fight could expose their location. Even if they finished the monster off in a single strike, its body could attract other creatures. Or worse, if the humans had a patrol somewhere and found the carcass with wounds clearly made by something that didn’t belong, their entire idea of a surprise attack would go out of the window.
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The path took them a bit towards the west, making Hera hopeful to stop by what Asterion showed her, but it didn’t take long for Ariadne to ask them to turn to the right and return through a spiraling path. The Empress even confirmed that after the ninth right turn they did in a row. For her, that meant they were getting closer, but unfortunately, that wasn’t the case. Once they arrived at the center of that spiral, they found a tunnel heading underground that took them even more to the east before Ariadne continued guiding the path.
The sun was already setting once they saw the first signs of a human structure. That was in the form of small cameras placed in the corners of the labyrinth. Luckily, that was already expected, and they had a few tools that could force the devices to loop images for a while. The only problem was that it required someone to get closer. Or that would be a problem if Viper and Crimson weren’t a part of this expedition. Borin cast an invisibility spell over the two, and let their [Hidden Frontal Screen] take care of the rest. Despite being stealth specialists, that one ability was much stronger than what any of the Shadow Talons could do. The reason for that was its limitations. Hiding things from only one side, and with a high mana cost, made it be ineffective in most scenarios. In a one-on-one fight, that was great, but any time their target had more than one angle to see them, its power was severely reduced.
Viper went in first and moved somewhat quickly through the corridor. He stopped just before peeking over the curve to the left and activated the device. It sent a tiny ray of light towards the camera and activated the looping mechanism. Everyone waited another 10 seconds for the camera to record what it needed, and an extra 5 just to confirm that it worked before the Spymaster dropped his skill and waved the group over. In the next corridor, Crimson did the same thing while leaving her brother to recover his mana. They kept leapfrogging over each other as they continued to find more cameras, and in the early hours of the night, they arrived at the last curve before the lab.
Right now, they couldn’t afford to make noise. So instead of talking, they were communicating through hand signs. A few they had prepared beforehand. After a couple of checks, everyone was ready. And the star of this show, at least on the Shadow Talon side, would be Borin. The grass of this labyrinth wouldn’t let anyone pass through them and come out on the other side. Any attempt would leave the person who moved inside the tall grass walking for a few minutes before they were dropped back on the same spot they left. Even if someone were to turn and move to the sides, the results were the same. Borin had, through a couple of quests, rewards and dungeons, got skills that allowed him to move on paths like that one. He still wasn’t able to walk to the other side, but he could move along the wall inside the hidden layer of grass. It was supposed to work in dungeons, and until today, he had no idea if it would work in this room. But as soon as they arrived, he tested and confirmed that the skill still worked perfectly.
He held the hand of the other Shadow Talons, who made a neat line before vanishing inside the grass walls. Now it was time for the muscle. Or what was their current job, the distraction. Calling Livy out, the Empress waited for Neria’s signal. When they were ready, the two jumped out of the corner, seeing the lab in its full view. It was a four story high structure with no walls and only a single entrance in the front. There were a couple of guards leaning against the sides of the door and very strong lights that washed away almost all shadows. Anyone who appeared from the path would be blinded while being completely exposed. However, the security in this place was lax. According to the reports, they spent so long here without ever being disturbed that the guards didn’t see much action. Even the monsters in the room stopped showing up.
Neria pulled some water from her staff and created a small tidal wave, as Livy, in her full bipedal form, opened her mouth and let out a jet of pressured water aimed at the wall of the laboratory. The two attacks even seemed to merge together, the water from the wave being pulled in by the spiral jet. With a ringing metal sound, the impact sent the two guards tumbling to the sides and opened a small hole in the door. The outer wall was also damaged, but despite it looking like a large gash, the destruction was only superficial, and the actual structure had no issues withstanding the attack.
If this was a normal fight, the Harmony Guardians would jump in and kill the guards during this moment of confusion. However, this wasn’t the plan. Instead, they gave them enough time to gather themselves and stand up to fight back. Livy and Neria were acting as if they had just overexerted themselves. Once the Leviathan saw the guards standing up and drawing their weapons, she told the Empress, who appeared from the back as if she was running, about the situation in a loud voice.
“Sorry, they are all still alive.”
The rest of the team was right behind them, all pretending to gasp for air. Vash was the one who came up with this small routine, and in all honesty, no one believed it would work. Pretending to be a bunch of random people who were just angry at humans and found them here was stupid, but the Shadow Talons said that it could help. Liraelle was the most vocal supporter of the plan, which made Hera think it was all just a prank.
‘Remember. Don’t overpower them. We need them to call for backup,’ Hera warned Livy and the rest of her court, all of which who were now in their weapon forms.
The humans fired a couple of spells at the invaders, but the magic was weak. Even without using [Observe] everyone could tell that these people were not powerful. This could be a good thing, maybe the people who controlled the lab didn’t think someone strong would show up here. Then again, it could be bad. If they had anything of value here, security would be stricter.
Pushing those thoughts away, Hera focused on the fight, making sure to use enough strength in her blows to look like a threat but one that could be defeated. The Shadow Talons were the ones who had to worry about finding something useful.