Mae dove into the elevator shaft headfirst, smashing through stray support beams like a bullet with her powerful ram-horns. The carnage left behind by the collapsed platform littered the shaft with overlapping beams like that of a spider’s nest.
A Clockwork Prophet! If it finds out who I am, then there’s no turning back!
It took seconds before she could reach the bottom. Any further and she would have sustained tremendous damage. A mountain of timber exploded upon impact, drowning the voices buried beneath and those who arrived at the scene choking on the dust.
She reached somewhere into the haze and grabbed Deiman’s wrist.
“I don’t know how the brain of a Shell works – But you can’t just stand there and wait for me!” Her roar sent shrapnel everywhere as she dragged Deiman out from the haze. To her shock, the man was entirely unscathed. “If you’re that strong then why don’t you face them!?”
“I can’t remember how to use my magic.” Deiman answered truthfully as he matched Mae’s pace with relative ease, feeling the mana channels of his back burn.
They dashed through the nearest tunnel.
The underground labyrinth was constructed like a stone fortress with long, spacious corridors, brick walls, and various doors and splits in the path. Mae could sense the presence of the Clockwork Prophet entering the labyrinth, causing her heart to race as though she was pursued by the incarnation of death itself.
“Don’t lie to me! I was watching you and Raoul interact with the monoliths! But blonde hair is nothing compared to red eyes, so I’m now wondering why the hell you’re so wanted! You have mana channels on your back! You can use magic without chanting, or however normal people are supposed to use it! LIKE A DEMON!”
Mae’s outburst was not caused for the sake of anger.
Her melodic voice echoed throughout the spacious halls to confuse their pursuers, and to echolocate the correct path.
Deiman only stared at her, not knowing what she meant by this. If she didn’t assume that he was far stronger than her, then she would have left him to die, or would have at least killed him on the spot.
But he was more valuable to keep right now.
Those who heard Mae’s voice were wracked with agony as they clutched onto their heads. A group of masked men at the next corner bashed their heads against the wall, their ears bleeding like a fountain of blood.
I can’t use them as instruments. They’ll immediately know it’s a Maestro on the loose. I don’t have the same powers as before. I can teleport, but that takes too much mana. I’ll keep it for when I need it.
She glanced back at Deiman who stared back with vacant eyes; the same kind of eyes those slaves had.
And I’ll use him as bait. I’m not going to get caught here. Never. The last thing I need is for a Clockwork Prophet to tell them where I am. I need to tell the Maestros that we were betrayed before they’re told that I’m the one who betrayed them. But that’s already too late. The Clockwork Prophets are now involved in this. So they’re not afraid of losing them. This whole replication shit is making everyone too bold.
A Clockwork Prophet were beings in the highest echelons of the Sect of Gears. Clockwork Prophets were the equivalent of the Missionaries of Act X, both being able to make predictions whether it be through the Strings or the Gears. If one possessed a Gear or a String, then they were forever susceptible to being cut down by their authority.
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What made the Clockwork Prophets much more dangerous in her eyes was that they were the interpreters of Orloj, and partially of what she barely knew as the Fate Mechanism, which was synonymous with a blue, ethereal light.
This allowed them to make predictions of their own, whereas the Missionaries relied solely on the Scripts far ahead of time which were no more than the commandments made by a Living Loom.
The Gears of the Sect of Gears were all Living Looms of their own but were collectively pieces of a machine that exceeded Mae’s comprehension.
In theory, she was already caught.
However, their predictions could never include names.
This was her strand of hope, her glimmer of light at the end of the tunnel. Magical lanterns hardly helped to illuminate the dim labyrinth. Every dead end they reached resulted in an ambush, whether it be by armed assailants, or traps including poisoned darts, nets, or a pitfall into a locked chamber.
Mae was far too observant to be taken down. All assailants silently bled as their vocal cords swelled until it choked them. It only took seconds for her to eliminate them. Any walls that sat between different paths were broken as she charged straight through, the fallen bricks bouncing off her body like droplets of rain.
Mae turned back to face Deiman, expecting to be dragging a corpse around.
But to her surprise, the man was completely unscathed by the carnage.
“Now would be a good time to start explaining yourself!”
“I imagined wanting a shield. I’m being protected by [Body Enhancing] Magic now. I think.”
“You think or you know!?”
“I’m not sure. I only did what you told me.”
Deiman’s honesty was killing Mae.
“Then start doing what I’m doing!” Mae exclaimed, headbutting the frame of a doorway to cause a collapse.
The grey walls began to turn a slight blue and purple hue the deeper they descended, jumping down flights of steps, and collapsing passages to hide their tracks.
Deiman didn’t know what magic to use, or if he even could. His mind went back to Autumn’s wind magic as he held out his free hand towards the ceiling. And before he knew it, a dangerous bullet of air was expelled from the palm of his hand.
“Hey – HEY! DON’T BURY US –!”
Then, he cast a powerful version of [Repellent Wind] from memory alone. He slammed into her, causing them both to launch deeper into the tunnel and just barely avoiding being caught in the collapse.
They tumbled down a flight of stairs, Deiman flopping around whereas Mae tried to control her landing. Eventually, the two were thrown into what seemed like an endless staircase. Grunts, shouts, screams – it was consumed by the utter darkness of the void.
The staircase grew so wide that Mae had to shout out at the top of her lungs to gain an accurate measurement.
“DEIMAAAAAAAAAAAAN!”
Two hundred meters.
“DEIMAAAAN! WHY DID YOU HIDE YOUR POWERS!?”
Four hundred meters.
“IS THAT WHY RAOUL SPARED YOU!?”
Six hundred meters. The staircase was so unbelievably large that Mae had no choice but to believe this was some sort of Corrupted Zone. She knew better than that, but how else could she explain the existence of such an abnormally wide staircase?
“A DEMI-HUMAN SHOULDN’T EVEN HAVE MANA CHANNELS! YOU SHOULDN’T EVEN BE ALIVE!”
One kilometer was the final measurement before purple light appeared at the end. The sheer steepness of the staircase was like falling from the side of a mountain.
“JUST WHAT ARE YOU, DEIMAAAAAN!?”
It damaged her more than the fall from earlier, her corporeal body sustaining injuries that were easily solvable when she was a Maestro.
“I SHOULD’VE LEFT YOU THERE WITH AUTUMN AS BAIT!”
Her last cry was to peer into what resided within the lair of light. She could hear water rushing from within. So much water that it caused vibrations to ripple through the floor as she tumbled into a cavern so large that it was like she had stumbled into another world.
Eventually, her rolling came to a complete stop. She grasped at her body, touching unfamiliar parts that ached and bruised. Breathing was difficult, and she could not understand why.
“Instruments… can still make sound when they’re like this… or it’s because they’re like this that they can make sound… isn’t that how it’s supposed to be?” Mae tried to twist herself as she heard Deiman’s body tumble behind her.
Suddenly, her eyes widened as she threw herself against the ground.
“AA-Agh. It… Nnnnnagh…”
A Maestro’s body composition was completely different from that of a normal being.
“Hurts… don’t wanna… speak…” She drooled, gurgling her words.
Mae experienced the same agony of the Instruments that bared similar wounds for the first time. There was no melody or reason for the pain, and no matter how much she groaned, it did not disappear.
Weren’t Instruments supposed to make sound when they were played? When their flesh was struck? How fear made them sing till they could no more?
This was how it was always supposed to work. But when she experienced it, she wanted to do nothing more than to keep her mouth shut and coddle her wounds.
… It doesn’t sound like music…