Following Harlev’s orders, the teams packed whatever equipment they had brought with them, and slowly made their way to the lifts, heading down. Even as the number of people slowly dwindled, Harlev and a few others remained along with the three Lords who were now floating inside the cylindrical machines, eyes closed.
For a moment he had thought that any chances of killing them were gone but they still lived and that meant he could still have a chance at killing them. So, still hidden in the darkness, away from the bright surroundings of the lift, Inero-ie watched.
Eventually, only a few people remember other than Harlev and the lords. So, who stood alongside him without doing anything, while others tweaked the machine setting in which the lords were sleeping. As some of his Threads were focused on them, he could see how they stabilized the lords who should have died long before if not for these machines.
With only a few people there now, he drew even closer, only stopping once he was on the edge of the array that trapped the light inside. Standing on the edge, Inero-ie watched and waited, patiently observing everything, anything that might help him when he was going to try and kill them.
Suddenly Inero-ie sensed individuals appear in his awareness behind him, the three teams dispatched to each of the remaining lords' castles. Along with them were captured men and women, their clothes ripped and dirty, a result of the bombs. As soon as they arrived, Harlev issued an order and the three teams moved towards the one big lift that would take them down.
Along with the lords, the men and women in the 2nd State who had been brought back were likewise forced into the cylindrical machines and neutralized, having no ability to resist especially when a Liquid State was overseeing them.
Finally, once everyone else was gone, Harlev issued an order to the few still standing alongside him headed towards the lift, which closed down and started heading towards the set destination.
Once Inero-ie was sure the lift had started moving downward, he stepped into the light, and with it, his darkness Melding melted off and he was once again visible. His steps took him in front of the lift that Harlev had used. Once they covered a quarter of the way to the next layer, he collected some things to create darkness around him, using them to jump inside the hollow tube that was used by the lift to move up and down.
He appeared inside the pitch-black and hollow tube, his feet resting against the walls of the metallic, cylindrical tube and he started running down, jumping, and softly landing on the top of the lift.
Threads scanned the whole lift which was lit up inside with a soft blue light meaning he would not be able to jump the bombs inside. Suddenly an idea entered his mind and once again he scanned the machines being used to stabilize the lords. The light did not penetrate the lower part of the machine.
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Acting on the idea that he just appeared in his mind, Inero-ie jumped, appearing mid-air and outside the lift column, he ran down along the wall of the column until he crossed the lift and once again jumped inside, making himself weightless. He then took out Refined Cores, personally tweaked to explode with enough power that it would kill even 2nd, Gas State practitioners. Considering the state of the three lords, he estimated it was enough to kill them while ensuring the explosion was powerful enough that Harlev and his men would be more focused on defending themselves.
The lift hit his weightless body, pushing him down. The three cores were in one moment inside his hands, then the next moment, they appeared inside the machined. Then his Threads were divided into three groups, from each Thread a minuscule amount of Qi was injected into the core which when combined became a very large amount.
Inero-ie had already made the changes to the core, what he was currently downing was activating them in a way that would be unnoticeable to Harlev.
***
Pushed by his instincts, Harlev called forth a barrier, one for every person standing inside the lift. He looked around, his senses spread to find the origin of the unease that had suddenly appeared within him. His subordinates similarly seemed to be feeling that something was off. Despite not finding what it was, they did not stop, instincts were the tool they had utilized and sharpened to survive in the harsh world outside the safety of a settlement, a world where all other senses were made useless.
Suddenly something entered Harlev’s senses, his eyes squinted but he also knew nothing could be done as the explosive forces ripped through the machines, smashing into the barriers that were supposed to protect them but just like they had used the barrier to make the explosion much more destructive and destroyed the castles, similarly his barriers resulted in the lords dying.
Feeling the barrier around the now-dead lords weakening, he surrounded them with a few more layers of barriers, and a few moments after the first barrier was destroyed, the explosive power rammed into the second barrier. With each barrier that broke down, the explosive force was reduced until it was possible to see the bent and shredded metal mixed with the remains of the lords.
***
The moment he had sent in the cores, Inero-ie pushed against the lift above him, hurling down until his feet landed vertically against the lift column’s wall, and he started running down, removing the weight reduction effect of the darkness melding. With the gravity pulling him downwards, he sped up even more quickly bypassing the lift’s speed.
He kept counting each time he passed a Layer until he arrived at the layer where the shop was located. He jumped out, reducing his weight, and kicked the column to send himself hurling towards one of the nearest sub-sectors. Like a leaf, he drifted towards the sub-sector after his initial acceleration was eaten by the air drag which was much greater due to the reduced weight.
Once he reached the sub-sector, his hands melded with the layer of ice formed on the wall of the sub-sector and started climbing up until he got onto the beams. Hopping from one beam to another, he started heading towards the shop.
Just like the last time, the shop was still in complete darkness with its owner missing. Unimped by the darkness, Ineor-ie moved towards his room, setting up the healing device and lying down on it.