It was strange, especially for Shiira who knew Adam relatively well. They were finally on their way towards the mist city, close to the dome of shifting haze surrounding in fact, however, they only moved after three whole days of waiting needlessly in the merchant town of Horta.

She had never seen him in such a panicked state even when he fought Onvyr and splendidly lost, so when she ran into him while doing rounds in the town late at night only to see him drenched in sweat and staring wide-eyed into the darkness of the night, she could not believe her eyes.

He did not explain why he changed his mind so drastically no matter how many times she asked, but he was adamant about staying in Horta for as long as possible before getting on their way. The nights were the worst, he didn’t sleep or even stay in one place for too long. Once the sun descended, he walked across the town with his guard up for hours on end, as if he were waiting for the devil itself to jump out of the shadows.

Even now, as they neared the city, he was still shifting around, looking around behind him and jumping at every shadow dancing in the moonlight, it was simply too abnormal for her to ignore.

“are you sure you’re ok—”

“I’m fine, stop asking already.”

Shiira wasn’t surprised by his reply, after all, it was the same one he provided every time she asked up until now, and she wasn’t foolish enough to pry deeper when he clearly didn’t want to talk about it. And so, she just took a deep breath and tried to keep her mind off of it, as hard as it was to do.

“well, we are here, this is the spot that merchant mentioned. Northwest of the city, next to a half-buried bronze statue, there’s supposed to be a secret entrance here, but as expected, I can’t see anything.” Shiira attempted to change the subject while sneaking in a polite ‘I told you so.’

It was truly nothing but a patch of dirt with a half-buried statue sticking out of it, its eroded features masking the identity of whatever great man it was built to honor.

“the dirt hasn’t been disturbed recently it seems, if there is an entrance here, it hasn’t been used for a while… did that bastard lie to me?” Adam grabbed a handful of the soil, inspecting it for any abnormalities, only to be disappointed by its normalcy and drop it back down to the dry, lifeless ground.

While Adam was on his knees, contemplating his decision to trust the enigmatic merchant, Shiira was keeping herself busy by inspecting the statue, running her fingers on the deteriorating green metal, curious about its story. She wanted to ask Adam about it, but she quickly gave up that idea.

I better not sour his mood anymore, how unfortunate, I really am curious about this thing, statues are only reserved for the great and powerful after all, I wonder who this human was.

Letting her curiosity win over her, Shiira grabbed the statue’s cold arm and pulled it, hoping that its lower half would have some answers.

“huh?”

But even though she put considerable strength into her arm, the half-buried statue would not budge.

“this thing is…really heavy…I better use more self-strengthening magic.”

Shiira cast three more spells, increasing her strength, speed, and stamina tenfold, but even with her amplified abilities, the statue refused the budge, leaving her stunned.

“what the hell, how heavy is that thing?” Adam, finally noticing the bizarre occurrence, watched in confusion as Shiira continued trying to lift the statue to no avail until she tired herself out. “you are using magic to strengthen yourself right?”

Shiira nodded, sweat running down her forehead, and finally relaxed her grasp, revealing an engraving of her handprint indented into the metal. “I have multiple support spells activated, there is no way I can’t lift this thing, maybe it’s locked in place by a powerful binding spell.”

Adam brushed the tired Shiira aside and wrapped his own hand around the statue’s arm. “or maybe it’s a magnet, maybe the secret passage wasn’t next to the statue, but through it.”

Adam covered both himself and the statue with the faint blue light of the augments, but before he could pull it, it disappeared, along with the desert, the moon, the city, and everything else but him and Shiira. It took him a fraction of a second to actually realize what happened, but it was already too late.

“s-sir, I felt a massive amount of magic getting expended all at once, we were teleported somewhere, and the spell was somehow instantaneous. I-It should be impossible but…”

Shiira’s voice was close to him, but he could not see her no matter how hard he tried, as his eyes hadn’t become accustomed to the darkness yet. In the past, he would’ve remained calm in such a situation. It was not his first time being teleported against his will nor was it the first time he was stripped of his eyesight, but he was not the same man after his encounter with the living darkness, all his experience and skill simply melted away in the face of the instinctual fear instilled in him on that faithful night.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“LIGHT THIS FUCKING PLACE UP RIGHT NOW!!” Adam screamed as he stacked layer after layer of defensive augments unto himself, in fear of another encounter with the living darkness.

Shiira did as he asked, creating three orbs of light to drive away the darkness that plagued Adam, revealing the truth of where the two stood, a dilapidated windowless hallway of plain grey and white.

Shiira, having no idea as to where they were, was about to turn to Adam to ask if he had seen anything like it before, but the wide-eyed look of surprise answered her question.

“this place is… a lab, no doubt about it, like the one I was taken to.”

“what’s a lab?”

“it’s basically a massive underground bunker where we used to conduct experiments and develop weapons, but there was no way to enter by using a spell, so this one was either built during that so-called golden age… or…” Adam answered with a grim expression on his face.

“or what?”

“or a demon that can instantly use a teleportation spell of that scale took over one, either way, we are trapped here.”

Shiira felt cold sweat run down her back as Adam explained the situation to her. She knew of the complexities of teleportation, it was a line of magic only a few were ever able to dabble in, even the most powerful living demon she knew of, Onvyr, wouldn’t be able to activate such a spell instantly if at all.

“what kind of monster would be able to do that?” Shiira’s words came out almost unconsciously as her mind raced to find a rational answer.

“those two demons we met in Tyra. They were from an extinct clan that had the unique ability to use single-person teleportation naturally, they alone can’t pull something like this off, but there is a good chance they’re involved anyway, keep your eyes peeled, let’s go.”

Adam took the lead and Shiira followed behind, making sure that the way was well illuminated for them at his very insistent request as they explored the abandoned lab.

They walked and walked for what seemed like an eternity, passing by many chambers containing forgotten relics of the past, some Adam recognized, others, he did not, but all were deemed useless and left behind by him in the end. Shiira was curious at first, asking him about every little thing he picked up or looked at, however, her happy explorer tune changed quickly once they came across their first corpse.

A peculiar skeleton with shards of red crystals spouting out of its brittle bones. The mere sight of them was enough to send Shiira into a frenzy, jumping back and covering her mouth as her heart raced.

“t-t-that’s the red harvest, we must burn those bones at once!!”

Shiira pleaded with Adam every time she saw those red apparitions of death and despair, and he shrugged and watched her as she laid those humans to rest with a grim expression, but after a full hour of it, he simply did not care enough anymore.

“are we going in circles or something? Labs aren’t usually this fucking big.”

“I don’t sense anything, but maybe there is some illusion magic involved?”

Another hour passed.

“this is impossible, what the hell is this place, maybe i not a lab after all.”

“maybe we are above ground, should we try breaking a hole in the wall to find out?”

“no, I don’t want to risk it, I don’t think the security systems would still be functional but it’ll be trouble if they are, the guns were loaded with anti-magic rounds in my time and you aren’t wearing any armor, also there were some experimental anti-augment systems too, lets keep going for now.”

Another hour passed.

“alright that’s it, I’m blowing a hole through this fucking place, even if we are below ground I’ll just dig us out.”

“b-but what about the security.”

Shiira cowered behind a corner as Adam gathered a ludicrous amount of augment power within his hands, preparing to unleash an attack right above his head, making himself a tunnel all the way to the night sky, but before he could fire, something unexpected happened.

“w-wait, look at the floor, it's lighting up,” Shiira shouted from the supposed safety of the corner, pointing at the ominous red lights that were now illuminating the ground.

Adam calmed the raging blue light dancing within his palms, his expression turning from confusion to a wry smile.

“we are being invited, these emergency directional lights are our guide I guess… damn, whoever is controlling this place must've been watching us all this time.”

Leaving a confused Shiira behind, Adam ran through the empty halls, following the road laid out for him by the red lights, only for them to lead him to a dead end after nearly 20 minutes of sprinting.

Adam was left confused as the red lights died down, leaving him alone with Shiira who only just caught up, but as if fearing for its life, the wall split open before Adam tore a hole through it, revealing a hidden chamber littered with screens and computers.

“welcome commander Adam Williams, I apologize for the late introduction, interfering with this broken system was not easy.”

Suddenly, as all the screens turned on, the voice of a mature woman filled the room. It was slightly unnatural and crooked as if she was only pretending to be human, but that was of no concern to Adam. Because there was one other, much more troublesome detail.

“how do you know my name and rank? Who the hell are you?” Adam quickly covered himself in the faint blue light of the augment and stretched out his arm, making it clear that the wrong answer would be met with nothing other than absolute destruction.

Silence filled the room before the mysterious woman replied, her tone unchanged in the face of Adam’s threats. “I apologize, you are the first human I’ve spoken to in a long time, I am Astraeus, and I only wish to cooperate with you, commander.”