Before Dan could ask any more questions, Judith flashed out of existence and left him and Ada alone in the church. He turned to his only ally in this whole mess.

  “Got everything you need? We need to get going.”

  “I do,” Ada said.

  “Did you find any healing stims?”

  “Unfortunately not. Kodak generally doesn’t field medical supplies for its agents.”

  Dan furrowed his brow at the bizarre sentiment. “That sounds really dumb.”

  “I agree. Kodak seems to have this mentality that a true agent should be tough enough able to power through anything. And if they succumb to their wounds during a mission, then they were too weak.”

  Dan shook his head at that ridiculous doctrine. While he knew he had a healing factor, anything fatal that punctured one of his internal organs would be bad news. And with these new foes from the Church of Nanotology to contend with, not having any healing items was a disadvantage.

  “Alright then, let’s get to this artefact then,” he said.

  Dan followed the red hexagon that still floated in his peripheral vision. Ada followed close behind him with her new sword Bloodlust in her hand. It took Dan a second to recognize and acknowledge the ambient hum from the sword.

  They both followed the waypoint that led through the back of the church. As Dan emerged into the church’s backyard, he turned to Ada.

  “Hey, maybe you can tell me this.” He pointed down at this coat and armor where the black dagger had cut him. “One of those Church agents spawned a dark blade out of nowhere and used it against me. Just one shallow cut and this happens.”

  Ada stepped closer to him and inspected his damaged coat. Then she ran her finger along the slash in his suit.

  “It’s called the shadow blade. Or at least some variation of it,” she said. “It’s a technique that summons a variety of different sized blades forged from dark energy. It basically ignores armor.”

  “Is it related to what Judith was using?” he asked. “That gold blade she used stopped my sword and then she made it disappear.”

  “I’m not quite sure,” she said. “She loves to show off her abilities but doesn’t elaborate any further.”

  Dan sighed. “Oh. So Judith is one of those type of girls. Except she has superpowers.”

  Ada tilted her head at his comment. “What?”

  “Maybe I’ll tell you later,” he said. He turned and tracked the waypoint that had led him outside.

  But something didn’t seem right. The red hexagon was hovering just above the ground in front of him.

  “The waypoint stops here. But I don’t see anything.”

  “Then it must be pointing us underground,” Ada said.

  “I don’t have a shovel and I don’t feel like digging,” Dan said. “There has to be some secret passageway then.”

  Dan kept his eyes on the ground as he walked along the pavement, trying to look for anything that seemed off to him. Maybe there was a secret brick he had to lift or maybe some structural weakness he could exploit to get underground. He drew Conservative out of his scabbard and continued scanning the ground.

  After another few minutes oif walking around and having nothing to show for it, he said, “Okay, maybe it’s time to test how well this sword cuts through concrete.”

  “That won’t be necessary,” Ada said calmly. She stood in front of a fountain that hadn’t been demolished.

  Dan walked over to her and inspected the fountain. The design was an ornate and precisely drafted statue of a naked man sporting muscular physique. Well-chiseled features and sharp features along with his arm that was raised. The fountain’s water flowed down into the pool from the man’s fingertips.

  “I have no idea what this is supposed to be. Looks cool though,” he said.

  “I’m not a big art fan either,” Ada admitted. She extended her blade out and pointed the tip into the pool. “But take a look at this.”

  Dan’s eyes followed where her sword pointed. The tip of Ada’s Bloodlust was submerged into the pool and boiled the water, creating bubbles and obscuring what she was pointing at. She promptly took her sword out of the water.

  “Wow, that sword is hard to please,” he said.

  “Very strange indeed. What an interesting gift you acquired for me…” She refocused on popinting at a peculiar feature in the water. “You see that small recessed panel at the bottom there? It sticks out from the rest of the fountain. And over there looks like a small piece that supposed to cover that panel.”

  Dan saw what looked like a rectangular piece of concrete that laid beside the small rectangular-shaped recession in the base of the fountain’s statue.

  He lifted his leg and stepped over the edge of the fountain’s pool. His armored legs waded through the water and he crouched down. He reached his hand into the water and slowly put his fingers through the recession and felt something that was definitely metal. After some more feeling and running his fingers in the hole, he felt a button. In the absence of a better plan other than carving up the ground with his sword, he pressed it.

  After a few seconds, nothing happened. But then his ears were greeted with a low grumbling sound through the flowing water. He stood up and jerked his head around, looking for the source of that noise. He glanced at Ada who pointed her sword at the opening along the concrete pathway.

  “Huh, so there is a secret entrance after all,” Dan said. “Good looking out Ada. Without you here, I would have began cutting up the ground like a maniac. And I’d probably piss off your taxpayers.”

  The Bloodknight gave him a faint smile before she extended her hand out to him. It was a strange gesture since Dan didn’t need any help stepping out of the fountain. But he brushed that thought aside and took her hand anyway. The two walked toward the opening in the pavement and Dan jumped in first with his handgun raised. In front of his was a dimly lit tunnel several meters underground. Dan needed to hunch over a bit to prevent his head from brushing the ceiling. Luckily, he had some breathing room at the sides. The tunnel was enough to fit two regular people shoulder to shoulder.

  But since Dan and Ada were at least over one hundred eighty centimeters in height and wore body armor, he led the way while Ada followed closely behind. He found a switch on the side and flicked it, which closed the opening to the surface behind him.

  You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

  While Dan had enhanced eyesight, actual night vision plus whatever Li had was a separate upgrade he didn’t have at the moment. And the tunnel was almost pitch black save for the strange candle-like props just below the ceiling of this tunnel. He found the flashlight module beside his pistol’s barrel and flicked the switch on it.

  He lit up the tunnel in front of him and methodically made his way through. The red hexagon on his HUD led the way as he followed the icon, trusting that it was leading him through the most efficient path possible.

  “We go from the inside of a church with barely any cover to a secret cramped underground tunnel like this,” he muttered. “Such lovely locations Judith is leading us through.”

  He heard an amused huff from behind him. “I’m not fond of my inability to wield my gift in such a constricted space.”

  “Well, the sooner we get to where this waypoint leads, we can both get the hell out of this tunnel. I don’t know if I can handle scuttling around underground like this and not see the sunlight for the majority of the day.”

  Dan came across a section that broke off into three different pathways. The red hexagon led him to the leftmost carved pathway. After another few minutes of cautiously moving through the tunnel, Dan spotted a source of light at the end. He increased his pace toward the light and turned his pistol’s flashlight off. He emerged out of the tunnel only to see a dilapidated room. The lighting was only marginally better compared to the tunnels. The room had a dim and extremely warm glow that burned his eyes for a second before he adjusted to the new lighting conditions. The rows and stacks of small doors on the side made Dan think this was an underground morgue.

  Dan’s eyes then rested on a shred of moving fabric beside a pillar the furthest away from him. Then a foot stepped out from behind the pillar. Luckily for Dan, whoever it was hadn’t spotted him and had his back turned to him. He gradually approached the pillar, thankful that his stealth suit suppressed the sound of his footsteps. As he got closer, he heard the hushed conversation from the person behind the pillar and someone else he didn’t see.

  “The sanctuary just got raided by the infidels of Kodak,” a quite voice said.

  “So they failed to secure the stockpile up in the church. The caliber of agents they sent must be a cut above their typical forces,” the other voice said.

  Dan approached closer and saw the same dark robes worn by the Church agents and the lesser followers.

  “I await the day where we can control this territory and not have to move around like rats,” the nearest voice said, presumably the man behind the pillar.

  “Have faith in the cult master,” the other said. “We will—wait.”

  Dan stopped just a few steps away from the pillar but kept his pistol aimed right at the back of the robed man’s head.

  The man suddenly jerked his head to the side and turned. He didn’t give the man an opportunity to see him as fired a round right into the guy’s head.

  “Infidels!” someone shouted.

  Dan immediately put his superior physique to work and dashed past the pillar, instantly tackling another robed cultist. This one was unarmed and flailed about while Dan was on top of him. A third cultist made a run for it but Ada put two bullets into his back and he fell.

  While the last cultist still struggled, Dan performed a scan of the flailing man.

  Name: Collin Newman

  Age: 23 M

  Shard: n/a (worshipper of the Church of Nanotology)

  Rank: n/a

  Strength: 4

  Agility: 4

  Endurance: 3

  Intelligence: 2

  The man wore a generic dark red robe with no markings. While he was a cultist and wasn’t a threat, Dan knew that his worship and loyalty to the Church was dangerous. He clenched his fist and brought down a punch right to the back of the cultist’s head. The cultist ceased his struggling and laid limp on the ground.

  “You know, there could be tons more of these guys running around under Kodak’s watch,” he said. “I really don’t like this. I hope we’re not the only teams on the ground dealing with this shit.”

  The other end of the room had a door that was curiously locked. Beside the door was a wall that had been blown open to another tunnel. Dan first tried his luck on the door but wouldn’t budge.

  Berserk mode activated.

  He took a few steps back and charged the door, ramming his shoulder into it. While the door itself caved in from the impact, it still didn’t open. Something else at the other side was blocking the way. Whether it was purposely barred or some collapse happened at the other side, Dan didn’t know.

  “Wish I had Li’s x-ray vision,” he muttered.

  He powered down from his berserk then turned back at Ada. “Well, looks like more tunnels.”

  Ada gave him a faint smile before Dan walked to the blown out wall beside the door. He activated the flashlight on his pistol and walked into another tunnel. Almost immediate his light revealed another cultist who was in the tunnel moving toward him. The cultist held a small submachine gun and raised it in slow motion to Dan’s eyes. He had no trouble firing the first shot as the round penetrated the robe and the cultist toppled over.

  Outside of encountering more cultists, this trek through the cramped and dark tunnels wasn’t going to be stimulating him much. So he decided to contact Judith over a private channel.

  “Oh look who it is,” Judith’s voice filled his mind. “Usually I’m the one who initiates. What can I do for you, Dan?”

  Dan curled his lip at the fake pleasantries from the woman who threw him into this mess. While he already could guess about what he was specifically trying to find based on Ada’s explanation of how the Bloodknights get their magic abilities, he wanted some confirmation from Judith.

  “Hey Judith,” he said, keeping his tone flat. “Can you tell more more specifics about this artefact I’m trying to find? The one you’ve been hyping up so much that it’s going to help my odds against the cult master? It must really be worth all the bullshit I’ve encountered up to now.”

  “All you had to do was ask,” Judith said, keeping up her fake warmness. “Ada must have already explained how us Bloodknights get our magic powers to even the playing field against the Church. Well, this artefact is now different. It’s a piece taken directly from the crashed meteorite within the Dead Zone. It’s the source of all corrosia energy and the magic it fuels. It’s those artefacts that help someone unlock the use of these powers. The Alpha Corp somehow found a way to unlock the use of corrosia without direct exposure to the meteorite in some way. Still, we need to fast track your level of proficiency in the supernatural arts. The artefact you seek will grant you a substantial power boost.”

  Dan squinted down the tunnel, trying to see any movement.

  “And how does such an artefact make its way all the way here? Doesn’t the Church have the entire site locked down and heavily guarded?”

  “They do. There have been many attempts in the past to infiltrate or invade the Dead Zone. All of which failed or resulted in pyrrhic victories at best. Not too long ago, I was part of an elite team of agents that attempted to sneak into that wasteland and steal as much of the Church’s supply of artefacts as possible and bring it back to Kodak.”

  “Wasteland?”

  “The Dead Zone is a frozen shithole. You think it’s bad here? Well, at least there’s stuff happening out on the streets, even if it is just more violence and chaos. By the time we got on land and got past the giant psychic field surrounding the entire land, we were hit with minus ninety degree temperatures. That’s in celsius, by the way. All of our suits have temperature controls so we were fine at first. Everything went downhill after that.”

  Judith’s tone had shifted from the fake warmness to the same deadpan and serious tone he was used to hearing from Jane.

  “We encountered mutated beasts that gave fully equipped and trained agents a hard time. We fought a giant polar bear that was twice the size of a normal one and it had corrosia enhanced paws. We lost two agents fighting that beast. We encountered even more freaks of nature that make the mutated beasts in the Combat Games look like kittens. Then we encountered the true horrors within the Dead Zone. The Church agents themselves.”

  Dan had just fought a handful of those fanatics within the Church with Ada’s help along with the sporadic encounters with them on the streets. He didn’t know much about the cult master himself but the regular Church agents and cultists weren’t invincible. Sure, they had corrosia-based abilities and had surprised him with a few near misses but they were beatable as long as he exercised caution and didn’t blindly rush in.

  “All of these Church agents and cultists you have encountered so far are shrimp. Anyone who is a native from the Dead Zone is a cut above all the Church agents who operate elsewhere. It helps that they’re right next to the source of all corrosia. The entire land has ambient sources of corrosia. There’s probably as much corrosia in the air as oxygen. We lost a lot of solid Bloodknights by the time we wrapped up our mission. We gathered enough artefacts to split between research and using them to further empower our own forces. Well, a select few of course.”

  Dan had a hard time imagining the capabilities of a Church agent on their home turf where corrosia was plentiful and all around them.

  “Hopefully, after you find the cult master, you will fully understand the true enemies of this world. And you’ll take my offer seriously. I’m sacrificing a lot by giving up this precious artefact to power you up.”

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