Chapter 123: Nobody Here Either

The twelve adamantine combat drones charged forward, their rotary saw blades spinning fast and loud as their visors locked on the intruders.

Splitting into three tactical teams of four, the machines moved in coordinated formation along the catwalk.

Amber moved first.

Two drones rushed her with sweeping saw blades, while a third fired a crackling blue stun bolt to pin her against the railing.

Amber vaulted over the incoming blast, her twin sabers igniting with brilliant phoenix fire.

Coming down, Amber parried the first saw blade with her left saber, deflecting the spinning teeth upward in a shower of sparks. Stepping inside its guard, she drove her right saber through the exhaust vent at its neck, melting the internal circuitry.

The second machine lunged low at her knees.

Amber leaped backward, the whirring blade missing her boots by inches. Channeling flame into her heels, she blurred forward before it could reset, impaling both sabers straight through its battery housing.

The remaining two drones raised their cannons, but Amber whipped her blades outward, releasing a fan of fire that melted their optical lenses. Closing the distance, she cleaved through their weapon arms and kicked both machines off the catwalk.

Across the hall, four drones fanned out to encircle Zephyra with crackling stun batons.

Zephyra leaped straight up, catching an overhead steam pipe and swinging herself onto the rafters.

Her shadow whip-blade lashed out like a striking viper. Coiling around the wrist of a firing drone, the razor wire yanked it upward, sending its discharged stun bolt into its partner’s faceplate and blowing out the sensor cluster.

Zephyra dropped from the ceiling behind the blinded machine, driving her shadow dagger through its cranial processor.

The two surviving drones swung their blades in crossed arcs.

Zephyra slid beneath their swings, whipping her wire around their ankles. With a sharp pull, she yanked their legs out, sending both crashing onto their backs before decapitating them with two swift slashes.

At the center of the catwalk, the final four heavy drones closed in on Evren. The lead drone lunged, thrusting its spinning rotary saw straight at his chest.

Evren didn’t flinch.

With a subtle tilt of his torso, he let the buzzing blade miss his shoulder by half an inch, biting deep into a steel beam behind him.

In that split second of overextension, Evren stepped into the drone’s guard.

His hand clamped onto the mechanical elbow joint behind the blade. With a savage physical twist, he snapped the hydraulic joint backward with a metallic shriek.

The saw arm sheared completely out of its socket.

Evren drove the jagged metal limb straight into the drone’s chest reactor, pinning it to the floor as blue sparks erupted from its chassis.

The second and third drones closed in, swinging heavy stun batons in a pincer strike.

Evren ducked beneath the high swing and drove an open-palm strike into the first drone’s midsection. The physical impact caved the armor inward, lifting the machine off the deck and hurling it into the second drone. Both crashed into the far wall in a tangled, crumpled heap.

The fourth drone raised its arm cannon point-blank, aiming at Evren’s chest.

Evren closed the distance in a single step, grabbing the cannon barrel and wrenching it toward the ceiling. With his right fist, he drove a heavy bare-knuckle punch into the drone’s chest plate.

His fist punched clean through the armor, crushing the power core beneath his knuckles.

Evren pulled his hand back, letting the smoking wreck collapse alongside the others.

The entire corridor fell completely silent, save for the hiss of severed hydraulics.

Evren walked to the blast door and punched the emergency communication node, shattering the transmission circuitry.

Zephyra wiped machine oil from her cheek. "It’s only a matter of time before this floor is crawling with reinforcements."

"Let’s keep moving," Evren said.

He turned the manual release wheel, and the blast door slid open, revealing an emergency stairwell descending into the dark.

They rushed down the stairs, leaving the ozone-scented foundry behind.

Thirty meters down, they reached Sub-Level 6. Zephyra picked the electronic latch, and the heavy door hissed open.

A wave of sickening bio-chemical stench hit their nostrils.

Amber gasped quietly, covering her mouth. "What is this place?"

Before them lay a massive subterranean breeding facility.

Along both walls stood towering glass containment cylinders filled with glowing purple and emerald fluid. Inside floated severed void-beast tentacles, calcified carapaces, and mutated chimeric fetuses.

"They’re capturing void-beasts," Zephyra whispered in disgust. "They’re harvesting their flesh and splicing them with predatory animals."

"They’re breeding illegal biological weapons," Amber said, her grip tightening on her sabers.

Deep growls echoed from the darkness under the catwalks as the automated locks opened.

From the kennels emerged eight massive guard chimeras... mutated mastiffs grafted with obsidian void carapace, bone spurs, and dripping acidic fangs.

Their milky eyes locked onto the intruders, and the pack lunged.

"Kill them silently," Evren commanded.

Amber surged forward with her sabers blazing white-hot. She spun through the air, slicing across the shoulders of two chimeras and instantly cauterizing the wounds before they could even howl.

Zephyra melted into the shadow above the approaching beasts.

Her shadow whip-blade snapped in a rapid flurry.

The razor wire pierced the skull of the first beast, swept through the throat of the second, and coiled around the third to smash its spine against the grating.

The largest beast... an alpha chimera standing eight feet tall with iron horns, bolted directly toward Evren. It opened its gaping jaws, spewing a jet of corrosive acidic bile.

Evren sidestepped smoothly, letting the acid splash harmlessly against the steel wall, where it hissed and melted the metal paneling.

The beast leaped, claws outstretched.

Evren raised his left hand, catching the monster by its horned snout in mid-air.

The beast’s massive forward momentum stopped dead in its tracks as Evren held the multi-ton creature by its face with a single arm.

"Too loud," Evren murmured.

He gave his wrist a sharp twist.

CRACK.

The chimera’s neck fractured under irresistible physical force. Evren released his grip, letting the lifeless beast drop to the floor.

The kennels fell completely silent.

Zephyra retrieved her whip-blade. "The decontamination airlock to Sub-Level 7 is ahead."

The kennels fell completely silent, save for the low hum of the bubbling containment vats.

Amber looked around the dark, empty chamber, her expression tightening with unease. "There’s nobody here either," she murmured, looking at the rows of dead specimen tubes. "Sub-Level 4 was wastewater, Sub-Level 5 was drones, and now this place is just an empty monster pen."

She looked at Evren with genuine concern in her brown eyes.

"What if Walter was wrong?" Amber asked quietly. "What if there is no trapped alchemist, and Caldwell set this entire facility up as a trap to lure us down here and bury us?"

Zephyra reeled in her shadow whip-blade, her silver-pale eyes scanning the concrete walls.

"The security escalates on every floor," Zephyra pointed out in a low whisper. "You don’t deploy high-tier combat drones and bio-engineered chimeras just to bait an ambush."

"She’s right," Evren said smoothly, stepping over the alpha chimera’s carcass.

"If the cartel wanted to spring a trap, they wouldn’t sacrifice millions of credits in black-site research as bait," Evren explained calmly. "They are hiding something down here that they can’t afford the Capital to see."

He gestured toward the reinforced decontamination airlock at the far end of the room, where thick sulfur vapor hissed through the seals.

"The heat and chemical exhaust are venting directly from the floor below," Evren said. "Let’s find out what’s on Sub-Level 7."

They crossed the laboratory and stepped into the circular airlock. High-pressure chemical jets washed away the bio-residue before the lower bulkhead unsealed.

Scorching heat rolled over them like an open blast furnace.

Sub-Level 7 was a churning industrial refinery.

Massive iron cauldrons bubbled with blackened sludge, filling the air with suffocating sulfur fumes as brass pipes hissed overhead.

Below the catwalks, dozens of cartel workers in hazmat suits were packaging the toxic mixture into glass jars.

This was where the cartel manufactured their poisoned salves, diluting pure lotus extract with cheap industrial sulfur slag for profit.

"Intruders!" a voice shouted from a raised observation platform.

Four cartel enforcers in hazmat armor raised pressurized sprayers toward the catwalk.

Amber blurred across the railing, shattering the enforcers’ tanks with the flat of her blades, venting the gas into the ceiling.

Zephyra swept behind the remaining two, knocking their legs out and driving their helmets into the deck.

Up on the platform, the chief refinery supervisor scrambled toward an emergency terminal, but Evren was already there. He grabbed the supervisor by his hazmat collar, lifting him off the deck.

"D-Don’t kill me!" the supervisor shrieked. "I only run the dilution vats!"

Evren grabbed the supervisor by his hazmat collar, lifting him off the deck. "Where is Calista Vesper?"

"I—I don’t know who that is!" the supervisor stammered desperately, his eyes wide behind his visor. "I swear to the gods, I don’t know!"

Evren tightened his grip. "Don’t play games with me," he warned.

"I’m not lying!" the supervisor cried out in terror. "Nobody on this floor has clearance for anything beyond here! All our pure celestial concentrates are sent up from Sub-Levels 8 and 9!"

Amber stepped up beside Evren. "What’s down there?"

"They call it the Deep Crucible," the supervisor whimpered. "Director Vane keeps a high-security asset locked in the bottom vault under executive quarantine. Nobody is allowed near that freight lift except the Director’s personal wardens!"

"How do we access the lift?" Evren demanded.

"My black keycard calls the freight platform for supply drops," the man wept, pointing frantically to his belt. "Take it! Take it and spare my life!"

Evren reached down, unhooking the heavy titanium keycard stamped with the golden serpent crest from the supervisor’s belt.

"Thank you for your cooperation," Evren said calmly.

He struck a light pressure point on the supervisor’s neck, sending the man into unconsciousness.

Zephyra pointed toward the end of the refinery floor. There stood a massive freight elevator, guarded by hydraulic steel pillars and glowing runic locks.

Evren looked down at the titanium keycard in his hand, then glanced at Amber and Zephyra.

"Sub-Level 8," Evren said, marrowing his eyes. "The Star Alchemist and the celestial vault are waiting. Let’s finish this."