Xander and his teammates were surrounded by an eerie amount of silence. Hidden in the depths of the concealed vent shafts as they were, there should have been an ever-present sound of skittering insects coming from below. Yet after just a few minutes of travel, there was nothing.

  “I don’t think that this is right,” he muttered after they had reached the border between the different sectors, “there should be significantly more activity near the borders. Especially if Gerome and the rest revealed themselves to the swarm. So, why isn’t there any noise?”

  None of the others had any response, but they shifted nervously while Xander worked on opening the path to the next area.

  When he noticed this, Xander couldn’t help but frown internally. It wasn’t like they knew more about the ruins then he did, after all.

  ”…It’s possible that they’ve encountered something unexpected. Perhaps they found Laisa, or the other squad. It’s been so hectic that I had almost forgotten about them.” Tami whispered her option with a bit of confidence.

  It was a possibility that Xander hadn’t considered. He had thought that injuring whatever it was that had come after them in his medical quarters would’ve been enraged, not distracted or subdued.

  If there was something more interesting, however, then Tami’s guess was more than possible. It’s just that he knew that there was nothing more of value in the rooms that he had accessed over the past several hours.

  “For now, we should get to Gerome. We can brainstorm possibilities later.” Nods all around were the teams response to Xander’s words. Though Tami seemed to frown once more. Her usually jubilant attitude had long since faded, but now she seemed more frustrated than usual. Toward him, specifically.

  Ah! That’s right, she’s supposed to be in command… Is this considered to be usurping her authority? He didn’t think it was, but he was also used to much more authoritative people whenever he was a subordinate.

  Tami didn’t give off that kind of aura. At least, not unless she was asserting dominance through whatever method higher evolutionary beings seemed to have.

  He couldn’t suppress the shudder that ran through his body at the thought of that strength. The need to get to a higher level of power just got stronger.

  ”Xander! Is something wrong?” Heida asked.

  Being next to him, she would be the first to notice the reaction he had to the memory replaying in his mind. He shook his head.

  ”Just a thought regarding some of the things that originally took this place down. It’s nothing to worry about right now.” His white lie was left unnoticed, and the team continued forward once he finished opening the panels to the next sector.

  It would still be a little while longer before they could get out of the reinforced security shafts, but it was better than risk getting caught off guard in the halls.

  —————

  The world was quiet, a stark contrast from the pounding in her head.

  Laisa couldn’t complain, however, since her face and most of her jaw had been destroyed in the blast that had thrown her dozens of meters away and into a reinforced wall.

  Worst of all, however, was the fact that she could feel them.

  The bugs were crawling all over her. Burns across her skin meant that she now smelt like roasted pork, and her camouflage ability was gone.

  If her eyes hadn’t popped and melted, she might’ve been able to see what was coming for her. Instead, she was unable to experience the world around her, beyond the dull pain of her body slowly being broken. Her nerves were fried, and she couldn’t move.

  “Interesting…”

  The voice didn’t make a sound. It didn’t go through her ears and into the bones that rattled for audial perception. Words went straight into her mind, and it terrified her.

  I should’ve stayed calm. Why didn’t I stay calm!?

  This wasn’t the first time she berated herself for losing her cool and jumping the gun on getting a stabilizing serum for her true master, but it was certainly the most significant.

  ”Oh dear… a beloved master… a lost cause… alone and with no allies in sight…”

  The voice continued to speak directly into her mind. Laisa tried to squirm around, to get out of whatever this thing was’ grasp.

  “Worry not… Soon, you will have a new master… a new purpose… your body has undergone its first true molting… thus, you shall have a place among us… a place among the swarm!”

  Darkness gave way to light, but Laisa didn’t feel relief or joy at what she saw.

  The twisted visage of a human face with jagged mandibles dripping with venom, a mouth open over a foot wide, bore down on her.

  It was the team leader from the other squad. She hadn’t run into them during her hunting, but she had just chalked it up to them dying and being eaten.

  If the extensive mutations that mangled his body were any indication, then it was clear that her assumptions were wrong.

  ”You recognize us… good… It will be nice… to have a familiar face… The swarm has grown strong… yet lacks direction… you, and the other molted meat… will show the way…”

  She tried to scream. The half insect, part human, part other mutations, monster in front of her shook with laughter. Then things got worse.

  Pain like nothing else wracked her body, and her vision split nearly a hundred times, granting her multiple views of everything around her.

  In the reflection of the eyes in front of her, she saw herself. Her eyes now compound, and with rubbery tubes sticking out of her body.

  Her need to scream grew larger, even as she lost consciousness.

  The last thing Laisa saw was her own skin bursting apart as new limbs, covered in carapace, burst from her sides.

  —————

  Walking through the halls was daunting, given the danger they had just escaped, but it was enough for them to stretch, rather than remain cramped in the crawlspaces protected by the walls.

  “Are you sure that this is the right way?” Morris asked after they had made yet another turn, only to be greeted by more of the same reinforced corridors as before. “It really feels like we’re not getting anywhere.”

  Looking over the transformed Gene Warrior, Xander saw Heida doing the same, while Morris fidgeted while they all made their way forward. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw that even Tami couldn’t help but give her a second glance. Her new attitude was the most jarring change, in his opinion.

  Her appearance was now a mirror of her sister, but there was a certain grace to her movements that wasn’t there before. What was once a caged cat pacing with a limp from unseen injuries was now a proud tiger, lazily lying on the ground, but with eyes still darting about for any signs of danger.

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

  Both were deadly, but the difference was clear. Even if he knew that, with his more advanced Gene-Mods, he was, technically, stronger than everyone here but Tami. Physically, at least.

  “Just a few hundred meters more. Given what they did in the main halls, I had to divert us to a different area of their sector. We’ll have to back track a little bit too, so don’t be alarmed if it looks like we’re at the border between sectors again.” He couldn’t blame her for the boredom. He was barely familiar with this area, and knew just how uninteresting it was.

  There were several rooms that they had passed that the twins had wanted to investigate, but their hopes were dashed when Xander explained what they would find.

  “This is the primary warehouse and server area. The medical stuff and true research labs were the first zones that were hit, so they were lost before anything else. The intact areas are almost entirely residential and storage. Which contained the archives, but it’s still more boring than the rest.” His words had dashed most of the interest that the three women had, but then he mentioned the other floors.

  It was just a shame that he had no way of getting them into those areas right now. So long as the swarm was here, it just wasn’t safe to go into the areas that they didn’t currently have access to.

  “Freeze!” The sudden shout from behind them startled the quartet, and they immediately took up defensive position, with weapons bared.

  Looking back, the four of them all had laser sights pointed directly at them. Little green dots appeared on their heads and chests. Firearms held by a squad of Wrathmor soldiers were primed to fire at a moment’s notice.

  ”Captain Tami?” The tallest of the other squad stepped forward, waving a hand to get the others to lower their weapons. “What the hell… How did you get here? The sector you were in was getting overrun. It should’ve been impossible for you to get out of there. Let alone make your way into the section we’re in right now.”

  Tami just gestured in Xander’s direction.

  “You can thank our VIP. After we got in here, he managed to find his private quarters from when he lived here before he got frozen. From there, he was able to get access to the hidden security shafts and get us out. It seems like the bugs didn’t manage to get access to them, so we had a safe path straight here.”

  The soldiers collectively stared at Xander, but he wasn’t paying attention. Instead, he was focused on the one soldier that hadn’t put his weapon down yet.

  There was a slight tremble in his hands, like he was trying not to pull the trigger.

  “Hey… you guys checked to see if there were any other traitors like Laisa, right—”

  BANG!

  Xander found himself thrown backward from the force, and his team was covered in gore, blood, bone, and viscera as the heavy anti-armor round went right through him. He had attempted to move, but the shot was too fast.

  Much to his shame, he had also frozen up and opened his mouth before he could think about what he was doing. The fact that the man had seemed so reluctant to fire had also made him pause. A mistake that Xander wouldn’t be making again.

  The shot went off right as the other squad leader swiped at the soldier in question, but he seemed to flow like water and bent out of the way before running down the hall at a much faster pace that a Rank 0 should’ve been able to reach.

  ”Damn it! How the hell did we not notice him?” The squad turned and let loose a burst of bullets, but the traitor had already gotten away.

  In the meantime, Xander was lying on the ground. A large hole in his torso, right where his heart would be. Blood began pooling on the ground, but steam wafted up before the other squads’ medic could get to him.

  It took several seconds, and enough energy to drain his stores, but he was up again within a few minutes, being looked over by the soldiers like he was some kind of miracle.

  He couldn’t help but think it was strange, given the sheer number of things they must’ve seen during their service to the kingdom.

  Xander just grabbed a nutrient bar from his supplies, flinching at the taste, but forcing it down all the same.

  “Let’s talk later, with Gerome, if possible. We need to pack up and get out as soon as possible. I don’t trust this place to keep things safe for much longer. Not if we have idiots like that running around, potentially trying to open up doors and letting the bugs in if they do.”

  The other squad nodded silently, while his own team fretted over him to make sure that he was okay. Something that made him feel a little bit better after getting shot.

  —————

  Standing in the temporary command center for Gerome and the rest of their forces, Xander and his team waited in silence while the Rank 2 leader of this expedition looked over them. His eyes lingered on Morris for longer than the rest, barring Xander.

  “It seems like your excursion was fruitful. I hope that you saved some for the rest of us.” Xander sensed a bit of hostility in the man’s voice but wasn’t sure what it came from. As far as he was aware, they hadn’t broken any rules.

  “Records and files, as well as full Paths and a few materials, serums, and gene-mods that weren’t usable at the time.” Xander gestured to the bags that his team had placed on the table. “On the off chance that we ran into trouble that couldn’t be avoided in the secure vents, I wanted to ensure that we had the highest chances of success in our escape. Something that was necessary, when a potential Ascended beast began breaking down the door to our hideaway.”

  Gerome hummed in disinterest. “I guess that’s enough. Though, I will be questioning you later, regarding exactly how you managed to incorporate 8 more Gene-Mods into your body in such a short time. The specifics regarding such gene stabilizers are something that the Malicent Kingdom will not let go.”

  ”Of course, sir. Though, I must specify that the one I used was only good up till the middle stages of Rank 3. Even then, it would’ve required several supplementary materials to get to that point. It should be in the records that we handed over.” Honestly, Xander wasn’t sure if that serum was even possible to make any more.

  The materials were rare back when this facility was at peak performance, let alone now, when who knew how many creatures had been wiped out or mutated into something different than they once were.

  “If that is true, then you’ve gotten us a significant prize. One that will likely outweigh the ones that you took for yourselves.” He pointedly looked at Morris, who bowed her head in submission. “More on that later. For now, I need to know how we can get out of here. Ideally as far from the mountain as possible. We found some schematics, but if you know of any other hidden passages out of here, that would be appreciated.”

  Xander knew that he was asking for information that wouldn’t have been on record. Things like the failsafe exits that weren’t on the blueprints.

  Unfortunately, the most likely ones that were usable were already made known, or were destroyed when the ruin was broken into, however many thousands of years ago that was.

  There was one possible path, but beyond that the best choice was likely to wait until the crevasse that Gerome and his team had entered from was clear of any bugs, then sneak out and take a long route around the area where the swarm was still roaming.

  He told Gerome as much, but the specialist insisted on finding a different path out. It seemed that it was too much of a risk, given how precious their current cargo was.

  ”Then the only other thing that I can think of would be to go to the other safe section. I know that, of the six sectors this place was split into, three were overrun, while one was just destroyed. So, we still have at least one sector that’s safe; relatively.” Xander went over to the map that Gerome had put up on the monitors. “Here. This is where we’ll find another exit. But I must warn you, even though it’s on the other side of the ruins, and separate from the bug’s apparent territory, there’s the possibility that we’ll come out in territory belonging to some other Ascended beast. The environment itself will also be bad, given where we’ll be exiting.”

  Left unsaid was the other weird things that would happen if they decided to go through with using this exit. Things that Xander decided Gerome didn’t need to know at this point. It was too important for them to get out of here. Any other distractions would just harm them all in the long run.

  Fortunately, Gerome waved him off rather than asking for more information. “It’s fine. I’d rather take the chance at this point. Facing off against the bugs again is the last thing I want to do right now.”

  At that moment, a scholar barged into the room with a flashing tablet in hand.

  “Elma! What—”

  “They’ve broken through! The bugs have broken through the sector barricade. We’ve had to shut down over a dozen blast doors and security barriers, but they’re slowly getting through!” Elma moved over to the monitors, swiping away the map and plugging in her tablet. “That’s not all… It seems like they’ve figured out how to operate the access panels… Sir… I think they’ve got parasites.”

  A heavy silence filled the air. This was the wrist possible situation they could be in, and the sight that Elma had put on the screen was something straight out of a nightmare. 2 figures, both heavily warped and mutated, stood hunched over a swarm that surrounded them. Rank 2 mutant beasts carried them forward, but their human origins were clear as day.

  Such creatures were rare, but Xander’s instincts screamed at him, indicating just how dangerous these parasitic insects were.

  The partial and burnt visage of Laisa stood alongside the ripped and torn body of the other squad leader that had accompanied Tami’s team into the ruins.

  Both were clearly insane from pain and whatever it was the swarm had done to them.

  “Xander… Can you operate the security measures from here?” Gerome’s voice was utterly emotionless.

  “Somewhat. For the immediate area, yes. But we’ll need to move quickly. If they’ve figured out how to get through the access panels thanks to the Malicent Kingdom’s technology, it’ll only take a few minutes, if that, to get through them.” Xander moved over to a monitor, separate from the one Elma was using. “I’ll stay here and try to divert them and open a path to our exit that’s as straightforward as possible. You guys get packed up. This command center isn’t going to last once they get here.”

  ”Right. Once you’re done, find me. I’ll have separate orders for you and your team.”

  With that said, Gerome headed out, bringing a curious Tami and a set of twins with him.

  Elma scurried after as well, leaving Xander alone to figure out how to navigate the maze that was the Sage Empire’s ancient ruins.