“Master!” The ed call of Marcus came from above: “Are you alright!?”

  “e down! It’s here!” Master Liaoran urged - he was still fighting against the corruption of the un slime, which was costing him huge amounts of Qi with every breath. There was not much time for him, and therefore there was not much time for anyone else either.

  “Just a sed!” Marcus grabbed two handfuls of gss shards and broken pieces of the gems and stones from the ground and flung them at the closest group of men in bck that did not yet fully lose the ability to fight.

  Qi infused debris broke their helmets and caved their body armors, bringing their wearers down on the ground as well as breaking some mss and the surfaces of ems behind. Gloria did something simir, also kig two men who tried to ambush her using knives in their faces. She then unched awo kicks with simir for their groins. The two men groaned and fell onto the ground, arg their backs like shrimps.

  Keryn grabbed Mid Kevin, tucked them in her arms and jumped down from the giant hole created by the master.

  “Catch me detective!” Tae Kuo crawled to the hole and threw himself down.

  Gloria looked around, then kicked the two men again on their necks to stun them before jumping through the hole.

  “Everyone alright?” Marcus jumped through the hole after making sure that no one was left behind and no one would be able to shoot them from above.

  “Some scratches her and there, but fine.” Kevin sighed as he clutched his left forearm with a piece of blo.

  “There is another level below, and that’s where the specific core of this entire building would be.” Master Liaoran maintained a short distance from everyone: “Please, stay away from this monk - they sprayed me with something utterly corrupting. So - mind your distail this monk could fight it off.”

  “So - if those rocks above are the fuel, then this array here would be the - the extra array?” Mick looked around, wiping off the blood from his shoulder and his forehead, frowning, light of different colors fshed through his face: “Oh no - this ’t be good - ”

  “Boom!” Before anyone could say anything else, a muffled but still powerful explosion came from somewhere above. Directly following it came the sounds of walls and floors crumbling. A gigantic sliver of heavy, spiky debris hit the already cracked ceiling at the far end from the group and brought a rge k of the ceiling down with it. It was a thick boulder of solid stoh pikes on one side, and a living, twitg hairless pale body.

  “Stay away from it!” Master Liaoran raised his voice: “Stay away! If you have any artifact or talisman, be ready to use them!”

  The floor hit by the solid spiked rock cracked. The cracks spread, crawling toward the position of the group. Before long, the floor around the stone crumbled, and subsequently fell through below. Beams of silvery light blue light shot up from the hole.

  A heavy boom came up a few moments after the fall. Marcus scooted over to the side of the hole, trying to take a look down. But more of the floor around the hole fell, so he could only back off.

  Gloria tried as well, but the structure of the floor seemed to have beuch more brittle after the heavy impact - they could evehe bricks and rebars turning into dust and go away with the airflow.

  “The escaped energy is weakening the iy of the building itself. The floor won’t hold.” Master Liaoran shook his head: “Look around - this monk ’t bring you down. There must be some kind of service dder or stairs hidden in the wall. Try to find it - it must be a hidden partment or some kind of tch.”

  Marcus and Gloria immediately began searg the walls around them. They could only hope that the master was right, and what they o find was indeed hidden in the walls hem and not oher end.

  Kevin tried to kno a few walls, but kept getting the same solid sound, so he turo Mick: “Do you hear anything?”

  “No - no - I’ll try!” Mick scratched his head as he tried his hardest to find a wall that would make an unon sound.

  “Boom!” Keryn kicked a wall in front of her. Her leg went right through, revealing ay partment behind it. Tae Kuo and Gloria were the closest to her so they rushed over, just in time to see a number pad.

  “Fug hell. We need a code now?” Gloria cursed.

  “No - this is a trap.” Master Liaoran shook his head: “That kind of intricate eleics ot work reliably in this enviro. It must be something meical, not even analogue eleics be trusted.”

  “Crack!” Keryn’s fingers crushed the edges and the frame of the number pad before she pulled it out entirely. Behind the empty deetal box of the number pad, was a red metal tch. She wasted no time, not even taking a moment to breath or roll her eyes, she pulled the tch with all the might she could jure.

  “k k k….” The sounds of s being pulled came from two walls on both sides of the tch. Shortly, the two walls themselves fell through giant, regur holes on the ground and directly iy spaces below, revealing two flights of stairs downward. Through the regur holes, they saw what was below, a Y-shaped ptform with a rouer and three bridges h over another deep, bottomless hole. Each bridge eg to the ter were at almost perfect 60 degree angles with its neighbors.

  And at the very ter, was a dark pilr eg to the floor of array they were standing on before, to what looked like a hexagon crystal chamber at the base.

  Shout out to my patrons:

  mant06

  Jonathan

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