Dan and Kate left the station and he was immediately greeted by Ada. “Kate just sent the rest of us the stats of our cult master.”
“Yeah, he’s been here alright,” Dan said. “He opened the door all on his own and bypassed whatever passes for security around here. Do you really think we can fight him with the numbers and equipment we have?”
“Natalia and I can handle it. It’s what us Bloodknights were trained for,” she said smoothly. “We need to get past this door.”
Dan walked past the Bloodknight and up to the secret keypad on the wall. He figured that typing in every possible combination would be too annoying and time consuming. So he tried to hack the pad like he did the computer in the station.
His HUD began flickering until it fizzled out and Dan staggered away from the keypad. A blue icon spun around his vision blurred and then returned back to normal. The keypad glowed with the same intense purple energy as the door. Dan tried reaching to touch the keypad, but was reminded of Ada’s sword and the smoke that came from her blade making contact with the door. Even as he pulled his hand away at the last moment, he could feel the heat radiating from the pad through his gloves.
Unknown influences detected. Keypad cannot be hacked.
Possible source: corrosia energy.
Ada was right behind him and placed a hand on his shoulder. “Something wrong?”
Dan jerked his head at the Bloodknight, surprised at the strangely gentle gesture, even if the concern was feigned.
“That cult master did something to the keypad. I can’t hack it.”
“That’s unfortunate,” she said. She spun him around and forced him to walk. Ada kept her arm wrapped around Dan. He kept his mouth shut and didn’t question the bizarre gesture. “We might have to use less subtle means of forcing entry.”
She glanced at Adam who threw something up in the air before catching it in his gloved hand.
“Looks like we’ll have to blow open that door,” the skull-faced agent said. “I don’t care what kind of whimsical bullshit that cult master did to it. Nothing survives a direct explosion.”
“Hold the fuck up,” Dan said. “Wouldn’t you risk collapsing the entire tunnel down onto our heads?”
Adam held his hand up while also still carrying the strange explosive. “Relax. These walls may look old, but they’re built tough.”
Dan was unconvinced. “You know, this wouldn’t be the first time you’ve under or overestimated something. I did manage to swipe the shipment of serums away from you guys.”
The skull-faced agent didn’t respond to Dan’s dig at him. Adam brushed past him and adjusted a dial onto the explosive. With a closer look, Dan saw the shape was some strange oval shaped dark grey device. Above the dial was a tiny screen that fluctuated between green, yellow and red depending on Adam’s adjustments.
“Lucky for us, I can adjust the explosive yield on this. I’ll keep it on level two and we should be good,” Adam said.
There was obviously no stopping Adam from this ridiculously loud and over the top method of busting through the giant door. Dan exhaled and turned. “Alright, I’m getting the hell away from this.”
Ada followed closely behind him along with Li and the rest. The team made a dash to the end of the corridor with Adam catching up behind them.
“Timer has a few seconds left,” the skull-faced agent said.
Dan pressed his back against the wall several meters away from the opening to the corridor. A few seconds later, a loud bang followed with the ground shaking beneath him along with grains or dirt and other debris trickled down from the ceilings all around him. He saw tiny wisps of purple energy spill out from the corridor’s opening before they completely dissolved.
The rumbling finally stopped and the two Bloodknights were the first to peer down the corridor. The narrow passage was still caked with dust and the ground ahead was littered with debris.
Ada exchanged a brief glance with Dan and pointed down the corridor with her katana. By now, Dan recognized it as her nonverbal way of ordering him to get moving.
Dan followed behind the two Bloodknights and walked into the dust and smoke. He squinted as he walked through the clouds obstructing the view in front of him. His mask filtered out most of the dust that tried to enter through his airways.
He kicked something hard and looked down. The metal door had been blown off its hinges and now laid on the ground as a warped and blackened slab. He lifted his leg and stepped onto the door, walking over it until he reached the opening.
The two Bloodknights ahead of him hesitated before continuing down the path beyond the locked door. Once Dan crossed a certain point down the new tunnel, a wave of energy smacked into him. It was as if something had completely enveloped him like an invisible blanket. Breathing somehow became more of a struggle compared to the dust cloud behind him. He began profusely sweating and his entire body felt like he was walking through molasses.
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He couldn’t properly see the end of the tunnel. Only a faint light that revealed a fine dust that lingered in the air.
Li came up behind him and was hit with the same strange effects of this tunnel. The stealth specialist grunted at this, but eventually regained his composure. “There’s all types of wrong going on in this tunnel alone,” he said.
“Agreed,” Dan said. He watched as the forms of Ada and Natalia walked through the tunnel unfazed by its suffocating effects. Ada paused and turned around. She held up her hand and Natalia briefly stopped in her tracks. Ada pointed her katana toward the ceiling and then waved it toward the faint light at the end of the tunnel.
“Guess they don’t wanna wait for us,” Dan said.
He pushed through all the heaviness surrounding him and continued walking through the cursed tunnel. Whatever nonsense the cult master did to the door, he didn’t stop just there. As Dan walked, the hazy surroundings gave way to even more bizarre sights.
Streams of dark blue and violet energy floated through cracks in the ground. Dan tried to slowly wave his hand across the plume of otherworldly energy. Even through his glove he felt his fingers tingle at the energy. He continued waving his hand back and forth through the energy until his fingers went completely numb. He immediately took his hand away from the plume of violet.
A few seconds passed and he regained sensation back into his fingers.
“Take it from me Li,” he said. “Don’t play around with that shit. Made my fingers go numb.”
Li’s helmet nodded. “Noted. Do not stick your hand into unknown fields of energy.” The stealth specialist’s delivery was so dry and straight that it made Dan smile beneath his mask.
“Was that sarcasm?”
“Just mild teasing,” Li said. “It doesn’t take an agent to figure out not to touch unknown objects in the environment.”
As they continued walking, Dan acclimated to the heaviness that hit his body and his walking pace was back to normal. He glanced at Li and saw him sliding one hand into his coat pocket. His other hand still gripped his handgun tightly.
Dan saw small objects such as rocks, discarded magazines, and shell casings floating along with the wisps of violet energies floating in the environment. The footsteps from himself and Li along with the sounds of the two Bloodknights ahead produced a strange reverberation that shouldn’t be possible for underground tunnels.
Curiously, he didn’t hear much activity behind him. Dan looked over his shoulder and then fully turned around in disbelief. He elbows Li in the arm and pointed his finger behind him. Further back, Dan spotted Kate, Adam and the remaining Kodak agents who lagged behind. Kate gagged and leaned against the wall beside her. She even threw up and spilled whatever she ate onto the ground.
Adam and the others weren’t much better. The skull-faced agent marched through the tunnel as if he was powering through as if he was suffering arthritis. The others could barely walk in a straight line without swaying or tripping over themselves.
Li turned around and ignored the others who lagged behind. Dan followed suit as he felt nothing toward them. They were his enemies and captors after all. Let them figure it out and endure this strange new environment.
As Dan and Li walked deeper into the tunnel, his nose picked up the familiar coppery scent of blood. His boot stepped into something wet and the fine dust parted to reveal the fates of many Kodak agents.
The bodies of numerous Kodak agents were pinned against both walls of the tunnel. Some still had blood streaming down their bodies while others had already stopped bleeding for a while. Even with their already pale features, Dan could see their bodies were even further stripped of life. Harsh lines were carved into the faces of many agents. Some of them even sported shriveled, wrinkled skin.
Dan’s eyes landed on a Kodak agent whose body was skewered by multiple spears planted into the ground. The agent was face down and his arms dangled from his body. Li stepped up to the body and grabbed the agent by the hair, lifting up his head,
The Kodak agent had blood running from his lifeless eyes and his jaw still hung open with something oozing out of it.
“That’s not blood,” Li said. “Doesn’t have that copper scent. Even if it was fully congealed, blood never has consistency like this.”
“Shit, what do you think these fanatics did to him?”
“The sooner we find and eliminate that cult master, the better. I’d be unnerved and pissed off if someone like this was wandering around in our territory causing this much carnage. This goes beyond just shooting people.”
Li let go of the dead agent’s hair and left behind the corpse. Dan followed closely behind his teammate, preferring not to stick around. The two silhouettes of Ada and Natalia stopped just shy of the light that pierced through the fine dust in the room. The duo caught up with the two Bloodknights and stared into the light.
The light was a shade of ocean blue. He couldn’t see anything beyond the wall, though the lighting was diffused and wasn’t bright enough to blind him.
Dan crouched down and snatched a rock in front of his feet. He whipped the fist-sized rock at the wall of light, curious to see what would happen. Much to his disappointment, the wall swallowed the rock and nothing else occurred.
“Alright then, does anyone know what this is?” he asked.
Ada turned and looked at him. “It matches up with the description Judith gave for what these portals looked like. This leads to somewhere.”
“The problem is we don’t know where,” Natalia interjected. “That rock he threw could have ended up anywhere.”
The rest of the Kodak team eventually caught up. Adam still appeared to be in decent shape even under the suffocating effects of the tunnel. Kate was wiping spit from her mouth while the other two Kodak agents breathed heavily after the walk.
“So this is a portal created by the Church?” Kate asked breathlessly.
“Appears so,” Natalia answered coldly.
“So what happens now?” Dan said. “Do we just jump through and see where it takes us?”
“This could be a trap,” Ada warned. “We have no way of figuring out where it leads to.”
Natalia kicked another rock into the wall of light. Just like the last time, the rock entered through the light. “It’s unfortunate. Judith didn’t train us with more info about these portals other than what they looked like and how taxing they are to create.”
“Well then, I have an idea,” Kate said behind him.
Dan watched as Li jerked his helmet at him before a boot suddenly smashed into his back without warning. Assuming it was from Kate, the force of the kick sent Dan flying into the giant portal.
His face hit the wall of light and he found his body frozen in this position mid flight.
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