The Transcenders

Chapter 74 - Obscure War (13)

"Seth... What happened?" Isaac realized he had fully healed.

"The rebels found you. You had gotten buried underground. Your red magic kept you alive. I arrived in Shroud City a few hours ago."

Isaac remembered what had happened. 'Right. Reptoids attacked me, and I had to fight with all my power. In the end, the underground parking lot collapsed on us.'

"What about Erika? What happened to her?"

Seth sighed. "Do you mean the water mage? She was dead when they found her. The reptoids too."

Isaac focused on his mana flow. "I lost a lot of mana in that fight."

"Yes, you're only at 200 mana points now. But you'll be able to get more soon. Many people die in wars, but let's make sure that it's our enemy's side that does."

Seth stood up. "Now, I believe you had a way to open the gate between Shroud City and Northeast City?"

"Oh, I noted down the gate's password." He showed him his watch with the password written in his notes.

When Stephen's team had hacked into Tech-Think, they found that the executives had stored all the gates' passwords in the company's buildings, and one hacker managed to decrypt them.

Seth walked through the door. "Let's go open it. The rebels and I have already taken command, but none of the old gatekeepers were willing to open it, so we were having trouble."

"At least I can be of some use..." They had done all the work while he was asleep.

...

Ejiro's advanced squad had arrived at the gate. It was nighttime. They camped above a building with a direct view of the colossal gate to Karl City in the second layer.

"Infiltrating a main gate is much more difficult than the ones between cities in the same layer. It might just be taking them longer than predicted," said Ejiro to his comrades. The rebels on the other side were supposed to send a signal, but it had never come.

The dark magic soldier who could grow wings analyzed the gate, holding binoculars with his black gloves. His name was Bryan. He had many gadgets attached around his waist and even more in his backpack.

"I didn't find any weak spots. They're watching the gate tightly on our side, and their mana sensors are on."

Ejiro frowned. The mana sensors could detect the faintest trace of mana someone used and trace them. It would be hard to infiltrate without magic, as the slightest mistake could get them caught, but they weren't supposed to do that anyways. That was the rebels' job. "Let's contact the rebel team on the other side. They were supposed to have deactivated it. Something must have gone wrong."

Ejiro touched a button on his earplug to switch channels. "Karl City, come in."

They waited and waited.

No response.

Ejiro repeated the message, and they waited five more minutes.

"Why aren't they responding?!" Cried Adia, a dark mage in a gray camouflaged suit. Her hood covered her short black hair. She was a southerner like Ejiro. Her power was making sticky, elastic strings like a spider.

At the same time as Ejiro opened his mouth to speak, a deep voice came from their earphones. "Are you Ejiro Sani? I've heard your light magic isn't as powerful as it used to be, that you've become a vampire."

He did not seem like one of the rebels. It made Ejiro shiver at the thought. Something had happened. "Who are you?"

The strange man laughed. There were distant noises, screams, begging, people dying. "We're your worst nightmare."