"A True Word?" Laura looked at Jason.
"Yeah, but I'm not sure what it means to be here." Jason shook his head while slowly hardening the jar in his hand, and infusing it with his Xuanli - this was because he was indeed ready to do what he claimed: turning this jar into a blender.
"Bang! Bang! Boom!" The metal door was finally ripped away from the frame, and the lycans immediately found themselves facing another barrier, which was made with the same kind of silver energy that sealed off the breach in the building.
"Where's the exit?!" Aimee asked with a raised voice.
"There! Under the base!" Jason took a deep breath, and three hardened silver blades came out from both the top of and the bottom of the jar and started spinning in different directions. The centipede-like creature immediately started screeching and struggling to stay at the center part of the jar. But this was to no avail, the spinning silver blades ground its head and tail up piece by piece, turning it into a mixture of thick dark liquid, green and red guts and broken shells.
While Caroline, Thomas and Aimee pushed the dried corpse of the four-winged bat creature away to find the base of the stone tomb, the centipede-like creature trapped inside the jar unleashed a final screech and detonated the rest of its body that was still not heavily damaged.
"Crack!" Pieces of obtuse glass and energy shards flew all over the place, the containment energy seal and array created by Jason and Laura immediately activated and pushed most of the dark liquid and other shredded parts of the centipede-like creature in, but they were not able to stop one tiny and innocuous droplet of especially dark and dense liquid from spewing towards the dried corpse of the four-winged bat creature.
"Boom!" The breach on the ceiling was finally broken, and three lycans still in human shapes descended from the upper floors into the hall. And seeing that the team of Jason and Caroline were standing beside the torn down stone tomb, they instantly lunged from afar at them without even a moment of hesitation, while cursing and yelling threats.
Thomas, Agent Hall and Agent Beckmen opened fire on these three lycans, and all three of them were ready for this kind of attack this time - blood red and dark brown energy shields appeared around their bodies and blocked off all the shots unleashed by them. Though the three continued firing, their bullets just did not have enough stopping or penetrating power to create enough hindrance to them.
Caroline stepped forward from behind and thrust her shield forward, a semi-transparent energy shield covering the entire angle behind the team was conjured in front of her. The three lycans roared and clashed with the energy shield, cracking it in three different directions, and were thrown back by sudden explosions of fire and wind energy from those cracks.
Jason conjured up his silver pen-spear and drew in the air, his pen strokes turned into a piece of silver cloud in the matter of a few seconds, and the moment it was completed, it started shooting silver lightning bolts at the lycans - not terrifyingly powerful and destructive, but powerful enough to make them want to avoid being struck and thus disrupting their plans of attack.
"Found it!" Laura and Aimee's detection spells glowed up around a piece of rock under the base of the crumbled stone tomb and revealed an irregularly shaped stone tablet. But no matter how they pushed or scratched, the tablet was not moved in any way.
"Lifting spell of Horace!" Laura nodded at Aimee and said.
With both of them casting a basic lifting spell on the stone tablet, it finally floated upwards and revealed a brick tunnel lit by candles hanging on the walls underneath. The smell of mold and dust from this entrance signified that this tunnel had not been used for quite some time.
Jason turned back and tossed out a carefully prepared spell he finished just minutes ago - a silver ball of energy flew into the tunnel, serving both as a scout and sensor for potential danger and as a light source. No warning signs so far from the interior of the tunnel.
"Agents! Go in!" Aimee shouted at Agent Hall and Agent Beckman: "Rush the backups and send everyone available here!"
"Okay!" The two Division agents went into the tunnel without saying or asking anything, because they clearly knew that they would be of no help to anyone fighting the lycans: "Stay safe!"
Just when the two agents entered the tunnel and Aimee and Thomas were about to call for Caroline, Laura and Jason, a loud chittering sound came from the dried corpse of the four-winged bat creature.
"Crack! Bang!" The silver energy barrier created by Jason was finally broken down, by none other than Zack Dooms himself. But when the lycans entered the hall, all of them froze where they were, and Jason, Caroline and Laura could barely tell if it was from shock or fear.
The corpse of the four-winged bat creature was somehow reanimated and flew into the air, its wing talons glowing in dark metallic shine, two small pale gray flames burning its empty eye sockets serving as eyes. The True Word on the creature's chest was now smoking and making a sound like that from hot steel making a brand on a livestock.
"Fuck!" The creature was radiating a kind of terror-inspiring aura, though it had just risen from the "dead" and thus had a chaotic energy field and signature, Jason was able to identify its "core" with just a quick look: "That fucking fallen god has somehow taken over! Be ready to fight!"
"And it's using the energy collected by these fuckers." Caroline's entire body started burning in orange and red flames and had a wall of wind formed around her: "Looks like you didn't kill it dead, Jason."
"I'm sorry, first time grinding the remnant of a fucking god." Jason's entire body glowed in a silver light.
Laura did not say anything, but she also unleashed her full power while keeping her eyes on both the bat creature and the lycans in this place. Aimee and Thomas took out their flasks ,drank from them then readied themselves for fights - they decided that they should stay and fight instead of going into the tunnel for now.