Somewhere on the skies way above the clouds, a glimmer of light was floated around as it left a trail of a ghostly white glow. A floating island was seen maintaining its height under the moonlit sky. A figure could be seen standing on the island as if he was waiting. That person kept his eyes on the glowing trail which eventually landed right in front of him on the island. To his surprise, the person who arrived had some blood splattered on his shoulder and clothes. "You got injured boss?" Cronus held the shoulder that had been cut off and rewound. "Yeah, that [Prince] was expectedly capable of using the powers that was connected to him." Cronus clicked his tongue as he stood up straight and stretched his arm that was repaired. "Either way, I definitely have made a mistake of not sealing the underground facility, they'll eventually find us but I doubt they would make any move." Iapetus shook his head sideways slowly while disagreeing to comfort Cronus. "I don't think that's the case, I'm sure they will find out eventually, but it's just unexpectedly sooner due to the power you have faced." Cronus sighed and simply nodded afterwards as he further stretched himself to make himself feel loose. "Alright, has everyone gathered?" Cronus pulled himself together as his expression returned to the calm state. "Yes, the rest of us remaining twelve are in this floating continent." Cronus placed his hand on his chin as he thought of something else. "Pretty sure you can handle the meeting just fine right? I'll go contact the other groups since it seems like they still aren't making their moves." Iapetus widened his eyes in realization as he seems to know what Cronus is about to do. "You mean... The [Lord of the Depths] and the [Corrupted Celestial King]?" Cronus simply smiled as he told Iapetus to go on ahead to start the meeting without him.
"To think that they're capable of injuring me..." Cronus engaged with a dialogue with himself as he walked towards a building that was used to communicate with the other group. "Guess I'll have to add more pieces to the game at this point." Cronus continued walking with a serious expression as if beginning his preparations immediately.
Back down to the ground, Jay led Audrey and Maria from the front as he activated a flashlight. He had dispelled his [Justicia N Destino] as it was pretty much wasting his mana while walking down the stairs. However, despite that, the three remained extremely cautious as they progressed downwards. Each one of them occasionally spoke to prevent themselves from getting spooked out. After a long time of walking down, they finally arrived to the bottom of the floor where multiple doors could be found leading to different rooms. Audrey found it suspicious as she immediately checked the entire area if any life signs could be detected. Jay noticed that and turned his gaze towards her. Maria remained beside her while she curiously gazed at each door.
"There's nobody here..." Neither of them doubted her. Both of them understood that if Audrey searched for targets, she would easily find them even if they are a thousand feet deep or high in perfect clarity. It was already at the point where she was beyond Draxus, Remuel, and Arlesk combined in detecting presences within an area. But she was still cut short on Serkyrio who is basically able to notice a slight bit of disturbance within a full kilometer.
"Let's spread out, it'll make it faster that way." Jay made a suggestion which got the two to nod in response quickly. Each one of them entered different rooms and explored the underground space with quick leaps of progress.
Audrey ended up entering a room by going downwards even more from a separate spot. She saw multiple chairs and a table with a small light enough to make the furniture visible. She went near the table to examine it for magic. While doing so, a small panel materialized out of thin air as if creating a keyboard of light and a screen that was similarly done by sci-fi movies or shows.
With a curious gaze, she used her magic to automatically translate the language but it still remained undecipherable. She pressed a few buttons to test it out, which led to her getting herself on guard as more magic oozed out from the chairs and the table. Holograms then appeared on each chair with something marking who should be seated in certain chairs. She looked around and recognized two faces. "That's the one Draxus fought and..." Anger flared up immediately inside her as one of the faces she recognized was the person that almost killed Jay, Iapetus. "Just what are these guys...?" While shaking her head and forgetting about her rage to gather info, she pressed a button on the panel that resembled [Play] and the meeting in the holograms began. "Now then, ladies and gentlemen, let us begin the meeting in regards to governing the floating continent once again. We almost have everything prepared for our return to the skies despite having only twelve of us left. Each of us will separate into groups, five of us men shall remain here to monitor our current progress of creating an unstoppable army. While two groups of the ladies shall wander around and check if there are more places to recover lost engine pieces of war. One of you will head to the [Depths] and see if you can find the [Lord] there, tell him to prepare for a meeting with me in the future, and-" Just before Audrey realized everything, it was suddenly cut off. All the data had been instantly deleted which got her to panic and try to recover it. But due to the lack of knowledge in hacking, she was unable to do so. She sighed as she activated her phone to put down all the notes that she had remembered, specially about the facts of a hostile group that governing the skies.
After saving the notes to ensure they won't be lost, she received a phone call from Jay to which she responded quickly. "Ah Jay, good timing, I just collected a bunch of very important information!" After she actively gave a greeting, Jay immediately told her to come meet him with Maria as she was the only one that hasn't returned on time. Audrey panicked a little but Jay made a follow-up. "Maria and I have to show you something important, it's almost unbelievable." Audrey widened her eyes as she immediately went back to the main hallway on where they first arrived. She then found Jay thinking deeply while Maria was shaking. "What happened you two? What did you find?!" Audrey shouted as she briskly walked towards them. Maria immediately grabbed her hands and clasped them together, which got Audrey to completely realized that Maria is shaking in complete fear. She turned her gaze to Jay and asked if what Maria saw was the first thing to check. Jay easily complied as they then followed Maria.
"This..." A grotesque view was presented to them as a wide space filled with multiple lab capsule chambers lined up within an extremely open area. Each lab capsule on the right side contained a woman, and the left side a man as a long carpet separates them. On top of each capsule was a large tube that was connecting to them. Audrey and Jay widened their eyes while Maria ended up vomiting after turning away once again. "Those are... The missing popes and heroes...?" Audrey used her magic to examine everything within the room and noticed space magic being active in it. "There's... Around ten thousand years worth of heroes and popes here... What the hell have they been making...? Or rather, ten thousand years... It seems that they have something to do with the missing history of this world." Jay easily recognized that fact as Audrey had allowed them to catch up on the meetings. While Audrey immediately knew after getting a brief explanation from Draxus before. Maria remained shaken by the sight of people getting used like that easily even beyond their deaths.
After seeing the corpses in the capsules, Jay led them to a different room filled with empty capsules this time. "This is... Where they place their experiments I think..." Audrey let out a mutter as she immediately caught up with the plan after seeing the meeting room. She types down in her notes as she felt an extreme chill. She immediately activated her magic and sensed a dangerous amount of magic coming from the surface. "This mana... It's from Draxus!" She hurriedly told the two to prepare for extreme level combat as they exit the underground space. The closer they got to the surface, the denser the mana in the atmosphere could be felt. Audrey could easily tell, that this was something that could potentially cause the destruction of a country. She clicked her tongue just as the three of them finally reached the surface where the levels of mana in the atmosphere have reached cataclysmic levels. They followed the thickness of the mana back to its source and eventually found Draxus kneeling down as he was holding up Gwen and Olivia with his arms. While Pauleen and Juniper were lying down lifelessly on the ground. Audrey was beginning to snap as more people close to him had gotten hurt. But she held it in due to instinct as Draxus was in the worst possible state. "Corrupted memory... Lost Apocalypse..." After muttering in shock, the three of them got knocked away just after they received his gaze. "Tha-!" Audrey's surprise was quickly interrupted as both Jay and Maria landed badly and lost their consciousness. Draxus stood up and lowered the two girls he held on his arms. He then muttered in a low voice but was still audible to Audrey. "It's okay... I'll be back... Livi... Gwen... All four of you will wake up later..." The four bodies on the ground teleported towards the front of Audrey as if signaling to take care of them. "Lil sis... Contact... Serkyrio..." While looking at her, Draxus's features began to change as dark blue tears flooded his eyes where one turned into a shade of brown, while his hair split into two colors of cerulean and brown. He then faced the hero who was waiting for him to move competing with the mana density. Audrey simply took out her phone as she contacted the only person who can stop him.