*Swoosh*
The town of the cultists was eerily silent as Edana and the two knights walked through it. After walking for some distance, a knight finally spoke. "What are we searching for?" He stopped on his tracks and looked at Edana. She and the other knight turned back and saw him looking at her with a frustrated gaze.
Of the four knights that survived, two were from Edana's squad and two from Lonz's. Both knights of Edana were injured during the fight, so in order to balance out the teams, Lonz divided the knights with one from each squad. So right now, Edana's squad consisted of one knight from her own squad, one from Lonz's squad and herself.
As Edana's sqaud was secretly given a special mission by Night Commander Thorn, the other squads were not aware about it. So the knight from Lonz's squad was confused by Edana, who was walking without inspecting anything.
"Haah.." Edana let out a heavy breath. "According to our intel, there's a prison here where they lock up Seekers." She chose to tell the knight. "We received information that some knights of Sacred Order were also captured. We're going to investigate the location we received in the intel." But she omitted the important parts of the mission.
The knight widened his eyes. "Is that true? Why were we not told about this?" He retorted. Edana shook her head and answered, "I don't know about that. It is a mission given to our squad by Commander Thorn, on behalf of the Grand Master."
As soon as the knight heard the Grand Master's name, he became silent. After a moment, he walked forward and opened his mouth. "Okay." Once again, the three began walking along the town. They walked for quite a while before reaching an unusual shed like structure with an iron door. It was at the south east of the town, and it stood out from all the other wooden structures.
"This must be it." Edana moved towards the door. *Cough Cough* Suddenly, she spat out a mouthful of blood. "Are you okay!?" The knight from Edana's squad came forward to help her, but she raised her hand and stopped him. She backed away from the door, clenching her stomach with her hand. She formed a small blue flame on her hand and pushed the hand towards her stomach wound. "Ughhh" She clenched her teeth, sweat dripping on her forehead. The two knights looked at her with a grimace.
After cauterizing her wound, she looked at her knight and spoke, her voice shaking, "Can you open the door?" The knight nodded. "Leave it to me." The knight moved towards the iron door and stood in front of it for a moment. After observing for a moment, he extended his hand towards the door handle. A blue flame appeared on his hand and melted the door handle. *Creak* The door slowly opened, revealing a stairway which led downstairs.
The knight looked at Edana. "I'll take the lead." Edana looked at her wound and nodded. The knight nodded back and started heading down the stairs, while Edana and Lonz's knight followed. After heading down the stairs for some time, they finally reached the underground prison.
They could see a corridor, full with iron doors on both sides. They could hear the prisoners inside the cells, some banging on the iron door, some screeching and some just screaming. All three of them froze at the sight of this.
---
Outside the dome, Anson was sitting on a piece of rock on the side of the path. His knights were also sitting at the side of the path, some of them injured, and all of them looking tired. Anson was staring at the ground, his eyes empty.
As Anson was sitting in despair with a dead look in his eyes, Thorn and Buck arrived at his side, with a group of knights. Anson only raised his head up after Thorn arrived in front of him. He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out. Thorn put his hand on his shoulder and nodded silently.
Thorn went back towards Buck and spoke. "Can you destroy this barrier?" Buck looked at Thorn for a moment before walking towards the dome. He put his hand on the dome and closed his eyes. After a moment, Buck opened his eyes with a ferocious look on his face, his hand glowing with a blue light from within. He banged on the barrier with all his might, and a wave of blue aura spread throughout the barrier.
The barrier seemed like it moved a bit, but the attack had no effect on it. Buck came back towards Thorn and shook his head. "This barrier doesn't seem like it's formed by a relic. Even if it was formed by a Epic Relic, I'm confident my attack would've had an effect. But there's something special about this barrier. It seems naturally formed, and it doesn't seem like any
Thorn nodded his head and put his hand on his chin. Contemplating for a moment, he turned back towards a knight. "Go back and tell Haskell to bring relic number #16..." He ordered in a heavy voice. Buck turned towards Thorn and widened his eyes. "Bringing out the big gun huh..."
Thorn turned towards Buck with a serious look on his face. "We have to finish this quickly. We'll use whatever we have to."
---
In the underground cell, Edana and the knights were moving from cell to cell, opening the door and freeing the Seekers. As most of them were rogue Seekers, Lonz's knight stayed back and watched them. "Oh.. Sacred Order.. They finally sent you.." Some Seekers were knights from the Sacred Order, who were elated when they saw the uniform of the Sacred Order.
Edana was going through the doors to the right, while her knight went through the doors to the left. After freeing a rogue seeker, the knight moved to the next door and opened it the same way he did the door upstairs. After opening the door this time, he was surprised as there was no one inside. Not thinking much of it, he moved to the next door.
Right when he was going to open the door, something jumped on his head. "Aah!" He tried to scream, but his scream was cut short when the object that jumped on his head covered his face and suffocated him. "Ughh Ughh.." He made some noise before he passed out.
Edana turned around swiftly and readied her sword. The object on the knight's head, which was a green slime, transformed back into a human. Edana widened her eyes at the transformed slime in front of her, who was just a kid.
"Who are you!?" The kid asked.