Somewhere in the universe, a great citadel stood surrounded by numerous cosmic nebulae, black holes, and stars. One might assume that the citadel was located there by accident. However, a keen eye could see a pattern in the arrangement of celestial constellations.
All the objects in space were floating in disorder. But, if one were to look at it all from a further perspective, one would see countless magical formations that made up one gigantic circle, with a huge citadel standing in the center.
Two people were standing in one of the many rooms. This room contained no unnecessary decorations or finishes. The only thing there was a large fountain floating in the air.
This object didn't resemble an ordinary fountain at all. It was made of a single element. When someone ran its finger over the surface, it couldn't feel any distortion caused by the joining of the fragments.
The object's edges were decorated with the heads of disgusting gargoyles that didn't resemble dead creatures at all. Their faces were made with the utmost care, paying attention to every detail. Someone seeing them for the first time would definitely mistake them for living creatures. The material the fountain was made of looked like it was dotted with countless white stars, similar to those seen on a cloudless night.
If one were to combine them all together, there would be countless forgotten ancient runes, the meaning of which could no longer be deciphered due to the death of the last user eons ago.
The fountain was one of the few artifacts remaining from the Age of Exodus, ruled by beings called gods... The artifacts and ruins they left behind would shock and disbelieve today's creatures. These beings, however, weren't true gods. They were called that because of their overwhelming power and knowledge.
Above the fountain stood a woman looking at the scene the object showed. Her hands clenched tighter and tighter around the edges, and her beautiful face expressed rage. One could sense the raging mana caused by her fury in the atmosphere.
The woman wanted to touch the water's surface, but a strong and muscular hand clamped down on her wrist.
"Stop it! You know very well that you can't do that." - The man holding the woman's hand stated coolly. " Just because it looks like him doesn't mean it is him. I won't let you sacrifice yourself because of your stupid impulsiveness."
There was silence in the room. After a while, the man added.
"You know he wouldn't want that."
The woman jerked her hand out of the man's grasp. Her long white braid, which reached to the base of her back, swayed with the movement, revealing on her right shoulder blade the black symbol of a star surrounded by chains.
The woman's sudden movement removed a scrap of robe from the man's forearm, which bore a similar symbol. The man quickly mended the cloth hiding the stigma, quite as if he feared that someone might see it.
" Pathetic. You are all ungrateful dogs." - Woman snorted in disgust.
"It's not called ingratitude. It's called self-preservation. Besides, we had no choice... not all of us have an artifact from the Exodus era." - The man replied coolly.
The woman's gaze became icy. She looked at the male individual with contempt.
The man sensed that he was no longer welcome here.
"If you ever change your mind, you know where to find me. Our ranks will always welcome you and that bitch." - He added and started to walk towards the exit.
The woman sent him only a cold look without answering anything. Only she and the magic fountain were left in the room. Her delicate hands rested on the edge, and she leaned over and looked into the sheet of water once more.
The woman's face portrayed many emotions. One could see nostalgia, melancholy, longing for something very precious, sadness, self-pity, and uncertainty. But most could be read from the eyes, whose irises looked like infinite space, which was unique and unprecedented.
Despite their dazzling appearance, they weren't full of life, had lost their former luster, and the indifference with which they looked could make one shudder.
People who had already lived their lives in this world would easily recognize the woman's condition. She represented a defeated person, incapable of further struggle, with no hope for a better tomorrow...
A lone tear ran down the woman's cheek, and she fell to her knees, resting her face on the fountain's edge. No one could guess what she was thinking about at that moment.
From the sad smile that appeared on her face, one could deduce that some old memories held a special place in her heart.
The white-haired beauty wanted to take one last look at the image in the sheet of water. Directing her gaze to the projection, she furrowed her brow, and her face expressed surprise.
~~~~~~
Meanwhile, on Earth, five badly injured and bloodied people ran out of the portal. They were all panting heavily, and two women fell to the ground from exhaustion. The dungeon gate through which they came out began to become unstable, and abundant amounts of mana poured out in thin trickles.
A tall warrior with a broken, heavy sword dripping with dark crimson blood dropped to one knee. He took a deep breath and shouted.
"Healer, we need a healer now. All of us to arms. We don't know when this thing can come out!!! "
Along with Arthur's announcement, panic broke out. Scores of people in black suits ran from corner to corner in panic.
Superiors tried to bring the situation under control, but it wasn't that easy.
Young and inexperienced personnel were usually sent to the dead dungeon. After all, what bad thing could happen in a place without danger?
The only experienced team was the one led by Max, but unfortunately, they were the only ones with such a rich background, and the place became a big mess. The man decided to take matters into his own hands.
He raised right hand upward, manipulating the mana contained in the air. Using his mana, he created two energy streams with opposite vectors colliding with each other, creating a loud bang.
This process was extremely difficult to perform. It required the user to have precise control over the flow of mana in his own body. The slightest mistake could destabilize the mana, leading to a spectacular explosion, the epicenter of which was the medium, in this case, Max.
Then he had to form thin threads of inner mana that would wrap around the outer mana to control it. The final and most difficult step was to implant a mana particle from the thread into the wild and untamed outer mana.
This was to prevent destabilization and calm the raging mana.
Normally, the mana content in the atmosphere shouldn't be enough for such an action, but Max had an infinite source next to him, the dungeon gate.
BOOOM!!!
As if on cue, everyone turned toward the sound and saw the perpetrator of the whole incident. Max stood with his hand stretched upwards. The blond man took off his sunglasses and looked coolly at the panicked staff.
He managed to get everyone's attention, which was already a great success. Now, it is necessary to embrace this brothel somehow. Max thought as he looked towards the portal where the injured were lying.
He quickly ran his eyes over them and furrowed his brow. Nowhere in the group did he see Ramiel. He didn't like that.
Max moved briskly towards the group, giving orders in the meantime.
"Timmy, you are in charge of teams 1-4, all to be armed and ready for action within five minutes. Vanessa, gather our people, divide them into groups of 4, and form a rapid response team. Kayn, take people from 5-6, you are in charge of the evacuation. Mica, find Bob and bring him here, then gather the rest of the healers, you are in charge of the field hospital. Victor, Kim-Wo, Rose, and John, get ready to go in there. Julian communication. Execute! "Max shouted.
Suddenly, the chaotic situation improved significantly. The people delegated to the tasks did an excellent job of managing the inexperienced workers. Order and discipline finally prevailed.
Traces of evidence of panic disappeared from the faces of the black suits, now everything was running like Swiss clockwork.
Maximilian stood in front of Ramiel's team. Next to him, the healer made a preliminary selection and began to treat the wounded. A soothing warmth came from his hand.
That feeling was the only pleasant thing about the healing process. The truth was that the activity hurt the person being treated like hell. The greater the injury, the more pain the patient felt.
"Arthur, where is Ramiel, and what does this mean?" - The blond man stood before the injured man and asked in a cold tone. Max had never liked Arthur. He seemed to be a real asshole and someone who was taking advantage of his friend. For that matter, he was never very nice to him when they talked to each other.
Arthur didn't like the tone in which Max spoke to him, but there was nothing he could do about it if the plan was going to work. In fact, no one from Ramiel's former team was injured.
All that blood and their deplorable condition was an illusion created by the artifact. They all had to play the game very well to avoid being caught.
When used on one person, the illusion was impossible to see through. However, the effect diminished with the number of people under its influence.
In order to make their tragic condition more believable, they all destroyed their equipment and drenched themselves with the blood they had prepared beforehand. The rest depended on their actions.
If all goes well, the dungeon gate should collapse under the influence of a multi-level magical formation, causing destabilization and mana implosion inside the dungeon.
Then, no one would find Ramiel's body. No body, no crime.
Arthur prepared himself as best he could to appear credible even before leaving. With an imperceptible movement, he chewed through a capsule of a peculiarity that induced tears and physical pain.
The man pulled himself together and began his performance. Tears ran down his cheeks, and his voice began to tremble.
"This ... it wasn't a dead dungeon! It was an ambush..." - Arthur's lips trembled uncontrollably. To an uninitiated person, it looked as if the powerful man was about to cry.
"We were already at the heart of the dungeon. We were about to take him to close the gate, but then..." - Arthur paused dramatically.
"But then the monsters poured out of every nook and cranny. We dealt with the first wave, but after it came another wave, and after it came another wave, it... it was endless." - Arthur began taking deeper breaths at irregular intervals. This was due to the immense pain caused by the specifics. Had I overdosed?
"After the ninth wave, the floor boss appeared, the first time we saw something like this. A huge humanoid creature with nine hands, and in each, he held a different weapon. His rotten skin emitted the stench of death, but that wasn't the worst of it, his eyes... in his eyes was a sea of souls... Then..."
Arthur couldn't stand the pain and began to cry, making the story less understandable. " Then ... when we killed it, we were in a deplorable state ... but two more appeared. - The man tried to calm himself by taking deep breaths.
"He... Ramiel... He told us to run away... Sa-Said he would buy us ti-time. Samantha didn't want to leave him we had to overpower her to take her with us. As we... As we were escaping, we - we met more mo-monsters."
Max stood and listened to the whole story. As Arthur told the story, he tried to find a lie, a gap in the story. However, everything sounded coherent, and that was the behavior he expected from Ramiel.
"Ramiel, where are you..." - Max shifted his gaze to Samantha and found the last confirmation in her. The woman was in complete disarray. She sat with her legs curled up and repeated over and over again. Her eyes seemed empty as if she had lost the will to live.
Max anticipated what had already happened to his friend. He was angry at these people for leaving him there alone, but wouldn't he have done the same?
No, he was sure of it. He wouldn't, and he would rather die by his side than run away and leave Ramiel to die for sure.
"What happened to Ramiel? " - He turned toward Arthur.
"When we were at the exit... We heard... We heard how - how Ramiel... begging for this thing to leave him alone, and then his scream..." - Arthur couldn't take the pain anymore and burst into another wave of loud crying.
People thought it was caused by sadness after abandoning his companion, which indicated what a good job they had managed to do.
Fortunately, the person who managed the artifact was Samantha. Arthur handed it to her before leaving, just in case he overdid the specifics.
Max clenched his fists and howled through his teeth" - Motherfuckers! You left him for certain death! "
The man couldn't get over what his friend's former comrades had done. If it had been up to him, he would have thrown them all back in the dungeon.
He was snapped out of his thoughts by a woman's fists pounding on his chest. The blows didn't hurt him, they were devoid of any force.
Alexia stopped beating him, catching his jacket in the meantime. Tears may have been streaming down her face, and she began to sob loudly. - " You - You think that - that it was easy on - on us to leave him ?!? " - she shouted through her tears.
Many people began to sympathize with them, but even more, looked at them with contempt for what they had done.
Max pushed the girl away and had everyone taken to the field hospital. Turning around, he saw all the men properly in their positions. They had all done a great job.
Now, it was his turn to retrieve his friend's body. He should be done by the time the reinforcements arrived.
Together with the previously assigned men, he walked towards the gate. Halfway there, a rift in space began to become unstable.
Huge amounts of mana unexpectedly spewed out of it, and the gate itself began to deform. Max knew that one of the worst possible scenarios was about to come true.
Sometimes, when the structure of a dungeon was breached by a powerful spell, it would collapse and implode on its own.
This only meant that Ramiel sacrificed his life to prevent the creatures of the dungeon from reaching the outside world, or at least that's what most of the public thought.
" Everyone uses the strongest protective spells you know. This dungeon is collapsing." - Max began casting the strongest barrier he knew.
He didn't just want to protect himself, he wanted to protect everyone. To do this, he created a damage-reducing barrier. But that wasn't the only spell he used. Knowing the basic laws of physics, he created more than a dozen smaller explosions that couldn't be ignored. This was to balance the power of the shockwave.
BoomBoomBoom
A moment later, two loud explosions followed, canceling each other out. Unfortunately, Max misjudged the force of the explosion and his barrier broke. He felt a strong frontal impact and flew away, breaking trees in the process.
When the dust settled everyone was surprised that they were still alive. They weren't without injuries. In the most serious condition of them all was Max, who took all the remaining impact of the blow.
His bones were broken in many places, and numerous injuries to his organs caused him to bleed profusely.
However, for a man of his stature, these weren't injuries that couldn't be recovered from with proper care. This was happening due to mana. Bodies exposed to it for a long time succumbed to its influence.
The mana penetrated each genetic cell from the inside, improving it on a molecular level. The longer the process lasted, the more complex it became. Eventually, the energy killed existing cells and built new ones from scratch. These activities weren't only aimed at improving the users. Their main goal was to create an environment that could accommodate larger amounts of mana and faster processing from external to internal.
Just creating the right environment didn't mean that your internal mana capacity increased. In order to do so, you had to constantly consume internal mana, in which case mana was naturally replenished in greater amounts. However, the improvement wasn't great.
Some people were able to speed up the process in many different ways, but no one ever revealed how they did it.