In Dan’s mind, there was no way he was accepting Judith’s offer. But the Bloodknight was still significantly more powerful than him, even after his recent power boost. Dan activated his warp dancer and dashed out of Judith’s grasp.

  He stopped just a few meters away. “First off, don’t pop up behind me like that again. And second, I’d much rather focus on killing this cult master first before I rush into your offer.”

  Judith gave him an amused huff. “Very well then. We’re almost close to the remnants of the team. I’m sure you would love to see Kate again.”

  Dan narrowed his eyes at her but kept his mouth shut. The Bloodknight walked past him and he followed behind. The pair continued moving through the decimated streets. Everything was a blur of more burning vehicles, dead agents and roads and buildings with craters in them.

  Eventually, Judith led him through the front courtyard of another office building. She suddenly stopped. “So that’s how it’s going to be, huh.”

  “What do you mean?” Dan said.

  “Natalia from the second group is telling me the cult master is gathering his forces underground again. Guess we’re heading down again.”

  Dan looked around and noticed that Ada hadn’t regrouped with him and Judith. “What’s Ada up to?”

  “I’ve ordered her to stay on the surface and maintain her current position,” she said. She looked down and her eyes followed through to the entrance of the building in front of her. “Now lets go.”

  He let out a sigh as he followed the Bloodknight. It was annoying that he wasn’t privy to the same information Judith had and had to simply trust her. Judith swung the front door open and both entered the lobby. The Bloodknight led him to an elevator. She imputed a series of button presses and a small panel in the wall flipped over to reveal a hidden control panel. Judith imputed a series of commands into the hidden pad before the elevator doors opened.

  The Bloodknight slapped him on the shoulder and gestured him to get inside. Dan walked in first and Judith stepped in after. The elevator doors shut and took them down.

  “The hell? So we got secret underground tunnels now accessible through regular buildings?”

  “That’s for me to know and for you to forget once this is over,” she said. “Unless of course, you officially become a Bloodknight. Then you’ll be allowed such knowledge.”

  “Right,” he said apprehensively.

  The two didn’t say a word to each other after that. Dan had nothing left to talk about with Judith. All he knew was that Judith was probably the most powerful agent he had met aside from Michael Cynosa and she held some fucked up ideas about power. If he and Li were to escape and get back home, Judith would be the biggest obstacle. And he had no idea how he would defeat her if she got in his way.

  The elevator doors finally opened and Dan was perplexed by what he saw. In contrast to the pristine and brutalist aesthetic of the building they had entered and the interiors of the elevator, in front of him was a site that resembled some underground mining operation.

  As he stepped out, he looked down and saw the rocky terrain beneath his feet. He stepped closer to the edge of what appeared to be a small cliff. Looking around, he saw giant constructions light bolted high onto the rocks as well as giant lights that lit up the lower levels below.

  “Don’t get too mesmerized. We still need to do more walking,” Judith said.

  The two marched onward and Dan saw a few bodies up ahead. The Bloodknight paid them no mind as she stepped over them without even looking down. Dan glanced at the corpses and saw they were Kodak agents. Three of them had their armor punctured by radioactive rods and the fourth had their entire chest piece charred and smoking from a direct hit of an energy blast. He knew the Church of Nanotology had been here.

  Dan walked past the corpses and walked up to Judith who had stopped in her tracks. The Bloodknight gave an annoyed groan.

  “This will take too long if we go on foot,” she said. Judith shut her eyes and for a few seconds, Dan was kept in the dark about what she was doing.

  “Okay then,” she said. “I’ve locked on to Natalia’s exact location. We’re going to teleport over there to her.”

  “Wait what?” he asked. He jerked his head around looking for where the second team was and saw nobody. “I don’t have line of sight on these guys.”

  Judith chuckled at him. “Oh yeah, you must have witnessed a more primitive version of the death step. I can teleport to locations without needed line of sight. You know, if you accept my offer to join me, you might learn it too.”

  Dan shot her a defiant look. But privately, that thought unsettled him. It would explain how Judith was able to simply pop in and out when she teleported onto the battlefield. Li’s version only allowed him to teleport a relatively limited distance and he needed to see where he was going. The stealth specialist also needed time to charge the energy to use the death step while Judith could just do it instantly.

  “Did you know that I can take some passengers with me,” Judith asked.

  This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

  “No,” Dan said. “Everything you have been telling has been nothing but new information.”

  She suddenly grabbed him and lifted him up for a bear hug. “Hold on tight. We’re about to regroup with the rest of the team in a flash.”

  Being this close to the female Bloodknight, Dan admitted that all he wanted was to get away from this crazy bitch. Judith might be conventionally attractive if you could get past the bloodshot eyes and ghostly skin. But after spending less than a day with her, Dan knew he would rather be anywhere else but within her proximity.

  Dan’s chest felt heavy. It wasn’t from Judith hugging him tightly, but he felt like some invisible force was pressing down on him from all sides. To his eyes, the entire world around him zoomed out and was distorted by some fish eye effect. In the next instant, he and Judith were standing in a completely different set of surroundings.

  Judith finally let go of him and Dan staggered a bit before regaining his footing.

  “Neat trick isn’t it?” she said. “Looks like we’re close. Natalia’s team is taking up position already. We should join them.”

  He looked around and was no longer standing around rocks and rough terrain. The place was cold, a drop in temperature so drastic that his bare face felt like he was in a different season. His eyes were greeted with artificial lighting along the low ceiling and and a hallway made up of dull gunmetal grey walls.

  “We’re just outside of the emergency bunker,” Judith said to him. “One of the many underground shelters used to move citizens during attacks from rival shards. I’m impressed the Church has managed to find their way down here.”

  Dan followed Judith as she led him down the desolate and cold hallway. As they both got closer to the end of the hall and to the door, he felt a familiar tingling on his skin. It was the same feeling from the subway tunnel when he and Li were approaching a portal that had been opened.

  “Oh yeah, they’re around,” she said.

  “Who? The rest of our team?”

  “Not just that. I can feel the corrosia in the air. There’s a large gathering of those fanatics inside the open interior just up ahead. Keep your voice and head down and we’ll see what these freaks are up to.”

  They quietly walked through the opened door leading into a catwalk that overlooked a large open space below them. The drop was around twenty meters below. The entire area was dark, save for a few sporadic artificial lights scattered throughout the interior of the bunker. Down the open section, Dan saw the same white-robed figure from the security footage. He held his arm out and vibrant purple energy radiating from his arm. The energy was being fed to a bunch of robed members. He counter at least more than forty members in hooded robes whose bodies were all radiating with energy, faintly illuminating the under bottom level of the bunker. Luckily for him and Judith, the light bulbs near the catwalk were off, giving them the cover of darkness.

  At the far end of the catwalk, Dan saw multiple figures also keeping a low profile and watching what was happening below.

  “Looks like everyone is here,” Judith whispered.

  Dan tried to reach Li through the private channel, but still couldn't reach him.

  “Well, well, well,” Judith said. “This should be interesting.”

  Dan glanced at her. “What the hell is going on down there?”

  “It’s that cult master. He’s more capable than I thought. You see what’s he’s doing, transferring his corrosia energy to those cultists? He’s a psychic commander. He’s basically taking direct control over his followers.

  Dan watched as all forty of his followers knelt before him in perfect unison. He had never seen movements among so many individuals be in perfect sync.

  “I mean, they’re all in a trance-like state under the direct control of the cult master. They might as well be zombies.”

  “Should we be worried?” Dan asked. “How strong are they compared to all the cultists we’ve encountered?”

  Judith turned to face him and her expression was grim. She didn’t have the same slasher smile or predatory grin on her face. “When corrosia energy is so powerful that it glows like that in the dark and is spread over a wide area beyond an individual, it’s no joke. All of those cultists down there are probably just regular men and women who are nothing more than just believers in the Church of Nanotology. But when they’re under control of a psychic commander like this, they’re easily much stronger than any normal man. Hell, it’s a dice roll as to what single new power each one of them gets. This cult master is going to be a problem.”

  Dan performed a scan of the cult master who was still feeding his corrosia energy to his followers. More robed cultists approached the group of forty in the center and the cult master began spreadingmore of his corrosia to the newcomers.

  Agent: Leonardo Atreus

  Age: 32 M

  Shard: Church of Nanotology

  Rank: Tier 3 | Level 55 - Cult Master

  Strength: 90

  Agility: 89

  Endurance: 92

  Intelligence: 94

  Healing Factor: n/a

  Dan had never seen a higher-ranking Church agent in person until now. Even from this distance, he could feel waves of heat just from the transfer of corrosia energy below. The heat completely washed away whatever ambient cool temperature these was from the hallway.

  The sight below him became even more bizarre as he watched the cult master levitate off the floor. He floated a few meters off the ground while still continuing the spread his corrosia to his followers. From all the additional newcomers that arrived, the cult master now had over a hundred followers being enhanced with his corrosia.

  “So what’s the plan here?” Dan asked. “I feel like this won’t be as easy as me sniping him from up here. Some of the Church agents I’ve fought had psychic fields that could redirect gunfire away from them. If that cult master is the most powerful of them all, then no one is ending this with a single bullet.”

  “You’re right. Good to see you have a functioning brain,” Judith said. “With me here plus you, your friend, Natalia, Adam and Kate, two others I can’t remember the names of, we should be able to kill this fucker. Oh and Ada is still on standby on the surface.”

  “Are you sure about that? We’re really going to fight all of this without more backup?”

  Judith huffed. “Who do you think I am? I’ll take a crack at that cult master while the rest of you get the trash out of the way. Does that sound fair?”

  Dan narrowed his eyes at the Bloodknight. While there was no arguing that Judith was the strongest one among them, something about her taking on the cult master herself while Dan and the rest were relegated to dealing with the enhanced cultists felt… unfair? Like he was being cheated out of proving himself with his recent power boost.

  But since Judith was still running the show and she had proven capable of getting around his guard more than once, Dan saw no point in debating her. In the corner of his eye, he spotted a figure quietly moving toward them along the catwalk.

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