As soon as the gates got wide open, the dark angels could see a big group of creatures coming through to the outside. They were being led by a few low-ranked demonic commanders. Azrael began wondering where those were going. It was most likely they were heading to the Pandemonium, to add to Lucifer’s existing troops. The creatures were all goblins and troglodytes – most common beings in Gehenna sector. The current troop seemed to be relatively average in size, however. Compared to Pandemonium’s armies, this was nothing, what got Azrael thinking that very likely those weren’t all of the reinforcements Moloch, the leader of Gehenna, was sending to the Pandemonium.
Once the creatures got through the gates, the gate guards began to slowly close those. Azrael glanced quickly at the guards on the wall. The wall guards were all distracted by the troops that just exited through the gates, and so he gave his teammates a quick command that it was time to make a move. They got into the air and flew towards the gates, making sure to keep a very low profile. Before the gates had the chance to shut completely, Azrael and his team slipped inside. The gate guards were still working on the controls to close the gate and hence did not see anything either. Azrael’s plan worked out perfectly.
Chapter 23
Intrusion
Ethel, Lazarus, and Catalina were passing by the Abyss sector coast and were carefully examining everything in their sight. For the most part the Abyss sector was a wasteland on the surface. They knew that the heart of the sector was deep below the ground level. However, they were hoping they would see an alternate entrance, or at least something that would give them a clue. It was highly likely that any back entrances were well hidden, and therefore a thorough search was essential.
Lazarus soon spotted a group of guards patrolling in a small area at a distance. He pointed out that they had to be guarding something. Ethel and Catalina decided that it was worth checking, and on that note all three of them left the boat and jumped onto the solid ground, despite not being properly docked.
- “We might have to take those guards out.” Catalina warned her teammates.
- “It shouldn’t be a problem. There are only five of them from what I can see.” Ethel noted.
- “Yes, but any kind of commotion is against us.” Catalina mentioned.
Upon getting closer, they could see the guards in more detail. Those were humanoid in shape, but had a pitch black appearance and virtually no visible facial features. Each one was armed with a bladed weapon. Catalina initiated the assault by charging forward and taking her mace out. The five dark soldiers all turned in synchronisation and spotted three angels approaching. Catalina instantly cast a powerful gale, knocking all of them off their feet.
Ethel and Lazarus joined her immediately and ran up to the guards. Catalina finished the first guard off before he even got back up. The others managed to get up and to start fighting her. Ethel and Lazarus got to the battle on time and took two of the guards off her. Catalina efficiently blocked the attacks directed at her and then destroyed the guards with two neat strikes of her mace. Lazarus and Ethel faced a little bit of resistance from their foes, but within seconds managed to neutralise it.
Once all shadow guards were down and hidden out of sight behind large rocks in the area, Catalina began looking around, wondering what the guards were defending. Ethel and Lazarus joined her in that almost immediately. The area was very hilly there and had very large rocks and dead trees all over. The uneven terrain made it somewhat hard to look around, but within minutes the three dark angels found what they were looking for. There was a fairly narrow tunnel on a slanted ground, leading straight down.
- “This must be it.” Ethel was fairly sure.
- “The only way to find out would be to go inside.” Catalina responded.
At that moment she stepped forward and fearlessly jumped into the tunnel. Within seconds she fell down into the darkness, and Ethel and Lazarus could no longer see her.
- “Let’s go then.” Ethel said to her teammate.
- “Yes, we better be careful down there.” Lazarus warned.
Ethel agreed and then jumped into the tunnel after Catalina. She could hear Lazarus coming right after her. The tunnel was going down very steeply and hence she found herself sliding down rather fast. Moments later the tunnel came to an end and Ethel got thrown out into a small, dark, empty chamber. Catalina was already there, getting back up on her feet.
- “I was expecting it to end a bit more dramatically.” Ethel joked, and then got up and stepped aside from the tunnel opening, at which moment Lazarus flew out of there
Lazarus got back to his senses quickly and rose up to his feet too. The three of them were ready to continue further. The only exit out of the chamber was somewhat narrow too and very dark. There were no light sources in the area, and so it was incredibly dark. They could just about see their way ahead, but nothing further. They knew well that there would be creatures lurking in the dark, but nothing jumped out on them yet. Hesitantly, they carried on, making sure to be on full alert.
The tunnel twisted a few times and eventually led out into a bigger chamber. This one had very faint illumination and appeared to be in a very poor condition. There was rubble all over the place, and the three of them had to make their way around it in order to reach the opposite end of the chamber.
Once they got to the exit, they continued through the next tunnel. They expected to come across some guards, but after walking for a while, there was still nothing. The darkness dominating the place was way too eerie and Ethel had to do a double take a couple of times as she thought she saw someone. There also appeared to be some kind of a very faint hum coming from somewhere. Most likely those were traces of the voices which travelled through the tunnels.
Very soon all three of them came across a fork in the tunnel, and so had to make a choice of where to go. Catalina predicted that either way would lead them to the core of the sector eventually, so they picked one of the ways at random and decided to stick to it. Quite rightly the tunnel eventually ended, bringing them out into a large empty chamber, which was so far the most illuminated room of the sector they’ve been in so far. There were two wide tunnels leading out of the room, and the angels realised they were at the main complex finally.
- “We must now tread with extra caution. There will be a lot of guards around.” Catalina warned.
- “And we still don’t quite know where Tenebrae Vim is located.” Ethel pointed out.
- “We have to tune ourselves onto the Void’s energy.” Catalina suggested here, “It is difficult to do, but not impossible, especially that Lazarus is a sensor.”
- “I’ll be on it right away then.” Lazarus said and began trying to sense the profane energies.
After a few seconds he said that he sensed a certain rise of profane energy to their right, at which point all three of them decided to pick the tunnel that led in that direction. Within moments Lazarus warned his teammates as he appeared to have sensed someone coming, and they quickly hid out of view behind a protrusion in a wall. Having a sensor was very beneficial for sneaking in, and Lazarus was going to use his full capacity to make sure this mission would not fail.
The beings which were coming were regular shadow guards. Those did not seem to be alerted and just continued normally as they were. Once the creatures passed by the three dark angels, they came out of cover and continued quietly making their way through the semi-lit tunnel. It brought them soon into another large chamber, with many exits. This chamber was enormous. There were a few guards walking about, but they were really spaced apart, and most of the room was dark, what meant that it was easily possible to sneak past them.
- “It’s getting confusing now.” Lazarus admitted to his teammates quietly so not to be heard, “I can sense the presence of the profane energy, but I can only sense a general direction it’s coming from. This entire place is already filled with it, so it’s hard to tell the minor differences to be honest.”
- “We will try out different pathw
ays if we have to.” Catalina understood him, “Which direction can you sense it’s coming from at the moment?”
Lazarus concentrated harder and then pointed to where he could sense the most of the profane energy.
- “So any one of those three tunnels over there could lead us the right way?” Ethel concluded once she saw where Lazarus was indicating.
- “Yes, most likely.” Lazarus said, although he didn’t seem to be certain.
- “All right then. Let’s proceed with caution. Try not to alert the guards, and be aware of the void varmints.” Catalina said.
The void varmints were nearly invisible beings which lurked in the darkness in many parts of the Abyss sector. They usually attacked as a swarm and were very dangerous. Ethel and her teammates began making their way to the desired location, keeping to the dark corners as best as they could. The dark corners could harbour the void varmints, but being in the illuminated areas meant a risk to be seen by the shadow guards. Everything was working out fine until Ethel felt something strike her on the back. She turned around sharply, but couldn’t see anything. Catalina and Lazarus felt it too at that point.
- “Void varmints!” Ethel warned her friends immediately.
- “This room must be filled with them” Lazarus came to a realisation.
- “Can you see them at all?” Ethel asked and instantly felt another strike, this time from the front.
- “No. We must be quick if we are to make it through here.” Catalina suggested as it seemed like the best option available to them.
They began running for the exits at the opposite end of the chamber, but still made sure to be well away from any of the guards. The guardians of the dark kept getting them from all sides. Each individual strike was not painful, but being repeatedly hurt was extremely unpleasant. Ethel tried casting her shield, but her concentration was slipping each time she was hit and therefore she couldn’t hold one up for long. Eventually a couple of the guards got alerted to their presence. Those in turn signalled to several others nearby.
- “We’ve been spotted!” Catalina announced to her teammates.
They were stranded. More and more guards kept approaching their position, whilst void varmints kept bashing them left and right. Eventually every guard in the chamber was alerted and began converging on their location. A few guards from the nearby tunnels came in as well.
- “Ethel, Lazarus.” Catalina called her teammates after successfully beating down one of the guards with her mace, “You two should carry on. Find the cave and seal it.”
- “Why are you saying this?” Ethel began realising what Catalina was getting on.
- “I will not be able to hold these guards back for long. Go quickly!”
- “We are not leaving you here. We’ll fight them all together.” Lazarus refused to go as well.
- “We cannot handle them all, Lazarus.” Catalina stated firmly, “There are too many, and more are coming in by the second. At least if you carry on, only one of us will die here. The quicker you complete the mission, the sooner reinforcements will come in.”
- “But I can shield us.” Ethel suggested.
- “Not while we’re surrounded by the void varmints.” Catalina rightly pointed out.
Ethel understood that Catalina was speaking the truth. There were at least thirty guards surrounding them at that point, not to mention the creatures of the dark which kept attacking them repeatedly. It was difficult leaving one of their own behind, even though Ethel could very well understand that it was for the benefit of the mission.
- “Go! Now!” Catalina yelled at her teammates and instantly charged at the nearest guard.
- “Let’s go, Ethel.” Lazarus said here and began making a run for one of the exits out of the chamber.
Ethel ran right after him, nearly falling down after one of the void varmints struck her on the legs. She kept constantly looking back to see if Catalina was holding on. A couple of the guards went after them, but majority of others were on Catalina. She fiercely destroyed half a dozen of them, until receiving several fatal injuries and falling to her knees.
Ethel never got to see what happened to Catalina after that, because by then she along with Lazarus entered one of the tunnels leading out of the room and disappeared into the darkness.
Chapter 24
Unexpected Changes
Malakai and Aurora were in the Abyss sector, amongst its lowest, deepest levels. They had to go and speak with the leader of the sector, Paimon. Malakai had no idea yet what he had to do exactly, but he was hoping Paimon would shed the light on the matter. They were waiting for someone to come and take them to him, and very soon Berith rushed into the chamber they were at.
- “It’s about time.” Malakai said with annoyance.
- “Something just came up. Your meeting with our leader will have to wait. We appear to have gotten some intruders and need to find them.” Berith let him know.
- “Well, isn’t it your job?” Malakai was even more annoyed by now.
- “Since you are here, make yourself useful. We will have to split up and find those intruders. Now go!” Berith replied and then ran off without waiting for Malakai to say anything else.
Malakai cursed quietly and stomped his foot down with anger.
- “Whatever. Let’s go, Aurora, and see what this commotion is all about.”
Alastor and Eligos were finally notified of Lucifer requesting their visit to his chamber in order to discuss further action. Alastor was feeling incredibly impatient whilst descending the long staircase. He kept telling Eligos to walk faster and to hurry up, but Eligos was just ignoring him and walking at his own pace. Once they got to Lucifer’s dark chamber and went in, a long silence followed. As usual, they could not see Lucifer among all the darkness. Alastor kept getting irritated with every passing second that nothing happened. Eventually though Lucifer began speaking in his dreadful voice:
- “Excellent. You’re both here. I take it you’re ready to receive further orders.”
- “The assault on the Utopia did not go as planned.” Alastor spoke here, “Their defences barely even faltered.”
- “What are you talking about, Alastor? It went exactly as I planned.” Lucifer seemed to disapprove of Alastor’s criticism.
- “We’ve taken over the Den sector.” Eligos decided to mention the positive, “The leaders said they would obey us, but I still don’t trust them.”
- “For now, because they’re still trying to figure out a way to come out of our grasp, but with time they will fully submit to us.” Lucifer said with extreme confidence.
- “What are our further orders then? We’re prepared.” Eligos asked.
- “We’ve used 15 legions up on the Utopia. Correct? I want you to get preparing the next 20. Once they’re ready, I want them to do the same.” Lucifer ordered.
- “But we only have 18.” Eligos pointed out.
- “Then create some more from the available profane energies!” Lucifer exploded with rage at the stupidity of his general.
- “It shall be done.” Eligos instantly obeyed.
- “Can we march with them?” Alastor asked here, “We can make a difference in a fight. I can assure you, master, I will smash those gates of Utopia myself if I have to.”
- “No Alastor. You and Eligos marching with that army to the Utopia is not part of my plan. In time you will come to understand what’s happening, but for now be quiet and follow orders.” Lucifer sounded annoyed with Alastor too.
The two generals understood their orders and on that note headed out of the chamber and began ascending the long staircase. Alastor kept growling with frustration throughout, because he was extremely dissatisfied with the fact that Lucifer was not sending him to attack the Utopia. He felt like he was missing out on what he was made for. He began doubting his master’s intentions. It did not make any sense as to why he couldn’t send the entire Pandemonium army altogether to blast the Utopia into oblivion. He considered a possibility of perhap
s conspiring against Lucifer, but he did not know who to trust and ally with. It was way too risky.
Beyond the second wall in Gehenna, Adelais and his teammates could see a lot more structures. Everything was densely packed, completely unlike the section preceding this one. Some of the buildings were very high, others not as much. Most of them were in a good condition and only a few required some attention. There were many guards around too, and the three dark angels could no longer hide. They knew they would have to face the guards eventually.
- “We will have to make it to the underground section of the sector. I can sense some activity down there.” Azrael told the others here.
Adelais knew that his commander could sense the profane energy a bit and so decided to trust his word.
- “How do we get down there? Do we have any idea where the entrance is?” he asked.
- “Yes, there should be a large cavern entrance just up ahead.” Azrael assured him whilst trying to remember the layout of the sector the last time he was in it.
Adelais hadn’t the slightest idea of where they had to go and how they would get there, but he had to comply. The place was very unfamiliar to him as he’d never been there before. If they were to hit trouble, however, he would be ready.
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