The state of the security room was quite a shock for Arter and Maximilian, especially since it was already well established how incredibly sturdy and resilient everything inside the ruins were. Even if they wanted to, the Neophytes would not be able to put a single scratch on the wall.
Maybe Arter might be able to do that now that his ability had upgraded, but since he had not tested his limits yet it was hard to say.
Nero and Gabriel, on the other hand, took it in their stride. Nero especially became a lot more relaxed since the possibility of their actions being uncovered in the subsequent years was reduced. After all, if nothing else, just getting his hand on all six of the required keys would not be an easy task, which is why he was prepared for this to take years, if not decades.
He strongly suspected that this would definitely be worth it.
The logistics room was more of an office rather than a storeroom, with multiple computers probably used for logging and monitoring the supply and demand for all items required to run the Vault.
All four of them spread out and began to check through the computers, looking for an alternate exit or some way to communicate with the rest of the facility. After all, the means given to them by the army did not work so deep in the basement.
At the same time, in the depths of Lumina city, in a place that was still out of reach since the fog still surrounded it, there was a particular building that looked similar to the cathedral that Nero had visited, only much grander in every aspect. A shimmering white light surrounded the six towers around the build, slowly getting brighter and building power.
But unlike the other parts of the city, which were mostly pristine, this building seemed to have suffered some kind of damage.
Cracks lined the buildings walls, but more importantly, they travelled up the surface of the towers. Bright light was leaking from those cracks, as if each of the towers was actually used to store the purest of lights. As the lights slowly got brighter, the cracks, slowly but steadily, began to spread, as if they were approaching the verge of what the towers could tolerate.
Yet, for now, the towers held on. The same could not be said for the interior of the building. While Nero had run across a few human corpses within the Vault, if he could see the inside of this building he would finally see corpses belonging to the humanoid panther creature that the dark berserkers originated from, though in their uncorrupted form.
There were, naturally, human corpses as well, not to mention a third race that bore a vague resemblance to Mutts, though their bodies were much larger.
All the bodies lay underneath or around the rubble of broken walls, shattered pillars and destroyed rooms, their numbers increasing the deeper they went into the building. Yet what they managed to do, at the cost of their very lives, was to preserve the innermost chambers of the building.
In the heart of the building, a kind of the automated worker that Nero saw in the cathedral was dragging its broken body forward, using the very blood in its body to inscribe some characters on a massive, cylindrical contraption that contained six individual chambers, each one of them sealed.
Once it drew the last of its characters, the hitherto sleeping contraption suddenly came to life, as if it was finally connected to some hidden source of aether.
"LUMINARI PROTOCOL INITIATED… INITIALISING… ERROR! LUMINARI COMPENDIUM MISSING PROTOCOL ABORTED!"
Each of the six chambers suddenly opened, revealing six cardholders, each of them empty. It seemed that whatever they held had long been removed.
"LAST LIGHT PROTOCOL INITIATED… INITIALISING…INSUFFICIENT AETHER… REROUTING AETHER SUPPLY THROUGH LUMINA CITY GRID! ERROR! LUMINA CITY GRID IS COMPROMISED AND IS OPERATING AT 17% CAPACITY! SAFETY PROTOCOLS OVERWRITTEN. TEMPORARILY REROUTING POWER IN 3… 2… 1…"
For a moment, the entire city of Lumina went still, as all the buildings, machines, and security measures within the city failed.
In the basement of the research facility, the power supply to the Vault was suddenly cut off, turning off each of the machines that the quartet was using, and throwing them into the abyss of darkness.
Nero reacted instantly, summoning his blue flames around his hand to illuminate the room, yet it was unneeded, as Maximilian's white hair began to glow softly. It did not blind them, or cause them to faint, fortunately, and was just enough to light the room, and reveal the shock and surprise evident on each of their faces.
For a couple of seconds, they just looked at each other, trying to understand what had happened.
As a result, before they could even begin to discuss or ponder what was happening, they all heard a loud noise that sounded like rushing water. Yet it was not water that came flooding in through the open doors, it was the thick white fog. More importantly, within the fog Nero could see the shapes of monsters!
"Attack!" Nero yelled at the same time as Gabriel screamed, "enemies!"
Arter and Maximilian also realised what was about to happen, and each of them quickly prepared to face the upcoming challenge.
Nero showed the Snowflake card and threw out sharp, flaming snowflakes into the fog, just before it crashed into them.
Though it lacked a physical impact, Nero felt as if the aether inside his body had been slammed by a sledgehammer when the fog hit him. He was certain that, if at that moment, he had been manipulating his internal aether, it would have popped like a balloon.
Yet he didn't have time to dwell on the death he had just evaded, for death was still coming for him. Since he had not yet replaced the cards inside his armour with Fair Weather, he was not able to instantly try it out. It would only take him a few seconds, at most, to find and use the card, but a few seconds he did not have.
A berserker with a flaming snowflake inside its face came running at Nero. For a few moments the fog was not nearly thick enough to completely blind them, so Nero easily manoeuvred the berserker, causing it to trip on its own legs and fall to the ground.
In seamless teamwork, Nero and Gabriel attacked the berserker's neck with Thunderous Clap, breaking its neck and killing it.
But that is where the teamwork ended, for that was all the time needed for more of the fog to flow in, blinding them both. A heavy silence surrounded Nero - heavy because he knew that there were dangers all around him yet he just couldn't see them yet.
There was no time for hesitation at all. Nero and Gabriel had split the unranked cards between themselves, so both of them had copies of each. Nero reached into his card case, and in an instant even found three cards which, based on texture alone, he knew were the cards he was looking for. But he couldn't tell them apart based on feel.
Before he could do anything, a flying body crashed into Nero from behind him, and he had been completely unable to anticipate it. He was toppled onto the ground, and in that moment he knew the situation was extraordinarily dire.
Without differentiating, Nero activated all three cards within his hand, granting him a brief moment of clarity. The fog was instantly pushed aside, allowing him to see that it was Maximilian who had been thrown onto him, and he was bleeding from somewhere. Nero didn't look at the two dark berserkers looming over his body - an invincible defence had already formed in front of him.
Rather, his eye fell onto the cards in his hand and he finally saw which one was Fair Weather. It was the third.
Nero disabled the cards, just as the nausea was beginning to develop, and threw Maximilian off of himself. This was not the time to be polite. He jumped to the side, anticipating that the dark berserkers might try to attack him, and this time only activated Fair Weather, pushing the fog back once more.
A few seconds had passed and the lights in the room suddenly turned back on, but that did nothing to remove the fog that had already entered the Vault, of the dark berserkers and berserkers within the Vault already.
He heard a thump, and based on the sound alone, knew that a dark berserker had stepped behind him. He leaped to the side once more and drew his curved dagger and got ready for a fight.
He turned around, ready to fight off the dark berserker, but saw a wall of red sand protecting him from an attack.
"Nero, these things are incredible!" Gabriel exclaimed, coming into view, his short sword in his hand, dripping with blood. "This can even cut through a berserker with ease."
Nero raised an eyebrow. Now that changed a few things.