Nero checked his watch and saw that he had already spent up to half an hour just getting here. The good news was that he was close to his targets, while the bad news was that time was running out.
He needed to navigate through the disorienting fog, find them, and then navigate back before time ran out. As much as he hated to do it this way, it was time to rush things.
Nero lit his dagger on fire and took a moment to enter the right state of mind. He was no longer going for efficiency, but rather maximum results.
He touched the walls of the intersection to see if he could feel any vibrations in them. It was not exactly the best way to find his targets, but it was better than going through them blindly.
To his surprise, it was the walls leading straight ahead through which he could subtly feel something. Yet hadn't he turned in the opposite direction?
He ran forward, and almost immediately found the remains of a devoured human corpse. He could not confirm the identity of the corpse, but at least this was a good sign that he was on the right path.
But his excitement was short lived for he soon encountered another intersection, this one with six different paths. His technique of trying to sense vibrations also came to a failure since three of the walls were vibrating.
Since there was no way to know which way to go, or how things would proceed, he would have to treat this as a maze. Back when he entered the research facility, he had been given a card which could leave marks on the walls so that whoever was passing them could know what was ahead.
Since Nero did not know what to expect, he left himself marks to know which path he had been down already.
The fog was not the thickest he had seen, which meant he could still see about a metre in front of him, which is why he had plenty of time to react when he saw a Mutt. The Mutt and Nero saw each other and froze, but Nero reacted quicker.
One slashed neck later, the Mutt was dead and absorbed through Radix Augmentation which meant that it was soon ash.
Nero went forward, only to run into another intersection. After leaving a mark with the number 2, indicating it was his second mark, he continued exploring, picking up his speed. Yet he stopped as soon as he reached another intersection, because it bore the mark 1. How was that possible?
He turned back, and was able to go back to the second mark, so he left another mark on the tunnel he was in, writing leads to mark 1, before he continued. This quickly became problematic because sometimes he reached intersections without marks, and at other times he somehow ended up back to his old marks.
Fortunately, backtracking always worked. In that case, Nero could only brute force the maze, leaving marks at the entrance and exit of each pathway. In comparison, running into Mutts and berserkers was not much of an issue at all since they were easy for him to kill. So far, he hadn't run into any dark berserkers, but that didn't mean they weren't there.
Nero was practically running through the tunnels by the time he finally heard the sounds of fighting, and followed them. Soon, he was greeted by an extremely unexpected sight.
Bael was standing over a berserker that had been pinned to the floor with some rope that grew out of the ground, and smashing its face with a brick repeatedly. Behind him, a bruised and bloody Silas was launching ice spikes at countless Mutts, keeping them at bay.
Nero took in no time to take in the unexpected sight of the two most unlikely allies, working together to keep each other alive. Instead he rushed forward, and with a double Thunderous Clap, decapitated the berserker, leaving behind a stunned Bael.
But there was no time to gloat. He rushed past the shocked teenager and dove into the pack of Mutts, decapitating them left and right, rapidly dwindling their numbers and alleviating the pressure from Silas.
Unfortunately, now that he was in company he could no longer use Radix Augmentation, but he was too relieved about finding his targets to care about that.
It did not take long before the Mutts were eliminated, allowing him to turn and find the somewhat stunned duo, staring at him like he was some kind of anomaly. They couldn't be blamed. Compared to when he arrived in the ruins, Nero was already considerably stronger and faster. They, in the meantime, were more normal, and did not undergo any rapid growth within the short time frame.
A single berserker was nearly enough to take down their whole team, let alone the berserker and the Mutts.
"It's good to see you guys are alive," Nero said, not wasting any time. "Do you guys have the book?"
"Oh, oh yeah," Silas suddenly said, pulling out a pristine book from his backpack, as if completely untouched throughout the fight. "It's here."
Nero looked at it, saw the writing he did not recognise, and shrugged. If they said this was the one, then it was the one. He saw nothing that particularly stood out.
"Alright, let's get out of here. We don't have long," Nero said as he looked towards his watch. It had already been over an hour since he arrived here. Fortunately, if they rushed back they would have plenty of time.
"No, wait Nero," Silas suddenly said. "We're almost at the end. I believe there's a huge secret hidden at the end of these chambers."
He looked desperate and excited at the same time, if one looked past the fact that he was bruised to the point where he could barely see.
Nero shook his head.
"I'm sure the secret is great, but the situation has changed," Nero informed them. "The fog will roll back over the city in less than an hour, and we need to get out of here before then."
"That's troubling," Bael said, stepping forward. "That means we have to do this quicker than I had hoped."
He reached into his bag, raising Nero's wariness though the teenager didn't show it. Nero didn't fail to notice how rapidly Bael's injuries were healing, or the fact that Bael didn't seem too surprised to see him. The only shock he had received was how quickly Nero defeated the berserker.
"A lot of care and consideration has gone into arranging this meeting, Nero," Bael said, pulling out a file from his backpack. "But you have impressed certain people, and the fact that you've been sent here means you must have continued to impress people during your time here. To cut the long story short, and this is a very long story, I would like to invite you, Nero, into our Unity faction."
Bael paused, looking Nero up and down, and studying his lack of reaction upon hearing the name.
"You may not know this, Nero, but you've been embroiled in a war since the moment you've been born. This is a war that transcends nations and borders, and is between people of a certain… ideology. If you join us, then you can suddenly gain a lot of support, and finally learn about the secrets that have influenced your life, even though you never realised it."
Nero frowned, looked at Bael, and then the folder he was handing him. His brain was working rapidly, trying to come up with all the possibilities that this could mean, but there were too many.
"What if I'm not interested?" Nero asked.
Bael shrugged.
"I don't care. I'm just doing my mission. If you reject this offer, then that's that. The reason this offer is being made here, in the fog, away from prying eyes, is because even if you agree, you will have to swear as if you have no knowledge of Unity. You see, you are in a very particular situation where you can be of great use."
"What is Unity?" Nero asked after a long, drawn out silence. "What do they want from me? What do you mean this meeting was prearranged? More importantly, how can they help me if I agree, and what do they expect from me?"
Nero also eyed Silas, who looked just as confused and shocked as him. "And what about him?"
Bael shrugged.
"I don't know. All I can tell you is that if you agree, you'll have to swear an oath to keep all this a secret. If you don't agree, then no need to keep a secret. You can go tell whoever. It's not like Unity's existence is a secret from those who matter, and those who do not matter cannot do anything even if they learn the name.
If we had more time, I would explain the background of Unity to you, but right now we really don't.
"I can summarise it by saying that Unity is an organisation that is not limited to Kolar, though it includes high-level members of the Kolari army. All I was told to tell you was that this file contains everything that we could find out about your brother's situation. Feel free to look inside. Whether you choose to cooperate or not makes no difference."
Nero immediately grabbed the file and opened it. It was completely empty.