Chapter 224: A Second Passage, An Unknown Party?

As Rick and Breya stared at Vernisa, they were momentarily lost for words as they didn't think she'd make such a drastic move to end up in this state.

Vernisa seemed to know what they were thinking about, but she didn't seem to mind it; she gave them a good look before she spoke in her weakened voice, "Worry not about me, my… my condition is already at its limit, I… I trust… that you want to know where the others went?"

Both Rick and Breya sighed as they knew nothing could help her; what she had more or likely given away included not only genetic power but the very energy that guided her life.

Breya replied with a tone filled with respect, "Yes, Madam Briggs, we've arrived pretty late, but I can promise you that we shall do our best to bring everyone to safety.

"..." Rick remained silent as he stared at her, not saying anything.

Vernisa sighed, trying to gather a bit more power to keep herself conscious, her eyes drooping once more as her pupils stared towards the room outside.

She then spoke, "They've… they've gone to the underground hideaway... a failsafe for events such as these, there are only two passages, the first… has already been destroyed, the second.... cough..."

Vernisa tried to speak, but at this point, she started to cough up blood, her vision turned black as she felt a wave of chilliness.

Rick and Breya knew that this was her final moment; they sighed, prepared to leave, but Vernisa still managed to utter a few more words, "The second... is at the underground shelter in checkpoint... 0...1...."

Following those words, Vernisa finally lost herself as her mind truly left this world.

Rick sighed as he stared at her and spoke, "May your journey to a new life be a better one..."

Breya didn't say anything for a while; they weren't that close to this world's persons. However, that didn't mean that she could so easily ignore a former comrade's death, even if she were used to this from her military background.

Breya hurriedly took off the gadgets and wires from Vernisa's body and lifted her; Rick looked at her and asked, "What are you doing?"

Breya gave him a look and replied, "I can't leave her corpse here now, can I? I'm taking her back to her people..."

Rick looked at her, seeing the stubborn look in her eyes, he turned his head and decided to say nothing; like a blur, he rapidly left the room headed for the outside.

Breya didn't mind his actions; she tossed a mechanical cube onto the ground that quickly grew and formed into a metal casket.

After it formed, she gently placed Vernisa into it before pressing a button at its side; the metal casket then sealed itself tightly.

Breya grabbed the casket and then placed it inside her storage space; she had already experimented before and knew that the storage space could store non-living things.

'Whew, it's time to meet Evan and the others; although they've suffered quite a bit of loss, the majority had still managed to escape. I suppose that itself can be considered a good thing,' Breya thought to herself as she left the secret room.

As she went outside, she noticed Rick was waiting in silence as he stood at the room's edge. Breya frowned as she stared at him and spoke while walking over, "Hey, what are you doing at the window? Are you trying to let them know that...?"

Breya was about to say something, but as she arrived at the window, her eyes couldn't help but be drawn towards an unusual scene.

Various new mutant bee corpses were already added to the pile, and it could be seen that it was the multiple holes in their bodies that killed each of them. The second Bee General that had been overlooking the workers had a look of terror on its face, as if one looked carefully, they would notice that not only was its body limbless, a handsome brown-haired youth caught him by his neck.

'Sheesh, they've already caught up, this guy keeps getting way too strong... I guess that should be a good thing...' Breya said inwardly as she looked at Evan with a look of wonder.

Rick had a competitive look in his eyes, but he also knew this wasn't the time for such things.

Evan, glaring at the Bee General, seemed to sense their gaze; he waved his hand, knocking out the creature before turning his head towards them and smiling.

He then spoke, "Ha, you guys sure work slow, we even manage to catch up to you, look even Joe has already cleaned up most of the monsters here..."

As Evan said this, he pointed at Joe, who was panting for breath as if he had just run a marathon race. He was so tired that he didn't even have the energy to curse at Evan; he merely pointed at him and shook his fat finger.

"Brother, stop moving so much, you are interrupting Layla's spell..." Emilia said with discontent as she looked at Joe.

Layla seemed to be having a bit of trouble healing Joe due to his movements; Joe sighed, making a helpless look as was slowly healed to full health.

Breya felt it to be funny, especially when Joe was in that state; she licked her lips, thinking unknown thoughts.

On the other hand, Rick rolled his eyes before he spoke, "Since you've already caught him, have you found out anything about their Insect Clan?"

Evan's face turned a bit serious as he replied, "Not yet, but it won't take long for me to get what I want; let us first leave here and discuss these details later."

Rick nodded in reply as Joe, Emilia, and Layla also showed looks of compliance. Rick was about to tell them about the previous findings, but before speaking, Breya had beat him to it, "Wait, there's something else."

Evan and the rest turned to look at her, Breya seeing their look, spoke again, "I've found out the location of the others, let's head there to do the interrogation."

When everyone heard this, their eyes lit up as they spoke with excitement.

"That's great, and here I thought we were at a dead-end," Joe said as he looked around at the rubbles that blocked the underground passage.

Layla and Emilia nodded as they were feeling a bit troubled that the route was destroyed; Evan had a bright glint in his eyes when he spoke, "That's perfect, who did you find this out from? Also, where are they now located?"

Breya and Rick gave each other a look, before Breya replied, "I'll speak about who we got it from later, right now, I can only tell you the location. It's somewhere within Checkpoint 01, based on the details, there should be a building with a similar underground passageway."

Joe and the others gave Breya and Rick a look as they pondered, but Evan didn't say anything about their source; he merely replied, "Okay, then let's get moving; its already nearing the night hours; we've been at it all day and it's about time you all got some rest."

"Right, let's go!" Joe said in a loud voice; it seemed that he was plenty exhausted from all the effort prior.

The others looked at Joe and shook their heads as they notice a new horde of mutant bees coming there; it seemed that they were alarmed by Joe's yell.

Evan didn't mind the danger; he merely stared at them as he called out his two swords once more and spoke with a sharp glint in his eyes, "Let's clean up the rest of these guys as we move along; its best to not waste any chance we can to get stronger... besides, the EXP is abundant…"

The others nodded as they similarly took out their weapons with battle readiness and charged towards the mutant bee horde's direction. Their figures now coated in a myriad of Battle Energy and Spiritual Power, making them akin to brave heroes about to clash against an army of darkness.

The sky here grew darker as the evening started to fall, and night slowly began to grace the world with its gloomy cover.

***

Far away from the City of Hope, a base camp could be noticed on fire in a very remote region. Looking about the camp, one would notice that all humans that once stood guard were destroyed as a sea of corpses littered the ground.

Curiously enough, other than corpses of humans, a few other extremely large bodies were similarly fallen amongst them; these bodies seemed no different from those mutant bees. The only difference was their size and thick looking shell-like carapace.

Just by looking at them from afar, one would naturally be able to assume its hardness as most weapons wouldn't even harm them. Yet, despite this fact, based on the giant bloody holes in their bodies, one could tell that whichever force had acted, it was clearly of a superior breed.

A coughing sound was heard from a nearby hill, or rather, what seemed like one, it was a giant silhouette belonging to a mutant bee that was no less than ten meters large. It lay lifeless in a pool of its own blood as the beautiful Bee Queen Devora stood on top of it, glaring before her with anger as her entire body was severely wounded.

"You... who are you? You are clearly not human!" Devora cursed in anger as she looked at the silhouette, shrouded behind the flames.

A few more silhouettes appeared by the lead shadow's body, which took a step forward; moments later, a tinge of blue flashed from the shadows as the person who wore a mask spoke with flashing eyes, "Who am I? Huhu... I am the future..."

Following those words, a dazzling holy light enveloped this area as Devora watched with panicked eyes as the light engulfed everything, the scene here soon after fading from sight as all things vanished.