Linneia and co. felt very grateful; the Rabbit material powerbank arrived just at the right time. They all felt relieved that now the noncombatants would be fine once they left the campsite ground. Without them present, Linneia changed her tactics to maximize efficiency on stealth and attacking after consulting with several military advisers on board.
Earlier, she decided to camp there because she was responsible for the safety of the noncombatants, as staying in the campground location provided a homeground advantage considering the favorable terrain they were in. She was just trying her luck with by asking for a habitable independent space from Khora.
Unbeknownst to her, her exploration team was the first large scale human trial by the founder of i-Space Corporation. Cooperating with the calculative business minded Khora meant there was always a catch to everything. There was never a free lunch in this world, unless you were extremely cute and adorable.
Nonetheless, now, they had become free from worry. Linneia instructed the majority of the military personnel to enter the second 'Rabbit' and to be on standby. They had come up with a suitable tactics involving the usage of the rabbit. Inside the rabbit, every military personnel were on standby and armed to the teeth with the engines of their amphibious armored trucks on, inside an effective military formation. Fingers were ready to press the trigger while the safety locks were released.
...
At the narrow entrance of the Nightcurtain Valley, eight shadows moved rapidly with stealth in total darkness. The team consisted of Princess Linneia, General Raksha, Miss Melati, and Miss Vera, followed by two other combat witches ferried by little Frieda from Neverwinter halfway through their exploration journey, Madam Helena and Miss Polka. They were led by Adjutant Solstis and Corporal Tehka at the forefront. All of them were equipped with a multifunctional infrared contact lenses and state-of-the-art stealth suit as they moved with ease.
Corporal Tehka was one of the least injured scouts responsible to brief them of the surrounding and the nature of the enemy ahead. Vera was one of the witches who was part of an investigative team within their exploration group. She was an auxiliary witch; chosen to join the vanguard team due to her special masking ability to prevent detection from a wide range of senses including smell. She dutifully extended her masking ability to encompass all members inside an invisible dome, only detectable to her eyes. She was placed in the middle of the formation as they moved ahead at a constant rate.
As they slipped through the entrance under the noses of the monkey-like ferocious beast, they moved forward towards the underground cave entrance deep within the valley. Along the way, they could see a vast number of beasts coordinating themselves into groups of organized teams. True to Linneia's foresight, they were getting ready to move out and attack their camp a day away from the valley location.
Adjutant Solstis signaled them to move forward carefully. Their whole team took steps after steps, evading large groups of ferocious beasts, sometimes circling around using a more complicated route. The ferocious beasts were an evolved species of winged primates localized on a frigid atmosphere, with the ability to utilize weapons on two pairs of limbs known as Winged Glacial Primates. Witnessing their intelligence, the group of explorers were ever so cautious in their movements in order not to alert them.
They walked more than six kilometers before Linneia signaled them to stop. "This is it. The cave entrance should be somewhere around here." Linneia used her cerebral connector's core to arrive at the rough location pinpointed by her great grandfather.
"Vera, widen your masking dome to five hundred meter radius from this location. Everyone else, start searching." Everyone immediately dispersed to look for hidden entrance.
"It's here, your Highness!" The combat witch known as Polka found a large cave entrance at a naturally hidden location in between several large boulders. It was hidden under thick layers of snow.
"Good job. Let's check it first." The eight person team moved into the narrow opening and found a sea of nest full of large eggs! Linneia stepped forward carefully, avoiding each egg, while trying to find the door mentioned by Roland
She came across a flat wall made from boulder, devoid of any contraptions. It looked just like any other cave wall. Except that there was a cryptic writing filling the whole wall. Linneia touched the carved in writings gently, "It's really here." Just the way great grandfather told her two years ago. She was very impressed with her great grandfather's ability to reach this location. It was not easy at all to her.
Raksha walked over, "What language is this? I've never seen this writing." She observed the gigantic wall. It was as high as a twenty storey building.
"The Ancestor King told me, it was the language of a civilization called "the Giants" during the first war of Divine Will. He has a theory of his own. He told me that the civilization might not die out but escaped the Divine Will using their artifact. We must find the artifact and confirm this theory."
Linneia traced her index finger following the instructions given by her great grandfather while Raksha and Solstice were letting out their military personnel from the second 'rabbit'. They formed a tight perimeter and aimed their weapons towards the cave entrance while staying vigilant.
Once the final inscription was traced, the writing on the wall shone a brilliant white light. A high pitched siren sounded, making everyone present startled! The sound was so loud until it resounded around the valley.
...
Everyone heard the rumbling sound coming from outside getting louder by the second. The high pitched feral shrieks of the ferocious beasts accompanied the rumbling sounds. Solstice was ready to act as he accidentally step on one of the egg-like things scattering on the cave floor. Yellowy transparent slimy liquid poured out of the 'egg', as a partially formed mini version of the ape-like beast outside with stunted wings slumped amongst the egg shells.
Every pair of eyes looked at the cracked egg on Solstice foot, and finally all of them looked around. There were hundreds of eggs inside the cave-like structure. They now knew why the shrieks outside were so loud. They brace themselves at the inevitable clash.
...
Linneia was under intense pressure and her heartbeat drummed like crazy. She tried hard to focus on the writings on the wall as she can here it was getting noisier outside. A sudden rumbling sound originated from the wall itself showed that a kind of mechanism was launched as soon as she traced the right sentence. However, the rate of movement was truly too slow! At the moment, only ten centimeters of gap were formed on at the side of the cave wall. It was still too narrow to go through!
The sounds of gunshots and slashings of blades mixed together at the narrow entrance. It was truly fortunate the entrance was narrow and limit the number of beasts pouring in through the gap. Adjutant Solstice had arranged for the military elites following them to concentrate their fire power at the entrance while the lucky ones were finished off by blade wielding combat witches.
Slowly, the number of soldiers getting killed increased, as they failed to finish off the ferocious beasts attacking. However, they have not breached the perimeter covered by the military as General Raksha and her adjutant also joined the fray to reduced casualties.
"Princess! How much longer?! We're about to be breached!" Raksha shouted while she was in battle frenzy. She was blitzing around everywhere while slashing the heads off beasts left and right with Solstice back to back. However, their number were extremely overwhelming. She couldn't keep up much longer.
"Just five minutes more! Persevere!" The gap was already three quarter of a thickness of a person. Linneia could already see a large circular structure suspended midair inside. The wall was about five meters thick. She mustered her courage and chucked the 'rabbit' containing the noncombatants inside. The 'rabbit' safely landed on the other side of the 'door'.
Seeing Linneia's action, Helen approached Polka as she signaled Raksha to retreat.
Raksha immediately pulled back her team a bit at a time systematically while both combat witches stayed at the forefront. They retreated until their reached Linneia's location. Linneia was extremely puzzled by the Senior Witch decision. However, she kept quiet and followed through with Helen's arrangement. The swarm of Glacial Primates were as far as the eyes could see igniting terror in the hearts of the explorer team members, but they kept their courage up and didn't falter.
Once all of them retreated behind the witches from WIA, they activated their shields together. "Activate Recombinant Protocol 5.7!" Immediately, the armors on their bodies detached themselves and rearranged in midair into a crescent defensive formation. Both sets of armors combined turned into a large shield and emitted a white ray with repelling effects at the outer side.
It was Roland's latest innovation inspired from the armors worn by the Elder Witches of Witch Intelligence Agency. These armors were lower by a tier, as it meant for all the other field agents. From previous clashes, Roland knew that all other witch agents needed a set for safety purposes, not just the three main Elder Witches. He had not been idle for the past two years, churning out inventions after inventions, trying his best to fill Celine's absence. However, a lot of the functions were removed due to lack in precious resources and materials.
"Princess, according to the rate of the attacks from these animals, this shield could help us to hold on for ten minutes maximum." Helena explained calmly. "Please let the others entered the material powerbank and send them in first." Linneia acquiesced with the Senior Witch's suggestion.
The rest of the members were sent in including Vera and Tehka, leaving only six of them outside. Linneia adamantly didn't want to enter as she didn't wish to abandon the elite team outside facing the onslaught of the primate's attacks. As she threw the 'rabbit' through the gap, the shield started to break prematurely.
"Crack..crack.." Cracking lines formed as the crazed primates attacked the shield with all they had. They went berserk long ago due to the loss of their young ones inside the nesting chamber.
"Go! Go!" Melati suddenly pushed the others into the cave door opening, as they could fit their bodies through the gap by inching from their side. The five meter long track within the gate was the longest five meter they ever felt, as the fear of being crushed heavily weighted their mind. The two combat witches left their shields as they entered the gap. Surprisingly, Melati took the initiative to become the last to enter the gap.
The shield collapsed just three minutes in, which was earlier than anticipated. As the mob were free from the constraint, they dashed over and forced themselves through the gap. Linneia's heart was in her throat as she turned around once she successfully crossed over the tiny gap.
She saw a number of glacial primates swarmed to meet with Melati head on first, in a single file, since she was the last one at the back of the group. As they neared the witch, they suddenly stopped. More and more primates stopped moving forward, choking the partially opened entrance. Linneia could see all of them were bleeding through their mouth. While Melati moved back calmly, a bloody item which looked like a still-beating heart appeared on both of her free hands from time to time. She then threw them down nonchalantly and kept on moving forward. She even stepped on some of the bloody organ-like things while she moved. Soon, the ferocious beast corpse piled up and blocked the gap giving Melati a breather. She reached the other side with ease, under the nervous gaze of her companions.
"What? I'm used to this. Didn't I told you guys I was in the elite unit before I joined the exploration team?" She smiled to the others demurely with her usual gracefulness. Helena gave her an approving nod. Melati had never told anymore about her involvement with the WIA unit as she had signed a nondisclosure contract as her conditions was slightly special, even to the crown princess. The WIA was independent from the governmental bodies of Graycastle. Only Roland knew her identity. However, since he was still worried for the exploration team, he pulled some strings to add two more agents to ensure their survival.
"Please close the door, Sister Linneia." She smiled while indicating the inscription at the back of the door with her bloodied right hand. Intermittently, several unknown organs appeared out of nowhere on her palm, indicating she was harvesting lives like chopping vegetables. Without tracing the right closing inscription on the wall, the entrance will keep on getting larger. Before long, the glacial primates will be able to enter without any difficulty.
"Oh yes, Adjutant. I saw you were particularly fond of ferocious beast cores, please help yourself." A bunch of still-warm bloodied cores, presumably freshly harvested, was placed on the now paled Solstice hands. Solstice thanked the gentle lady awkwardly. His heroic deeds paled in comparison to this beautiful witch. He was having mixed feelings. He admired the quiet and demure Melati and had developed respect for her from two years of interaction. However, he never knew she was more competent than him in the art of killing.
As the door closed slowly, all of them could finally heaved a relieved sigh. They immediately observed the surrounding while Linneia immediately took the opportunity to contact Newton through her Cerebral Connector to describe their findings and discussed on their next action.
...
Newton was having severe pains on his knee joints. He was resting in his resting chamber when he heard a notification on his old contactor.
Although in pain, he stood up from his chair and walked towards his lab with slow steps. He knew that would be the crown princess as he had specifically set a specialized tone just for her. He knew the princess will only contact him due to important matters or during emergencies.
As he reached the lab with a slight shortness of breath, he linked up his tablet with Neverwinter's main server for connection. The familiar figure of the princess was projected from the tablet in 3D form. What intrigued him the most was a gigantic circular device suspended midair behind her. It was as large as the man-made lake behind the institute! Levitating stone steps was seemingly paved to reach the circular object. Before the first step of the stone 'stairs', there was a stone stele with intricate inscription as high as ten meters with two bowl-like structures at the top.
"As you can see Professor, we have finally reached our destination. Behind me is the artifact structure described by His Highness Ancestor King."
"Congratulations, Princess." Newton was happy from the bottom of his heart with their success.
He immediately shared his speculation after taking some time for observation. He knew that was what the princess wanted from him, "In my humble opinion, this structure represents some sort of portal or gate. However, since the gate is not connected to a physical location, it means it might need something to be switched on. It might be some kind of switch or most likely an energy source. Take note at the stone stele at the bottom of the levitating stairs. I believe, that might be an interface to control the artifact. Please arrange for the specialized investigator team to perform a thorough observation and testing. I recommend asking for assistance from Meifang and the sisters once you have gathered enough information. They might help."
"Thank you for your helpful insight Professor. I will update you of our progress intermittently." Before Newton could say anything else, the connection was cut abruptly.
Newton shook his head with a smile. [Young ones are full of vitality.]
He felt at eased with the princess capabilities. Although still full of shortcomings, she was rapidly metamorphosing into a mature leader, capable of leading with a firm resolution and calmness within two short years. The splattering of blood and injuries on the bodies of the core exploration team members couldn't elude his eyes. They must've just gone through an unimaginable hardship. Newton immediately contacted the biocomputer girls to let them know what was to be expected of them, and to assist the team with full cooperation. Right now, the exploration team was in an important juncture, just like him.
...
Lora was skittish seeing blood and injuries everywhere. She just came from a peaceful 'picnic' inside 'Rabbit 1'. They have named their portable 'home' as 'Rabbit 1', while military barracks became 'Rabbit 2'. As a member of the auxiliary investigation team, a subdivision team consisted of witches with investigative abilities, she was always being sheltered from harm by the core members and the military personnel. Seeing the core members seriously hurt made her felt guilty enjoying the extravagance provided from i-Space Corporation.
Little did she knew, all of them were treated as guinea pigs by the corporation; their personal physical data were streamed live into Khora's personal Cerebral Connector, as she adjusted the conditions inside manually with the help of Vayu by her side. Businessmen (and businesswomen) were truly sly!
Lora went forward and concentrated. By her side, her best friend, Maya, who worked closely with her held her hand and channeled the power from a magic stone reservoir to help amplify her ability to the fullest. A few meters away from her, Meifang, Luojien and Yingyue were watching intently through Princess Linneia's cerebral connector. They will form the link when they judged enough information were transmitted to them. This would assist in calculation speed as less unknown variable present, the less complicated the calculations would be.
A transparent mirror as big as two large doors appeared like a mirage in front of Lora. It faded in and out of focus as she skillfully adjusted the size of the 'mirror' into a palm size structure to save energy. She then pumped in her powers inside as the image inside the mirror blurred. Time was reversed within the mirror world, and all the person present could glimpse what happen inside with their own eyes. Everyone stood standby with connector core's in hand, ready to record all information appearing inside Lora's mirror world...
10 years...
50 years...
100 years...
500 years...
1000 years...
At this point, they could see a glimpse of the Ancestor King observing the artifact structure and left after a short moment.
3000 years...
The structure of the enclosed 'hall' they were currently in looked newer and sleek.
4000 years...
5000 years...
10,000 years ago...
Lora was nearly at her limit when at this point, finally, she could glimpse something! She enlarged her mirror world with difficulty to the initial size to let everyone see. The current cave was actually a stately building akin to a research facility! Large beings five times the size of humans were moving to and fro. They saw two unknown items were placed into the bowl-like structure before the stele lit up with two panels of light; one green, while the other was yellow. A being in gray garb traced inscription on the back of the stele with care before the circular structure suddenly lit up into a wave-like light. A being with a lance-like weapon in its hand moved forward to climb the stairs and entered the rippling wave.
At this moment, blood was oozing out from Lora's facial orifices. She fell down into unconsciousness.
...
Linneia pondered hard after she listened to Meifang and co. calculative extrapolation, Newton's current postulate, and the team of researchers' report. Lora, the witch who had contributed the most was currently in a coma with severe brain injury from extreme exertion. All of their backup magic stone were exhausted as she pushed herself to the maximum so that she could capture the image of how the foreign gigantic civilization used the stele. Linneia vowed that she will do everything she could to save Lora no matter what. Currently, they have all come to a conclusion that two energy sources compatible with the artifact portal must be used to activate the portal. Hence, the researchers were busy identifying the characteristics of both energy source depicted in the mirror world.
She was confident that it will be only a matter of time until they could find them.
For once, her heart felt much better, as if a heavy stone was lifted off it. There was some hope at this end after all.
...
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