Chapter 25: Explosion (2)

Chapter 25: Explosion (2)

Tartarus, Surveillance Room.

In a wide room filled with monitors, a plump, chubby middle aged man wearing a security uniform sat lazily.

"The end of the month is approaching. Only a few more days, and I can finally have a dayoff. I swear, I won't do something stupid anymore..."

"Eh, the prison facilities seem to be a little empty today. Less troubles the better anyway..."

The plump security personnel muttered to himself, looking over the monitors like watching a theatrical show.

"Hmm? What's this...?"

Suddenly, the plump man discovered something odd.

"Why... are there so many people in the cafeteria?! Odd. Really strange..."

The plump man immediately pressed a button, making all the monitors display the scene in the cafeteria.

Like he had seen, there were almost a thousand people in the cafeteria, all wearing prisoner uniforms.

The scene looked like a crowded market place, with everyone sticking towards each other closely while they constantly whispered among themselves.

'Something's happening... I'll go call the security just in case.'

The plump guard felt uneasy and immediately connected to the communicator signals. As soon as he connected, he immediately spoke:

"This is the monitor personnel speaking."

A voice immediately replied to him.

[Is there a problem?]

"Not sure, but there seems to be a problem going on in the cafeteria... a lot of prisoners are gathered. I suggest putting some manpower there, just in case."

The plump guard answered while looking at the monitors. He recounted what he was seeing on the voice.

"Hm, something is odd, even the prison bosses are quiet and still. They seem to be waiting for something. But the day is about to end. Wait. It seems there's going to be a riot, the prisoners are..."

At that moment, the bell of Tartarus rang loudly.

"...They're rioti—"

At the same time, a blinding light took over the whole monitor.

BOOM!

The plump man immediately sobered up in shock as a huge explosion erupted in the cafeteria. He couldn't help but mumble in shock and panic.

"What... what the hell...?!"

[What happened?! Monitor personnel? A huge tremor just occured...!]

However, the plump man didn't reply and was still in utter disbelief. The whole cafeteria was still covered in blinding light.

[Goddammit, monitor personnel! Tell us what happened...!]

[Monitor personnel! Answer us! Oh no—]

Hearing the loud shout, the plump man snapped out of his daze.

"Y-yes...! Right!"

After a few seconds, the blinding light finally vanished—the plump man immediately turned up the focus to the cafeteria, preparing himself. n0veLUSb.c0m

But...

Unlike the gory and vicious sight he imagined, the cafeteria was safe and sound and no prisoners were harmed.

'...What?'

The plump man couldn't help but be puzzled and confused. However, that puzzlement and confusion immediately turned into immense disbelief and terror in the next second.

"What's this....!!!!"

In the countless monitors, the prisoners stood around in daze. But most importantly, the anti-mana collars on the prisoners... were destroyed.

"Oh no..! Oh no...! This is a crimson level designation! immediately go to—"

[What the hell is happening?! The fourth floor is also experiencing tremors! Something wrong happened to Disaster-class 005. Wh—"

"That's not important right now. The anti-mana collars of a thousand prisoners—a thousand... have been destroyed!! An explosion took place in the cafeteriann"

[What?!]

For the first time since a hundred years, Tartarus, the infallible prison fortress of all Rankers, experienced great terror and changes.

***

Tartarus, Second Floor.

At this moment, an ordinary looking security guard was running down the stairs while wearing a panicked and terrified expression.

"This is A-145 speaking. I'm about to arrive at the first floor cafeteria!"

[Hurry up! We need more reinforcements!!]

"Hold on! The others with me are already coming down there! We split up to intercept some of the prisoners that escaped!"

The ordinary looking security guard said loudly, running down the stairs. While he was running, he didn't notice a shadow trailing behind him.

"Wait! I see about a few prisoners!"

[Copy that! We can still hold on!]

The ordinary looking security guard immediately disconnected with the transceiver and was about to run to the prisoner he saw.

Snap—!

However, a hand appeared behind him and chopped his neck, rendering the ordinary security guard unconscious.

Thud!

Behind the ordinary looking security guard, a silhouette slowly revealed itself.

It was a young man with dishevelled black hair and deep black eyes, pale skin and a scar etched down on his temple, accentuating the threatening air around his figure.

"Step 1, accomplished."

Elias muttered to himself, looking at the security guard on the ground. Without slowing down, he dragged the man to a hidden corner.

After a few seconds, he came out looking differently.

Elias looked at his new attire, it was exactly the same as the outfit of the ordinary looking security guard from earlier.

In his pocket, a few keys were hanging, and one of them was vital to this plan.

"By this time, the preparations should have gone off, right?"

Elias muttered to himself thoughtfully. It could easily be proven by the fact that the whole prison was in chaos.

'Alright, next up...'

Without turning his back, he waved his hand and let a paper scroll appear. He opened the scroll silently, making the contents reveal itself.

On its surface, an indescribable and mysterious character was drawn with scarlet blood.

As soon the scroll opened, a bright red light suddenly shone through its contents and flashed him, entering in his face for a few seconds.

After the bright red light disappeared, the paper scroll turned into dust and scattered with the wind itself, vanishing.

At this moment, Elias' face slightly changed. His outwards appearance didn't change, but when one looked at him, a sense of familiarity and unfamiliarity would permeate.

Disguise Charm.

Elias nodded thoughtfully. After using the scroll, he didn't rush to go to the meeting spot and but used a Fire Charm he took from Goblin to burn his prisoner clothes.

As his former clothes turned to dust, now, he decided to act and run down the stairs to the first floor with a calm expression.

He now looked like a different person all together. With his anti-mana collar gone, no one would suspect him.

As planned, he broke the anti-mana collar at the same time the mana bombs detonated and caused an explosion.

Why did he wait for the mana bombs to explode before breaking his anti-mana collar?

It was simple. Because the anti-mana collar when broken had an automatic function that would alert the whole security of the prison.

If he broke it before the appointed time, his plans would've failed. The prison security would've discovered him and destroy any possible future for his escape.

If that was the case, he would not be able to destroy the collar, and he cannot regain his ability to use mana... that was unless he could resolve the issue of the collar.

It was originally his toughest problem, but he resolved this easily due to Goblin.

Goblin's appearance fast forwarded his plans and made the escape significantly easier and faster.

Dragon Tears helped him 'remove' the anti-mana collar without actually destroying the object itself, thus bypassing the hidden alert function of the collar.

However, that was just a temporary solution. He still needed to destroy the collar later on to fool the security and successfully escape.

Elias was originally stuck on how to deal with this issue until he figured something out.

If destroying the anti-mana collars is a problem because we're going to be targeted and singled out by the security, what if everyone's collars were destroyed?

That lead him to an idea—destroy virtually every anti-mana collar in the prison so everyone was escaping, not just them.

That way, when he breaks his own anti-mana collar, the security wouldn't just be alerted of one or two escapees.

But rather... they would be alerted that all of the prisoners were trying to escape.

That would cause a massive surge of alerts in the entirety of the prison, causing chaos and confusion throughout the place.

After that happens, the security would have no time to differentiate who to deal with amongst the prisoners because they had to deal with almost the entirety of inmates of the prison.

In simple words, he was using the inmates as distraction to the security for his escape in the shadows.

While thinking, he opened up the transceiver.

"Alright, I intercepted the prisoner. I'm about to go down. Are you guys still holding up?"

[Barely. But we've been able to. The vice chieftains and officials have come and suppressed the others, hurry up.]

"Copy that."

Elias sighed quietly as he turned off the transceiver. As expected of the security team, they acted fast despite being surprised.

However, it wouldn't matter.

At that moment, he arrived at the first floor. But instead of going to the cafeteria, he gone to the opposite direction.

But just as he was about to run, a large hand calmly held his shoulder down.

"Wait."

Feeling surprised, Elias immediately turned his head around and came face to face with a middle aged man adorned with military suit.

Captain Voxen.

Elias face slightly changed, however he immediately reacted and bowed while saluting in respect to the man.

"Captain Vo—"

However before he could finish, Captain Voxen cut him off with a calm look.

"Where are you heading towards to?"

At that moment, Elias was in a huge crisis.