The place was quite dark, and was dimly lit. The ground they stood on was made of a black metal material. Taking a few steps it echoed throughout. Iree was slowly taking in everything around her. She couldn't believe that the two of them had actually infiltrated a Dalki mothership! This was an unprecedented feat!
'This… this is something that will go down in history… and I'm actually a part of it!' The young woman smiled. 'It really wasn't a mistake to follow him!'
Iree had always been loyal to the Daisy faction since they had been the ones who had looked after her growing up. After the Cursed faction had taken over, she had actually considered leaving the faction, yet the only reason she hadn't done so was because Helen had chosen to stay. Now the woman felt that her leader had truly been visionary.
While everything looked foreign to the woman by his side, Quinn seemed to recognise the material on the walls. Unless he was mistaken the Dalki appeared to be using the same stuff as the vampires.
'If it's truly the same material, how can the outside of their ship be so strong? Have they discovered a new way to use crystals to increase their defences?' Quinn wondered. 'Whatever the case, now that we're inside, there should be a way to take this thing down. If Logan isn't busy, I could link up the mask and use it as a feed. The Dalki command centre should be the optimal target…'
Raising his hand, a few seconds later shadow portals started to open up and those that had been fighting on the ground came out. Three of them fell to their knees and he could see that they had red puffy eyes.
"Claire, Anna, they're both dead!" One of the females sobbed, tears continued falling down her face, while the other two who had cried did their best to calm her down.
Only then did Quinn realise that for a moment he had completely forgotten that two people had died to allow him to reach the mothership. It would be easy enough to justify his behavior in that he had been too focused on his goal. Perhaps he was just getting used to seeing death around him at this point.
Either way, he now felt upset, yet it was less because of their deaths per se, but more about the fact that the deaths of people who had sacrificed themselves for his sake didn't make him sad. What's more he had noticed that he was also feeling a slight hint of relief that at least it hadn't been someone closer to him.
"I'm sorry. I tried to save you all, but I wasn't quick enough. I will do whatever I can to make sure that their loved ones will be taken care of if we survive. If I could I would keep all of you in that Shadow space for safety, but I'm afraid that there is a good chance that I will need to use all my powers." The weak smiles on their faces told Quinn that this was a small solace to the humans by his side. Fortunately, nobody blamed him for their deaths… or at least not openly.
Quinn opened his system, checking how many MC cells he had remaining. Unfortunately, he was down to just one third after having protected the group from the initial Dalki attacks using the Shadow on skill. Keeping them in his space would mean he would be unable to use it at all.
"Perhaps we should split up." Iree suggested. "We can cover far more ground in groups of three. If their ships follow the same layout as ours there should be a life support system, generator, engine room and command centre. Taking out any of those should cause the mothership to take a big hit."
"They'll surely have those places heavily guarded, though! Without Quinn, it would take five of us to contend with a group of Dalki and that's assuming they are one spike Dalkis!" Yag protested.
"Then don't take them on." Quinn commented. "If you think you can handle it then do so, but it will be enough as long as you can find out where those rooms are. Just inform me through the communication device and I'll take care of them. In the meantime I'll try and create as much noise as I possibly can to distract them."
"Let me come with you, Quinn." Iree requested with a smile. "If you're busy fighting, you won't have time to take down the ship, will you?"
Not wasting anymore time they proceeded forward, until they reached a large hallway. There were several different rooms they could go through, and unfortunately the Dalki didn't have a map lying around. No one had a clue where exactly they were since the mothership was already gigantic from the outside, rivaling a city.
The one thing they were thankful for, was the ship itself didn't have the population of one. It felt more deserted as they could see nearly no one inside.
Yag went down one of the hallways with a girl named Deni and Bella. Deni had a regular beast dagger in her left hand and the blood dagger in her right one, while Bella had a blunt weapon that looked more like a baseball bat but red in colour since it was her blood weapon. As an elemental user she didn't have a regular beast weapon. The three of them were slowly creeping around the place, hardly making any movement at all.
"I don't know if it's a good thing that we haven't seen anyone, or a bad thing." Yag whispered.
"Just take it as a good thing." Deni replied. "They're probably overconfident and have sent out their entire force, leaving behind only a skeleton crew. I guess they never accounted for the possibility that someone might get in."
The three of them had only been separated from the others for around thirty minutes and that's when they could hear it. A loud bang that went off in the distance, followed by a blearing beeping sound. It wasn't just one bang, but it was one after the other going off again and again.
"Do you think that's, Quinn?" Yag asked.
"Well he did say he was going to distract them." Bella answered
The sound of heavy footsteps could be heard there. Yag quickly looked if there was anywhere they could hide, before pulling the two women to the side hallways. Going further down the hallway, they used the frame of one of the door openings to hide themselves behind it.
A Dalki had soon gone past their hiding spot. After waiting for a short while longer, they decided to head in the direction of where the Dalki were going, hoping they could find something. Eventually they came across a strange large room. The room had giant machinery and tracks going somewhere, yet there was no one to man such a thing, and this 'factory' seemed to be ongoing.
As they followed one of the tracks, they discovered that there were beast crystals on conveyor belts going further in.
"What are they doing with beast crystals?" Deni asked. "Dalki can't use beast armour, right? I mean, at least I don't think so."
"Let's just follow where this goes. This seems like too large an amount of crystals just to be used for their ships. Maybe we'll know more if we find out what this factory is making or where it goes."
——
The several explosions were of course courtesy of Quinn. Using his Shadow travel, in the Dark space it was quite easy for him to navigate where everything was inside.
The Dalki hadn't even noticed him before he had found out where the command centre was. There was just one slight problem. There were three Dalki inside. A one spiked Dalki, a two spiked Dalki and lastly the one who should be their leader, a four spiked Dalki.
This was a level of Dalki that Quinn had never faced before, so he didn't know how hard of a battle this would prove to be. On top of that, if he couldn't end it in an instant he was sure that the Dalki spread around the ship would come towards their location, which was why he had desired to create a large distraction.
Through the hallway that would lead to the command centre, Quinn had appeared along with Iree. The two of them stood there and teased the two guards by the door in order to lure them away. Of course seeing them, the guards straight away ran towards where Quinn and Iree were. However, what they didn't know was just how fast Quinn was. Picking up Iree, and grabbing her like she was on her wedding day, he ran straight past the two of them.
The next second, he jumped in the air, and using his Qi to reinforce his leg, he struck at the ceiling as hard as he could. With a single strike part of the wall crumbled but not all, so he kicked it again, and as he was falling to the ground threw a blood swipe for measure , causing the top part to collapse in on itself.
Landing back down, Quinn safely put Iree back on the floor gently, and he could see her face was a little red.
"Sorry, did you get hurt?" Quinn asked.
"No, no, I-I… this was the first time I was held like that. And so easily..."
'That should hold them off for a little bit, but more will come.' Quinn thought, as he quickly took Iree and the two of them went into the command centre using his shadow travel. Quinn carried on moving as he could see the Dalki inside were on high alert.
Going past all of the others until he had reached the one spiked Dalki, on the left. Popping out, he kicked both of the Dalki's legs from the bottom, causing it to tumble as it fell to the ground, Quinn then performed a Blood hammer strike bashing it, and throwing it straight at the four spiked Dalki.
Seeing its fellow teammate coming towards him, the four spiked Dalki grabbed him by his head and legs. The next second he started to pull using his incredible strength ripping the Dalki apart, its green blood and insides falling to the ground.
"Useless!"
'That's some strength they have.'
"Iree, use my mask to contact Logan! Describe everything you can see to him and let's just hope he'll have a way for us to take this thing down." He instructed as he threw it towards her, but there was still one Dalki in the room that needed to be dealt with before she could reach the controls or get to the command centre.
"Alright, four spikes, you think you're so strong, we'll see about that! I'm sorry, but I'll have to finish you off quickly!" Quinn shouted, briefly closing his eyes he emptied the Qi inside his body. Instead a red aura filled his centre life force energy, making his body change into another form.
*****
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