The Author's POV

347 Planting the seed of chaos[1]

[Inferno, Duergar council.]

Sitting in his seat, Orion, one of the duergar elders, looked around him and asked the rest of the elders present, "How is Karl doing?"

"He is currently working on disabling the third beacon."

Durara answered from her seat. She sounded very pleased with Karl's work.

"Do you have any idea when he will get it done? If we get one or two more beacons disabled, we should be able to completely destroy the barrier of the city."

"That…I'm not too sure myself. He's just got done with the second beacon, so I reckon it would be done within the week."

Durara replied with a tight frown on her face.

Because Karl requested for him to not be monitored or bothered while he was working, no one actually knew how far he was in the project.

Since he had proven himself by deactivating the first and second beacons, the elders had no qualms with the fact that they couldn't monitor him.

Furthermore, Karl's request wasn't strange. Many of the duergars present were engineers, and they all knew just how important keeping their blueprints and projects a secret was.

It was their life's work. No one would like it for their work to be seen by others.

All that mattered to them was that he deactivated the beacons.

Having already inspected his strength, they weren't worried about Karl running away as they had set up multiple guards way above his rank to monitor him.

"From what I heard, Karl said that the process of deactivation differs per beacon. That is why it is taking time for him to fully extract the memories from Jomnuk and process them in time."

"I see…looks like that bastard was a thorough one."

With both hands on the table, Orion mumbled to himself.

"…If he manages to get it done by the end of the week, we should start getting ready."

Turning to face one of the duergars standing on the other side of the hall, Orion decided to give out orders.

"Send a message to all members."

Orion stood up and clenched both of his fists.

"Within a week, when the barrier is finally breached, I want them to be ready to assault Henolur from the inside."

A colorless hue mixed with black threads of energy expanded from his body as his cold voice rang throughout the room.

"…It's time we finally got rid of those bastards."

Bang—

But just as his words faded, with a loud bang, a duergar rushed into the room.

Before the elders could say anything about the rude intrusion, the duergar shouted in wild panic.

"We've got an urgent report! The artifact testing facilities have been breached!"

"The artifact testing facilities?"

Orion's brow raised in surprise. He seemed relaxed despite hearing of an intruder in the artifact testing area.

"Who's the idiot trying to breach the artifact testing facilities?"

That place was like a prison. The moment it was breached, although no one could go in, no one could also go out.

To Orion, whoever was trying to breach the place seemed to be an idiot. Thus, he was completely relaxed.

It was also because of this that he started to glare at the duergar that had so rudely barged into the room.

"Why have you barged into this place to report such a small matter?"

His cold voice entered the ears of the duergar. The latter froze on the spot.

His pupils instantly dilated and a sense of death washed over his body as he fumbled on his words, struggling to form a sentence.

K-Karl is

"…"

all of his willpower, the

his words faded, a palpitating, almost terrifying chill spread throughout the whole room as the countenances of all

you

Durara, who

you just say that Karl was inside of the artifact testing facility?!

"Y…yea."

glare, the duergar

"Oh no…"

confirmation from the duergar, Durara turned her head and looked at the other

Bang—

be told what to do, one of the elders disappeared from

loud banging noise resounded as the door of the hall smacked

left, a grave

did those bastards manage to get

against the

increase the security around Karl? How in the world could this

Karl was, there was no way

facility should've been filled with loyal duergars. Given how important artifacts were, the elders weren't just going to let

For an

of us betray

he

"You all—huh?!"

voice out his

Di! Ding—

"What's going on?"

"What is happening?!"

system activated, everyone grew

hand and a large holographic image of

could this be? We're

unison and stared at the powerful energy blast

get ready! Sound the defensive system and

Upon realizing just what kind of situation they were in, instead of panicking, they all calmly

was Orion, whose

energy blast connected with the

BOOOOM—

thunderous explosion sounded and

steady on the ground, Orion's face

"…How dare you."

***

WHIIII— WHIIII—

explosion was the

sensor of

direction, Angelica's footsteps halted right as she

should we do

"We wait."

I softly replied.

head to the side. Confused by my

"Wait?"

to

there, my brows suddenly knit in thought as I

Waylan, I hope he

other room, I made sure to leave behind a note on the

that Waylan had to follow. Alongside it was the location of the artifact testing

small map marked with a few important places like the surveillance room, where the dampening system was, and finally, the location of where the security system

those three systems were down, it would essentially be equal to crippling Inferno and thus helping us ensure

struggle starts. So, try your best to recover as much as possible. Although you