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 duergar

words faded, a palpitating, almost terrifying chill spread throughout the whole room as the

did you just

first one to recover was Durara, who immediately

Karl was inside of the artifact testing

"Y…yea."

the duergar

"Oh no…"

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

Bang—

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

as the door of

a grave and solemn atmosphere permeated the

bastards

against the table, Orion raised

around Karl? How in the world could this have

there was no way they would just let him

everyone in the artifact testing facility should've been filled with loyal duergars. Given how important artifacts were, the elders weren't just going

that had been selected after a tough screening. For an incident to have happened there out of all

one of

was the first thought that Orion had as he scanned the room. It

"You all—huh?!"

about to voice out his concerns, out of

Di! Ding—

"What's going on?"

"What is happening?!"

defensive system activated, everyone

onto the table in front of him, one of the duergars swiped his hand and a large holographic image of the outside of the

this be? We're under

that everyone instantly understood what was going on. They stood up in unison and stared at the powerful energy blast that was headed towards the direction of the

get ready! Sound the defensive system and

for nothing. Upon realizing just what kind of situation they were in, instead of panicking, they all

the hall was Orion, whose eyes remained glued on the energy blast headed

energy blast connected with the

BOOOOM—

sounded and the whole

steady on the ground, Orion's face sank as

"…How dare you."

***

WHIIII— WHIIII—

the explosion was the sound of alarms

of

right

should we

"We wait."

I softly replied.

response, Angelica cocked her head to the side. Confused by my

"Wait?"

Waylan to come

in thought

about Waylan, I hope he got my

portal in the other room, I made sure

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

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

facilities destroyed. Once those three systems were down,

up, the real struggle starts. So, try your best to recover as much as possible. Although you can probably fight against